Comments on: Promotional Message Field

by: Colin Murphy

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 23:55:55 +0000

Nate, thanks for your comment and great question. I should probably revise my original post a bit. Pricegrabber is the only engine that supports promo messages but that doesn’t accept them in the feed. So, you are correct in that you won’t find this information in their feed spec document. In order to activate promo messages on PG, you need to speak with your account rep and they can manually activate the functionality. I believe that you can associate a promo message with up to 25 individual products or an entire category. When you do so for a given product listing, a red “promo” link will appear under the item price (as in the first image in my original post). The link opens a pop-up containing your custom message. I also believe that implementing this will get your listings included in the “Merchant Coupons” section of PG (found here: http://www.pricegrabber.com/home_coupons.php)

I would image that PriceGrabber operates this way to maintain a certain level of editorial control over the content on their site… after all, they are known for their clean interface. Still, it’d be nice to have some way to include this information in the feed.

Best of luck Nate. Let us know if you get your promo messages included on PG and, if so, share some insight on how it works out.

by: Nate Griffin

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 19:34:29 +0000

Out of curiousity, where in the Pricegrabber feed does the promo column sit? And is it only available for certain product types?

I asked our rep about it and she seemed confused, and there was no mention of it in the feed documentation, as well as a request to not include promos like “Free Shipping” in the product description.

by: Colin Murphy

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 00:19:52 +0000

Hi Ojas, thanks for commenting! One word of warning regarding adding promotional text, shipping information, or a phone number into your logo: Most comparison engines frown upon this and will have you remove it if they catch it. They prefer that you include this type of information in the appropriate areas so that they can display it uniformly across the site. They also don’t want one merchant to have an advantage over another… at least not without paying for it

Just an FYI.

by: Ojas Kulkarni

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 16:51:41 +0000

Promotional messages are the best way to add that little extra bit of differentiation in a fierce and competitive market…

When comparison engines list up your products on the product search page this small line of text can actually make a difference.

Many retailers I know of use this space to promote coupons, drive consumers to an alternate product.

However, many retailers I work with have made use of this space to send messages like “Free Shipping”, “No Tax”, “$5 Rebate”, etc… This information is vital to the visitor’s decision; however it can be made as a part of the company logo… And this space can actually be optimized for very brief, clear message ads…

by: Laura Mandzok

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 14:36:04 +0000

Excellent Post Colin! Admitedly, I’m new to optimizing feeds for shopping portals and have had some trouble finding information on the web to help this effort. This piece was of great help. Thanks!