Courting Clicks: Comparison engines pack the power of aggregators--but ...

[mandy]

Comparison engines pack the power of aggregators--but watch that ROI

If Internet retailing were a board game, the goal would be labeled "ROI," and comparison ­shopping engines would be one way ­merchants could try to get there. Like any route to a game`s end, it`s a path with potential opportunity: It can attract highly targeted shoppers that produce what some say are higher conversion rates. And it`s got obstacles: the difficulty for some retailers of wrangling product feeds into the engines and the fact that costs per click, as in other web-based ad programs, are going up.

Comparison shopping engines have been a big win for some ­retailers and less so for others depending on a host of variables such as product type, marketing strategy, and resources, ­including IT resources at the merchant end to handle ­product feeds. But as the growth of search marketing revenue flattens, the ­operators of ad-driven online marketplaces are looking for new places to grow business.

full article: http://www.internetretailer.com/article.asp?id=16564