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Comparison Shopping Services (CSS)
What is a Comparison Shopping Service (CSS)?
A Comparison Shopping Service (CSS), is a website where consumers can browse a wide variety of products from a range of different retailers in one place. Comparison Shopping Services are also known as Product Discovery Websites.
Is Redbrain a Comparison Shopping Service (CSS)?
We are Europe’s largest Comparison Shopping Service. Via websites such as redbrain.shop, as well as multiple product discovery websites such as shopping.uk and compare99.com.
What do Redbrain do?
We are not an agency or an affiliate network, we are a strategic online shopping partner.
We specialise in matching online shoppers with the right products, at the right time. With over 10 years experience in this space, we've helped some of the biggest brands in the world gain millions in incremental sales.
Finding a CSS Partner
What are the benefits of working with a CSS partner?
There are several benefits to working with a CSS partner like Redbrain:
- Using a CSS will enable retailers to achieve sales at a lower average cost per acquisition through Google Shopping.
- Running internal campaigns alongside a CSS partner will increase the chances of your products appearing twice in the same auction, as whilst Google will not show the same products from a single merchant next to each other, it can and does show products from the same merchant through different CSS providers.
- Using a CSS partner like Redbrain will help you to lessen the impact of competitors bidding on your brand terms.
Can we work with multiple CSS partners?
Yes - you can work with multiple CSS partners at the same time.
Whilst this method can give you the opportunity for more PLA slots, its important to note that different providers may have different payment or commission structures, which could affect your ROI.
As you add more partners, we recommend that you test the impact on revenue each time, to make sure that their structure adds to your overall sales revenue figure.
Redbrain as a CSS Provider
What CSS services do Redbrain offer?
With Redbrain, you can run shopping activities on Google across Europe and across the US and Europe with Microsoft Bing.
What payment structures do Redbrain offer?
At Redbrain, we offer a Cost-Per-Acquisition (CPA) payment structure, so you only ever pay us when you get a sale. This means when we run your Shopping Ads, you'll never pay per click.
However, if you're used to running campaigns on a Cost-per-Click (CPC) basis and prefer that method, we can be flexible to your needs and run your campaigns on a CPC basis.
Whichever method you choose, you remain in control of your spend.
Do CSS Partners increase the bids of our existing shopping activity?
When our bids enter an ad auction, Google will recognise that we’re both sending traffic to the same website. Because of this, they will ignore one of us in the auction, which stops us from increasing each other's bids.
Will working with Redbrain affect our existing Shopping activity?
We love working closely with our retail partners, and its essential to us that we help you succeed.
We’re very open that we can take some activity from any existing shopping campaigns, depending on your campaign structure and setup, but we have consistently found that the gains made from running Redbrain activity alongside your own campaigns is larger than what is taken, usually with a higher ROAS to you. This is because in addition to your campaigns, there are other retailers, especially your competitors, who are also showing for similar products.
You also decide how much we pay per click, by setting the CPA, giving you the ability to make sure we’re not out bidding you in the auctions.
How do you monitor your incrementality?
The best way to monitor this on our side, is through Auction Insights. We’re always happy to share this data, to help you decide whether CSS activity is benefiting your overall activity.
Why do retailers want to work with Redbrain?
Firstly, we're happy to share data from our campaigns, giving you visibility so that you can hold us accountable for our performance.
Secondly, we run the campaign the way you want us to, caring about your internal key metrics and objectives.
Importantly, our performance is great. The combination of the largest group of shopping ads experts and our scale of data allows us to make better decisions and forecast across your campaigns.
Lastly, there's no risk to you as we risk our own money, and you only pay us when we convert a sale.
Getting Started
How do we start working with Redbrain?
Before we get started, its helpful for you to be set up on an affiliate program, which Redbrain can then be added to. We'll also need access to your Product Feed on your affiliate program, which we can help optimise even further.
We'll have a chat with you to understand your commission rate, CPA and campaign details based on your business goals, products available and your wider marketing activities.
With all of these things in place, our campaigns will be up and running within one week.
How can we set up our campaigns for success from the start?
There are a couple of things we can do to maximise your campaign potential from set-up:
- Product Feed Optimisation - a better quality product feed will ensure that we are able to input better data into Google, therefore increasing the frequency of your adverts, traffic and sales
- Allow us to bid on brand terms - allowing Redbrain to bid on your brand terms will ensure that you are able to minimise the chance that your competitors show for your brand searches
- Increase CPA over your default rate - this will enable us to fully optimise our activity and then identify areas where we're adding revenue more quickly