“hi guys
thank you very much for joining me today
for this webinar
on price comparison a brief intro about
me
um i’m harry i’m one of the b2b partner
managers at ideally
i’ve got a lot of experience in the
e-commerce industry with performance
marketing
with a particular focus on affiliate so
i was really pleased when awen asked me
to put together this webinar
on price comparison for you guys uh yeah
idialo is europe’s leading
platform for price comparison we
are based in germany in berlin germany
but we work across six european
countries that’s germany france
spain italy austria and the uk
we’re based in germany because idiolode
is actually the fourth largest
e-commerce website in germany full stop
has well over 55 million users a month
so it’s truly a giant website we are
very big in the other markets where we
work and i work for the uk
my job as a b2b manager for the uk is i
have to work with as many
different shops and different networks
as i possibly can to make sure that our
users have
as much information as many different
offers as they can to compare
so yeah today over the next 20 to 25
minutes i’m going to go over price
comparison
and yeah what is price comparison how
does it work and why you should consider
using it as a performance marketing
channel for your business
and then i’ll briefly go through some of
the ways in which you can get the most
out of price comparison
and what type of products tend to
perform really well on the channel
so you’re going to start with a quick
statistic here for you according to the
uk competition and markets authority
an estimated 85 percent of all uk
internet users have used price
comparison websites at some point
or another so whether it’s the annoying
meerkat adverts or people comparing
holidays
uk shoppers really like to know that
they found a good deal
i think over the past year there’s been
a real shift in the way consumers are
spending their money
more people are shopping online now and
they’re spending more than they ever
have
i think as the high streets were closed
many more merchants turn to online sales
to create even more choice for shoppers
and uk shoppers are using platforms like
idialo and price comparison
to kind of cut through the noise and
find their favorite offers online
so how does price comparison work
price comparison um platforms collect
product data from as many different
merchants and compare them side by side
to help shoppers make informed decisions
yeah so basically we’re acting as an
intermediary between shoppers and
merchants
once the shop has found the offer they
love they refer directly to your shop’s
website where they make the purchase
uh price comparison it’s not just about
the price people are using us to compare
all sorts of things now
with in-depth product information price
history product and shop reviews
uh yeah people are using price
comparison sites not just to compare
prices but also to compare products
so in terms of our content we have
a team of over 500 guys at ideolo and
it’s their job to take
all the information from shops like
images and different reviews and
different specifications to make sure
that
our users have as much information at
their fingertips as possible to make
purchase decisions in terms of our
business model
price comparison sites make money by
charging retailers for the users that we
refer
to your shops so this is either as a
fixed price
which is a cost per click cost per lead
out or by a percentage of the sale price
which is cpa cost per action or cost per
acquisition
so now i’m going to quickly show you how
idialo works
yep this is idiolo here the price
comparison platform it works very much
the same as any other sort of
marketplace would
type in the products you’re looking for
for iphones
and you get a big list here of different
variants of iphone and you can see the
different prices
we also have many different categories
so you can see here all the sorts of
things that people
are comparing prices for online look
here at some food processors
yeah this is the list of the many many
types of food processors we make this
appears to be the most popular so as you
can see here we have lots of different
variants
lots of different colors let’s click on
this one it’s a best seller
okay so basically this is your basic
price comparison we have lots of
different features here which our users
use
to compare prices here we have high def
uh imagery here
lots of different variants in terms of
colors it’s quite a cool feature up here
which kind of shows you
the way the price has evolved over time
so you can see in the past month or you
can look in the past six months
so you can really tell is is there a
best time of year to make this sort of
purchase
really cool feature we have here is a
price alert this really helps to boost
user engagement if
a user comes onto our website and says
441 pounds
uh it’s a bit rich for my blood they can
then put in a different price here
a price they’re happy to pay and if the
price does fall to that level
we will then contact the customer with
either a push notification
or an email and that really boosts user
engagement they come back to their
website and they often make a conversion
so in terms of what we show here lots of
different shops
showing you their price we have
different filters that we can use
many of our users tend to search for
prices and include the delivery prices
this is something which they tend to do
a lot of we have things here which is
