Bing Cashback – Why Merchants Should Submit their Feed Today

by Brian Smith, on June 5th, 2009

Say what you want about MSFT and Bing, but if you’re a merchant, you should be submitting your data feed to Bing Cashback right now. Why? While some people think that Bing will do nothing for MSFT’s search market share, there’s a strong possibility that at least in the short term, with all the money that MSFT is throwing at its advertising campaign that Bing will gain consumer adoption. If that’s the case, then Bing Cashback will also benefit. And at this point Bing Cashback does not have the merchant coverage of the other shopping enignes which means less competition for each merchant. Add the fact that Bing Cashback is cost per acquisition (CPA) and there’s no risk to submit your feed. Now, there is the cost of getting up and running (creating a data feed and implementing Bing Cashback’s tracking solution), but now might just be the right time to go for it.

At the Microsoft Search Summit, the pundits had plenty of harsh words for the Bing team, but they also had some good ideas for Bing Cashback. As I tweeted today (#badabing), there were three great ideas: integration of coupons (take a look at Yahoo! Shopping, Smarter, and TheFind), addition of video reviews (take a look at Smarter/ExpoTV integration and heck, take a look at Ciao, which is part of the MSFT family), and clearer view of bottom line price (right now it’s not clear if the price listed is before or after cashback). I need to add to the list comprehensiveness (more merchants needed), addition of tax/shipping info, and social features. Ok, this last point is a little strange for me to even mention as I feel that most of the web x.0 ‘social shopping’ experiments have been a complete waste, but with the runaway success of Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube and the obvious social aspect of shopping offline, there has to be a smart way for Bing Cashback to experiment in this area. Could be a nice differentiation point…maybe take a look at Pronto’s work in the area…or just talk to the team at Ciao.

Tags: Pronto, Smarter.com


Arthur Freydin said

Hey Brian,

It’s been a long time :)

In my experience, I see one major drawback with their Cashback offer to consumers. Savvy shoppers will go to cashback forums like FatWallet and then go through Bing Cashback to get even more back in their wallet. This results in double-dipping revshare for advertisers.

Just my $.02.

PS. And I told you that Ciao was gonna be a success.

June 8th, 2009 at 3:53 pm |

Mitch Rezman said

With most comparison shopping engines, you fill out a form, post a credit card and you’re live in a day or two.

In typical Microsoft fashion, “email us for info” wait a week for a response – read a 34 page integration document that had so many fonts and graphics it was barely readable. Fill an excel form (This is Mircrosoft, they can’t produce a “live” form to email back?) and then wait for another week

They are truly the King Of Complicated

Can anyone tell me how the amount of cashback is determined?

Thanx

June 29th, 2009 at 5:59 pm |

Nate said

Cashback percentage is assigned by the merchant. It must be equal to or greater then what you pay out via other affiliate programs.

July 10th, 2009 at 9:29 pm |

Parrot Toys said

Has anyone tried this yet? And how is it working? Thanks.

August 12th, 2009 at 6:18 pm |

Netnutri.com said

Yes – it is producing marginal results –
small percentage of shoppers coming throgh bing – less than .05 conversion

September 23rd, 2009 at 10:58 pm |

Marcus said

I spend a great deal of time deleting fraudulent orders….basically they order to get the cashback credit, then cancel their order. I have to go back and make sure it gets cancelled with Bing so they don’t give the fraudster credit. This consumes too much of my time. No, I haven’t lost money, but I lose time, just as bad.

January 21st, 2010 at 4:13 pm |

jon said

Anyone know if there is a way to submit a datafeed to them without a cashback reward (like you do to google base). I see some of the products in their search coming up without the logo and I am guessing that they aren’t organic.

Still trying to decide if this is going to be worth my time.

January 25th, 2010 at 12:15 pm |

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