Shopping.com Cuts CPC Rates By as Much as 57% in Some Categories

Never one shy to go against the norm, as they did by lowering certain CPC rates during Q4 when all the other shopping engines were raising theirs, Shopping.com has once again announced that they will be launching a promotion that will lower CPC rates for some of their more popular categories.

At a time when merchants/retailers are attempting to cut costs at every corner, this is certainly an appropriate and welcome move that will see dividends across the board for anyone that’s listed on Shopping.com.

A complete rate-card chart can be found here.

The most drastic changes come in certain tech sub-categories, which see CPCs drop from $0.70 to $0.30, and in certain home and garden sub-categories which will see CPCs of $0.60 drop in half to $0.30.

The structure will be valid from March 1 until May 15, which at that point on they will launch a new plan altogether that promises to “better align merchant economics and consumer demand.”

What does this mean for the average merchant then?

The short version is: lower overall spend, and higher overall returns on investments.

In the long run, it will be interesting to see if/how this affects the inventory that merchants are going to list on Shopping.com, and more importantly to see how other shopping engines react in light of this news.