really great for boosting conversion
rates
we can show which sort of payment
methods that shops use
and this is good if you wanted to just
use paypal you’d pick one shop over
another
we also have here information about
delivery times
this is great this is something we
really notice that our
customers tend to value if they can get
their products a bit quicker
they’re often happy to spend a little
bit more money
so going down here you can see the
prices in different countries
this is the countries that idiolo is
operational in
we have product specifications here so
as i say it’s not just prices
user reviews so you can actually read
the reviews
of our users who have bought this
particular product and we also have shop
reviews
this is a great way to make sure that
you can boost your conversion rates
if you are encouraging your users to
leave reviews on
idiolo if a if a user comes on and sees
that they have two offers
and one of them is a five-star shop
they’re more than likely to go to them
so yeah as you can see it’s not just
prices that we’re comparing it’s lots of
different information
okay so yeah i’ve just included this
slide here just to show you
um where these different things are
sitting if you want to come back later
and look at this this is where we
display this sort of information
so why price comparison why is it going
to be a good
channel for your uh your particular
online shop
so there are various reasons why price
comparison is a good performance
marketing channel for you
and i’d say the main one tends to be our
conversion rates
people don’t tend to come to price
comparison websites for browsing
we tend to sit quite um too much towards
the end of a customer shopping journey
they’ve often done all the research they
need they know what product it is that
they would like to buy and they’re
simply looking for the
best offer once they’ve found that offer
they’re very likely to click through to
that offer and make a conversion
a really good example for this is like
fragrances so
you me everyone we all have a kind of
fragrance which we’re partial to
uh maybe two or three throughout your
lifetime and it’s not really the shop
that sells this product that you’re
loyal to but it is the product
so we notice in the fragrance categories
some of our top performing shops can see
click to sale conversion rates of well
over 20
increase sales is the next one i put
yeah by having your products on a
comparison site is a great way to
increase the amount of shoppers seeing
your products and to boost sales
i think the fact that most comparison
sites refer shoppers directly to your
shop
is also a really big plus in terms of
brand recognition if a customer has come
to you from a comparison site they’ve
created an account they’ve made a
purchase
as long as they’re happy with their
journey then they’re very much more
likely to use your
services again in the future
strategic planning is another great one
so a really good thing for our users and
shops
in terms of price comparison is how
transparent it is
you can see all the other merchants
selling the same products that you are
you can see the sort of prices that
they’re offering
you can also see as i just showed you
how the price has evolved over time
i think this sort of data is really
great when you’re planning your own
pricing strategies
and for planning discount periods when
you perhaps like to increase the amount
of sales
and in general understanding what your
competition is doing and the different
areas that they are pushing prices is
never a bad thing for future planning
uh yeah i’ve had millions of users here
so yeah as i mentioned at the beginning
of the presentation
people love to compare prices we’re
helping millions of users each year at
idiom to find the products that they
like
i think having your offers on a price
comparison site puts you in touch with
these savvy shoppers
who are as i mentioned ready to buy i’ve
got another great reason as low risk
so a point of price comparison is quite
easy to control
whether you get a lead out or not is
very dependent on
a few different points but the main
point is always going to be the price
working on a cpc which is a cost per
click or a cpa which is a percentage of
the sale
is great as you only ever pay if a
customer makes a purchase or is sent
directly to your website
that customer is usually very likely to
convert so if you wanted to increase the
amount of sales that you’re making
um it’s just the case of going onto the
platform and bringing your prices to a
competitive level
i often say to people when i’m speaking
to them about price comparison
you should not expect to get mountains
of traffic from us uh but the quality of
the traffic that we’re sending is always
going to be very high
and lastly i put greater visibility so
working with price comparison will
increase the shop’s visibility but also
adds a certain amount of authenticity to
it
i think our users really love it when
they see big shops that they know
um on price comparison because it shows
they stand by their prices
but at the same time i also believe they
love it when they see a shop maybe they
don’t know
um i feel like you always feel you’ve
saved a bit more money by not going to
one of the big usual suspects
i think platforms like idialo and price
comparison give a real voice to smaller
merchants against some of the big boys
yeah i’d just like to quickly go into
some detail about our app and being
mobile ready
