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As to be expected this time of year, all of the shopping engines are bumping up their minimum CPC rates for the holiday shopping season. This is typically from around the middle of November through the end of the year. So be prepared for a spike in your CPC spend. Also be prepared for a bump up in your conversion rate, which is typical this time of year as more holiday shoppers are clicking that buy button.

There is one suprising exception to all this though: One shopping engine, Shopping.com, has actually REDUCED minimum bids in 25 categories. The rest of their category CPC rates are either staying flat or increasing 20% as per the industry norm (most CSE’s are bumping up rates 15 – 25%). There has been a lot of speculation as to why this reduction in CPC on those categories has taken place. This is of course Shopping.com we’re talking about! I’m not sure either, but I wonder if it has anything to do with this article from their July newsletter. They highlight the top products that shoppers are searching for, and ask that all merchants list these on Shopping.com so that they can be the “premier online comparison shopping engine on the web”. As you look over those top products and compare it to their holiday rate card, you can see that they have reduced, or left flat, the minimum bid on the categories in which these top products lie. It sounds like Shopping.com is simply trying to keep up with, or keep on top of, the competition. And maybe the most efficient way to do that is by maximizing product feeds from their large pool of existing clients, as opposed to recruiting new merchants with those items. Hmm.

Either way, this is great news for those of you who sell consumer electronics. This is a competitive category, as you know, so hopefully this will make things a bit more comfortable as you advertise these items during the holidays!

A recent article was posted on Search Engine Land that highlights some Do’s and Dont’s as online retailers ramp up for the holidays. Especially during this tumultuous economic period, these are things that are truly important as you try to make the most of your marketing dollars. Shopping engines like Shopping.com, NexTag, Pricegrabber, Shopzilla, and others are all increasing their minimum bid rates this holiday season (as they do each year), so make sure you convert the qualified leads they send to your store by following the recommendations laid out in the article. Some highlights:

1. Don’t blindly test. Ads and product listings that converted well during the holiday shopping frenzy may not do as well after the holidays. If you run the same ad strategy in January keep a close eye on it!

2. Don’t make major site changes. Shoppers are likely to visit a site 2 – 5 times before clicking the buy button. Don’t disorient them with site changes during the busy shopping season.

3. Don’t forget to add a recommended gift page. Help shoppers pick out gifts based on who they’re shopping for – Dad, Mom, Ladies, Men, etc, or price point – Under $100, Under $25, etc.

4. Do show delivery dates and shipping options. Going into the holidays, buyers are frantic and need to know that their order will arrive before Christmas. Highlight expedited shipping options, or gift delivery options as well.

5. Do offer Gift wrapping or personalized messaging. Increase your order value and provide a much needed service to your shoppers by offering gift wrapping options.

6. Do give affiliates special banners or offers. Make sure your affiliates are armed with special promotions and banners that speak to holiday shoppers.

See the article for more details and the full list of recommendations!

Google Base recently added a new feature to help merchant’s get feedback on their listed items. If you log into your Google Base account, you’ll notice a new tab called “Performance”. This area of your account now provides you with some helpful performance reports for the products you list on Google Base. The first thing we liked is that there’s a nifty graph that shows you your overall traffic data for Google Base / Google Product Search. Another thing we found helpful is that now you can see overall impressions given through the Google Base API. And finally, what we really really liked: There’s now a handy, downloadable CSV report that gives you PRODUCT-LEVEL click data ( again for Google Base / Google Product Search) and impression data (for the Google Base API). Nice! For a free tool, this is pretty slick stuff. Look for Google Base to be building out this feature with more bells and whistles. We’re hoping for a product-level conversion tracking tool next!