Well, ‘new look’ might be going a little too far. NexTag still looks like it was designed by an engineer in 1998, but they have rolled out small but possibly significant changes recently:
1. BIG search box. NexTag has now joined the rest of the major shopping engines with a focus on Search. There’s now a big, prominent search box across the entire page as opposed to the former, much smaller version.
2. Deals. There’s a ‘Featured Deals’ box in the middle of the page which drives consumers into a revamped NexTag Deals section which highlights coupons, rebates, and price drops. The economy stinks…all shopping sites should revamp their deals section! Or they can just let Google Product Search eat their lunch again with the eventual launch of Google Deals.
3. Social. NexTag is displaying recent Facebook sharing activity right on the homepage. While not the vision of social shopping that are dancing in people’s heads, it’s a start.
None of these changes are revolutionary, but it’s good to see NexTag testing a slightly different look. All of the shopping engines are going to have to get a lot more aggressive in building a better user experience (Shopzilla has Beso, for example) so consumers actually remember they were on the shopping engine and think about returning.
I shut down NexTag in August after they increased their click fees. Delivered customers were already down by 60% from 2009 and with the higher fees it just wasn’t worth it anymore. $7 or $8 per acquisition for about 20 acquisitions per month is criminal with the products I sell.