uh so 66 of all internet shoppers in the
uk
are mobile one of the biggest challenges
for smaller newer merchants is tapping
into these shoppers
without a dedicated mobile app having
your offers on a price comparison
platform like udlo brings your offers to
these users
so the app also has some different
features which we don’t have on our
desktop version
we have this innovative barcode uh
scanner so if you’re out on the high
street and you see a product that you
like you can literally scan it
with your phone’s camera and you’ll be
able to see a list of the merchants
selling it and their prices
you can kind of quickly tell if you’re
going to save money by shopping online
or buying that
product there as i mentioned previously
we have the price alarm so we’d send a
push notification
to that user um if the price reaches a
desired amount
and we generally offer great ux in terms
of mobile shoppers
bringing shops offers to these mo
bringing your
products to mobile users is one of the
real great benefits of working with
platforms in general
particularly for price comparison so
who uses price comparison and so yeah
we’ll have a quick look at our
age and gender demographics
in terms of who uses price comparison
i’ve chosen to show ideolo uk’s
demographic
we have a really wide age range of
people that are using it but it’s
predominantly
25 to 34 year olds um i guess this is a
generation that has grown up with
e-commerce
and there may be a bit more savvy in
terms of their shopping needs
in terms of our gender demographics we
are a bit more popular with male users
a lot of our most popular offers tend to
be higher average order value
items such as consumer electronics tvs
fridges and things
and they are loosely associated with
mail shoppers i’m going to go into
a bit more detail about our best
performing categories a bit later
i would say it’s tough to be kind of
give a broad gender demographic as it
very much depends on
the product category that the product
sits in but what i would say is that we
have a really strong representation
on ages and genders across the scope who
use price comparison
so which products work well for us
comparison
so pretty much anything can work well on
price comparison
as long as the product is comparable as
a rule price comparison sites such as
ideolo
require three merchants to provide an
offer for a product to create a price
comparison page
so a product will only work on the
channel if they are available from
multiple
stores if a product does not go into a
price comparison it will be listed on
its own
um but would not be in a price
comparison so price comparison is what
we do
if it’s in an if it’s on its own it’s
very unlikely to convert
eighty percent of the lead outs that we
generate for shops go to our price
comparison listings
so what i would say is maybe not ideal
um as a campaign for launching a product
or for own brand products
it really works well for products who
are sold by multiple retailers
all right so i mentioned all product
categories have the potential to perform
really well in price comparison but we
do have our best categories which are on
the screen here
consumer electronics is our largest
category
as i mentioned people will be most
likely to compare prices for high
average order value things such as
smartphones or tvs we’re also really
strong with like outdoor
and outdoor jackets and bikes are
particularly strong in the uk for us
as i mentioned earlier cosmetics is
really good one for us we get
huge volumes of searches for perfumes
and makeup products
gaming is really big for us particularly
this year as the new consoles have come
out that’s a really good one for us
and family categories such as baby and
child are really strong a lot of baby
products like buggies can be really
expensive
this time when families are really
trying to save money so that’s a good
one for us
what i would say is that these are our
best categories but we do know it’s a
lot of change all the time
don’t be afraid to try out the price
comparison concept if your product does
not fall into these particular
categories
okay so yeah here’s some information
about which products our users tend to
click on
as i mentioned there’s many different
things that influence the conversion
rate of a product
but the main one will always be the
price
our data tells us that 50 of the
leadouts we generate
go to the product in position one so the
most competitive product
um i think this number is probably a bit
higher perhaps users would value things
like delivery time or payment methods
and they’d choose that over paying a few
less pounds
um our data tells us that 18 of the
leadouts we generate go to the second
most competitive offer
and the 10 goes to the third most
competitive
offer kind of this step kind of
demonstrates which offers are getting
traffic
really emphasizes the important big best
with your price and strategy
to generate sales via price comparison
so what do we need from you guys
so here comes the technical bit price
comparison sites pull
all your information from product feeds
you guys will work with product feeds if
you work with online stores
you work with a when you provide them
with your product feed
these feeds contain all of the
information on all your products and are
updated by
the shop so we have accurate and upstate
information
um our needs are pretty standard in
terms of what we need from a price
compar
from a feed with the product name urls
and their price
