On Friday, June 4th 2010 an e-mail went out to current Bing Cashback merchants letting them know that on July 30th 2010 the Cashback program will be ending. This marks the end of the best Cost Per Acquisition comparison shopping engine on the internet which graced us with its presence for a span of two years (previously dubbed Live Search Cashback.)

Here is the e-mail in its entirety:

Dear Merchant,

We are writing to let you know that Microsoft has decided to discontinue the Bing cashback program. After 9:00 P.M. PST on July 30, 2010, we will no longer offer this program on the Bing search results or Bing Shopping pages. This will also be the last day consumers will be able to buy through the Bing cashback program.

What this means for you
As we continue to evolve both the consumer and advertiser experiences for Bing, we will pursue different avenues in order to offer great shopping experiences to consumers and great advertising experiences for our advertisers. We’ve prepared some frequently asked questions about the program closure. Please keep these key points in mind in the coming months:

This is a great time to spend your cashback budget to drive mid-summer sales. You can increase sales payout rates to the maximum outlined in your merchant agreement to help use up the funds in your piggybank before July 30, 2010. Microsoft will continue to contribute to your piggybank until that date.

After July 30, Bing Shopping will continue to operate as it does today, but without the presence of cashback. We’re continually improving the Bing Shopping experience to help shoppers discover products, compare offers, and buy seamlessly online. In addition to current features like consumer reviews and ratings and Visual Search, we’ll also offer a more streamlined Bing Shopping experience and better shopping integration with Bing.com.

We are developing a new shopping program that will offer greater flexibility than you experienced with cashback. You’ll be able to provide a broader set of products in Bing Shopping searches, with little or no extra work. The program is scheduled to begin later in 2010, and we’ll provide more details soon.

What this means for your customers
Bing cashback consumers can continue to shop and earn cashback through 9:00 P.M. PST on July 30. They can redeem all of their acquired cashback earnings consistent with the cashback terms and conditions, as well as access the Bing cashback customer support system through July 30, 2011—a full 12 months after the program ends. Consumers can learn more about the discontinuation of cashback on the Bing web page.

Thank you
We would like to thank the more than 1200 cashback advertisers who joined us for this two-year journey. With over 82 million Bing searchers,* we are still strongly committed to being the destination for all commerce-related searches. Please stay tuned for more online shopping innovations from Microsoft, and again, check out the frequently asked questions to learn more about these changes.

Sincerely,

Microsoft Advertising Bing cashback Team

This is truly sad news for us here in the comparison shopping engine management world!

To help answer some questions about Bing Cashback ending, Microsoft has setup a FAQ page for question here:

http://advertising.microsoft.com/advertising/bing-cashback

There is also a download-able PDF FAQ Document here:

http://advertising.microsoft.com/wwdocs/user/en-us/foradvertisers/Microsoft%20Discontinues%20Bing%20cashback%20External%20FAQs.pdf

I took the liberty of quoting some of the more important FAQs that I read:

Q. Should I continue to use the Merchant Center to manage my account?
A. Yes. Existing merchants should continue to use the Merchant Center to manage their account exactly as they do today until the Merchant Center is retired on September 29, 2010.

Q. Do I still need to transition my Merchant Center account into the adCenter platform?
A. No. You will no longer need to perform any steps to migrate your existing cashback account in Merchant
Center to the adCenter platform since we plan to discontinue Bing cashback on July 30, 2010.

Q. Should I stop sending my cashback feed?
A. No, you should leave your data feed on as we want to continue to have your catalogs available in Bing. We are developing a new shopping program for advertisers. This program is currently scheduled to begin later this calendar year and it will offer greater data feed flexibility than what is currently available through the existing cashback Shopping program. This will enable advertisers to provide a broader set of products for inclusion in Bing Shopping searches, and to do so with little-to-no extra work required. More details will be available on this new advertising opportunity soon. We will send you the terms and conditions governing the new program before it begins. More information will be forthcoming shortly.

