As anyone involved in ecommerce knows, there are many very valuable online marketing channels. Most merchants start out with SEO. Then they move to PPC, which is dominated by Google AdWords. After that are a hodgepodge of opportunities including email, affiliate programs, marketplaces, and shopping engines. Because of the growing importance of the Google Merchant Center data feed (it ties in with AdWords, Google Affiliate Network, Local/Mobile, Google Commerce Search, and of course, Google Shopping), my bet is that shopping engines will move up the food chain in the coming years. At the same time, because of Amazon’s ecommerce dominance as well as the economics of the 3rd party seller program, Amazon is moving up the food chain too.

So why am I talking about this?

Well, the Monsoon deal is a sign of things to come in 2010. There will be more acquisitions in the online marketing services space as the economy improves. The data feed providers are looking to expand to other marketing channels (most are already doing so) and search agencies large and small need additional services beyond SEO and PPC. ChannelAdvisor and TrueAction (a GSI Commerce Company) have been some of the most acquisitive companies in the online marketing services space, but expect to hear from other companies soon. If marketing services company XYZ is already offering services A, B, and C to its merchants, then it makes a lot of sense for them to add/up-sell services D, E, and F, if the company can leverage the same core system and take advantage of the data that its merchants are already submitting.

This economy sucks.  Consumers are hurting.  While a temporary ease in oil prices and a once in a lifetime housing bill will ease the pain a bit, it’s not a cure for the economic crisis the US and the world is facing. Consumers are looking to save money. They are thinking about price.

Unfortunately, the shopping engines have fought for years to be known as more than just price comparison engines. Reviews! Search! Cash back! Social shopping! Mobile! Safe shopping! Green!  Well, all those things are nice and should be part of a strategy, but right now, this is the perfect opportunity for the shopping engines to step up their marketing efforts (or at least run some bold tests) highlighting the fact that they save consumers money.

Yes, all the shopping engines are going to once again do a good job of PR and talk about how consumers can save money at the pump by shopping at home, but that story is going to get old and once again NexTag is going to sounds a lot like PriceGrabber is going to sound a lot like Pronto is going to sound a lot like Smarter and so on.

So my tip of the week for the shopping engines: think about talking about your company as a price comparison engine, as a money saving tool, as a place for consumers to go for the best deals online. This shouldn’t be your entire strategy, but should at least be part of it. For example, Shopping.com, take PriceTool and get rid of the whole Epinions angle [shit, if I were a young go-getter at that company, I'd put together a crack team to completely revamp PriceTool around price price price!]. Smarter.com, you have lots of big, pretty pictures in rotation on your homepage. Start with the one for Deals! Shopzilla, you’re testing out your new recently bought scroll bar (very cool, David!), but maybe it should be the recently saved $$$ on X, Y, or Z scroll bar. PriceGrabber, you just launched your version of Woot! which is great, but why are you just giving it a tiny button on the homepage?

The pushback I’ll get from all the shopping engines is that they don’t want to be known as price bots. That’s completely understandable. I’m just encouraging everyone to run some tests. The economy sucks. While it’s nice to see a $329 Bulova diamond watch on the homepage, maybe it’s also time to think about a ‘steals’ section or newsletter.

PS. To be fair to Pronto (the image at the top of the post is from Pronto’s homepage), they did just start up an email newsletter highlighting great deals…although sadly they haven’t learned to put a ‘subscribe to your personal savings newsletter’ option at the top/bottom of each page).

1. Provide greater transparency
2. Launch an API to allow merchants to more efficiently and creatively manage their shopping engine campaigns
3. Create an open and honest merchant facing blog to discuss the challenges and opportunities we’re facing
4. Allow merchants to manage syndication/distribution partnership listings separate from main shopping engine listings
5. Take care of our merchants
6. Engage merchants in a conversation and listen very closely

In other words, for the most part, do what Google AdWords has done. And since you have a PPC expert in house spending millions of dollars a month on AdWords, ask that person to give you and the entire merchant facing team a crash course on Google Adwords. Possible topics include: targeting (placement, keyword, region, etc.), the API, reporting capabilities, fraudulent click policy, the content network, quality score, conversion optimizer, CPA bidding, customer support, and customer engagement.

Not everything you learn will be applicable to the shopping space, but at your core, from the merchant perspective, you are a performance based internet marketing channel. And if Google AdWords is the standard in that market, then you have to keep up with them in terms of what they offer merchants and how they work with merchants.