images etc but we do have a few extra
requirements which are
quite specific to price comparison in
the middle there you can see
what is important for us article numbers
and eans which i’ll go into
in the next slide the manufacture of the
product which is always important
the side on the the right hand side here
the recommended
these are some of the things which are
really good for boosting conversion uh
delivery times and shipping costs are
really important
as i mentioned i use this tend to filter
and have prices in
delivery prices included so this is a
really good way of doing it
um if you don’t have uh the delivery
costs in your feed if a search
with that filter on your products will
be filtered out and won’t appear
also adding variants such as sizes and
different colors allows your products to
work
with our many different filters this is
always good um
if you are interested in putting
together a perfect feed for price
comparison please get in touch with me
and i’ll be able to send you
an example of our perfect product feed
so what are eans and why are they so
important to us
so basically an ean or a gtin or a h a
n is a unique product identifier and
it’s basically the number you see at the
bottom of
every barcode we use these and we need
these because we
use these click identifiers to identify
products and pull them into
our price comparison listings without
these we’re not going to
going to be able to generate a lot of
traffic or conversions
so eins is something that you can get
easily from your product suppliers
um if you’re interested in working with
price comparison let this be the key
takeaway from this webinar
we really need these identifiers in
order for us to be able to create
comparisons
and to send you good quality traffic
so yeah now i’m going to go into a few
things which you can do to maximize
make sure you’re getting the most out of
your price comparison campaigns
yeah so there’s a few things i recommend
you guys when working with price
comparison
as i mentioned before it’s a really good
tool for keeping an eye on your
competitors
if you’re looking to run some discounts
look into what competitors are offering
and what time of year and the prices
tend to be stable or drop you can then
decide when you’re going to have a sale
period you can really use price
comparison as a great tool for moving
stock
as i say it’s quite easy to control if
you want to increase sales as a case of
targeting a period of time
and discounting your products to be
competitive
you should also be forming relationships
with your dedicated account manager
at ideolo we have a team of account
managers who are there to help you to
get the most out of your campaigns
whether that be doing like optimization
checks on your feed
or to let you know roughly where your
products are placing um in our price
comparison listings
we’re always there to help you so this
is something i certainly recommend that
you take advantage of
there’s also the possibility to use
voucher codes and discount codes
to boost your product performance by
using voucher codes
you can temporarily undercut competitors
prices and reap the benefits
using code is also a great way to
increase engagement with users
and i think if you use a voucher code
you have a real sense that you’re
saving money which our users tend to
love
there’s also the possibility
occasionally to run display marketing
campaigns with us
so banners on the website as a rule
price comparison sites
must remain impartial we can’t be seen
to be pushing one shop over another
um but if your shop is running a special
sale for a period
there’s often a possibility that we can
do some sort of banner adverts
on categories to try and boost exposure
for your sale so this isn’t always
possible but
i’d say it’s well worth getting in
contact with your account manager
discusses this is something that you can
do
and lastly here up another great way to
boost conversions is to encourage your
users to leave reviews
on aviolo when a customer is picking uh
their favorite offer seeing positive
reviews is a fantastic way to
boost trust um this is something i would
definitely recommend and it’s a real
good way
of making sure that you get that lead
out over your competitors
yeah so great short bit sweet uh we’ve
come to the end of the webinar on price
comparison
i hope you found it interesting um some
of the key takeaways for this area i
guess our price comparison
is a really great performance marketing
channel for products sold by multiple
retailers it’s not necessarily the best
platform for launching a product or for
personalized things
if you structure your campaigns
correctly you can generate a fantastic
conversion rates really drive sales
with feeds please make sure your feeds
are up to date with all the right
products information specifically
product identifiers this is a really
great way to make sure we’re able to
pull the information and give it to our
customers
and they’re always we’re always here to
help you to maximize your campaign
and you’ll have dedicated account
managers i really recommend that you use
this
resource and on that note i’d just like
to say thank you very much for joining
me today
and if you have any questions about
price comparison and specific to your
particular shop my email is
on the screen there and i’m more than
happy to help you guys
so thank you very much for listening and
have a great day
you
“
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