Q. What changes do I need to make to my current cashback implementation before or after July 30, 2010?
A. You do not need to make any changes prior to July 31, 2010. As of July 31, 2010, we will begin to operate Bing Shopping as a product advertising platform with greater data feed flexibility than what is now available. Please continue to send your data feed to Microsoft as you do today. We will send you the terms and conditions for the new program before it begins. More information will be forthcoming shortly.

Q. I am a cashback shopping merchant, and I have a balance on my funds. How do I request a refund?
A. After September 29, 2010, we will automatically be processing refunds for cashback Shopping advertisers with a positive balance. This process may take up to 90 days after September 29, 2010. Please validate your contact information in Merchant Center to ensure accurate processing of your refund. If you wish to deactivate your account prior to July 30, 2010 and receive a refund, contact cshbkhlp@microsoft.com. Please allow up to 90 days to receive your check.

So based on all of the information that is currently available:

Business as usual till July 30th 2010!

Don’t stop submitting your data feed!

Don’t change your implementation (tracking pixel, batch, etc etc)!

If you want a refund prior to September 29th 2010 + 90 days processing time, contact cshbkhlp@microsoft.com.

I will continue to monitor the situation closely and post with any updates so stay tuned!

As always if you have any questions or need some help you can e-mail me at CSE.Manager@gmail.com

Hello everyone! Busy, busy day here today at the CSE Management office but I just wanted to drop in quick to let you know about some comparison shopping engine news that came to my mailbox this morning.

An e-mail went out today to Become.com merchants letting them know that Become.com has increased the parameters on images that comparison shopping engine will accept.

Here is the e-mail in its entirety:

This change will allow merchants to use larger, higher quality images to help advertise their products and catch the eyes of the shoppers browsing Become.com’s comparison shopping engine.

Valued Partner,

Become.com is bringing better product images to our users and we need your help! We will now be accepting images with the following specifications:
Size: Up to 2MB
Format: JPG, PNG, GIF

We will be accepting larger image files immediately.

If you are currently submitting both small and large images, then please let your account manager know so that we can ensure we are using the correct ones.

Best,

The Become.com Team

Thats all for today folks! Hope you use the information to your benefit!

As always, if you have any questions or need any help, let me know!
CSE.Manager@gmail.com

On Thursday April 22nd the comparison shopping engine Shopping.com announced that it will be making some changes to their feed specifications. Merchants who submit their products to Shopping.com will need to update their data feed to meet the new requirements by July 1st, 2010. If you do not update your data feed to meet the new requirements, your data feed could be rejected.


Here is the e-mail that went out to merchants yesterday.

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Effective July 1, 2010 Shopping.com will be implementing our new listing policy. It is important to review the new feed specifications and to apply by July 1, 2010 so products are not rejected.

In our effort to offer a better experience for our shoppers and our merchants alike we have found that every attribute you provide enables us to drive higher qualified leads. Richer data feed content will help drive up your conversion to sale.

Act Now to avoid any sale lost post July 1, 2010!!

For additional information please reference our latest blog or view our complete feed specifications.

Regards,

Shopping.com Client Services

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Currently, Shopping.com‘s data feed specifications only lists these fields as required attributes:

ISBN*
Product Name
Product URL
Product Price

*For Media Only

However on July 1st 2010, the data feed specifications will increase the number of required attributes to:

Unique Merchant SKU
MPN**/ISBN*
UPC**/EAN**
Product Name
Product URL
Price
Product Description
Image URL
Condition

*For Media Only
**For Computers & Electronics Only

You can download the current and new feed specifications for Shopping.com by clicking here

If you are already submitting these attributes in your data feed, hats off to you! As you know, these attributes are very important fields to include when submitting to ANY comparison shopping engine. The more information you can provide about any product, the more likely you are to appear in search results!

Most comparison shopping engines display search results using a mix of bidding and search relevancy. The math behind it is simple, the more applicable information you submit for each product, the more relevant your listing become to what shoppers are searching to find that product.

If you are currently not submitting these attributes in your data feeds then you are only hurting yourself and your own bottom line. You should get to work on including these fields in all data feeds to all comparison shopping engines immediately.


As always, if you have any questions or need some help let me know!
Have a great weekend!
CSE.Manager@gmail.com