Official Blog » Merchant Updates

This is my final posting for Smarter.com as my last day in the office is this Wed, November 26th! I have enjoyed writing this weekly newsletter and getting the responses back from you as well!

I want to take this opportunity to thank those of you who have opened accounts thru me in the past for your partnership with Smarter.com – I wish you continued success in your relationship with Smarter as well as great success with your online business overall!

For those of you who still haven’t begun an account with Smarter, I’d love for you to open your account with me this week! In fact, I wasn’t planning this, but as a farewell offer, if you sign-up a new account before 3pm tomorrow, I will extend our $50 in bonus-clicks offer to you! I’ll be sure your account is credited as soon as you let me know that you’ve completed the registration process here:

https://sam.smarter.com/register/sign_up_step_1.php

I’m starting my own boutique marketing agency, so if you’d like to stay in-touch, please feel free to request to link with me (Georgia Sanders) thru LinkedIn. For information about beginning an account with Smarter after the 26th, please feel free to contact Melissa Rivero at mrivero@mezimedia.com. She is the newest addition to the Smarter sales team and will be happy to help you!

Good news! Smarter.com has just updated our feed specs to allow our merchants to highlight and display sale/discount prices in their feed! Now Smarter merchants will have the chance to show both the regular “retail” pricing of an item, but also indicate the current sale/discount pricing! Please check out the following live examples below!

Click here for Smarter Sale/Discount Price Example #1

Click Here for Smarter Sale/Discount Price Example #2

For current Smarter merchants we hope that you will start taking advantage of this new field right away, so please feel free to give me a call if you have any questions regarding this new feature.

Also, just a reminder to tune into Smarter’s own Joanna Estacio talking with Merchant Advantage’s Thomas Romeo about optimizing your Holiday Marketing! This FREE webinar is being held online Thursday, Nov. 13th at 2pm PST! You can register at the link below!

Free Holiday Webinar from Merchant Advantage featuring Smarter.com!

And finally, please let me know if I can offer you my support for a Smarter account set-up in time for the holiday’s! You can also register online here:

Register Now for Smarter.com!

Smarty and I would like to welcome you to the first ever “Official” Smarter Blog!

I’ll be posting here about once a week on different topics such as:

• What’s New with Smarter
• Merchant Updates
• Data Feed Optimization
• Comparison Shopping News
• E-commerce Tips
• Shopper FAQs
• Online Shopping and eTailing In the News

I’ve been an Account Executive/Sales Account Manager here at Smarter for the past couple of years now and look forward to sharing the insight I’ve garnered over that time-span with you in this space!  Also, I plan on keeping a keen eye on ‘all things future’ regarding online shopping and successful ecommerce so stay tuned!

At Smarter we believe in providing the best quality shopping experience for our shoppers as well as providing the highest educated online leads to our listing merchants. With those goals in mind, check back here often and see what’s new with Smarter.com!

This just in!

Smarter.com has just this week launched additional attributes in our Flowers, Gifts and Gourmet category! The addition of these attributes will help bring Smarter merchants more refined shopping leads!

Here are some of my favorite examples of our new attributes:

Flowers: Click here to visit Smarter’s Flower Category:

Occasion / Sentiment > Anniversary/Get Well/Prom/Thank You

Flower Type> Jasmine/Gardenia/Lily/Rose

Gifts: Click here to visit Smarter’s Gifts Category:

Collectibles>Movie Theme>Batman/Star Trek/Lord of the Rings/Harry Potter

Baskets>Gift Basket Theme>Pet/Gardening/Wine/Office/Popcorn

Gourmet (Food & Drink): Click here to visit Smarter’s Gourmet Category:

Candy & Chocolate>Chocolates>Dietary Needs>Low Sodium/Low Carb/Organic

Condiments & Sauces> BBQ Sauce & Marinades/Jams & Jellies/Salad Dressing

Coffee> flavor>Chocolate/Hazelnut/Butter Rum

Bakery & Desserts>Deserts & Sweets/Breads (!!)

**For some reason, I’m getting really stuck in our gourmet section –mmm, …must be hungry!

Feel free to bounce me an email or post here if you have any questions!

This month marks Smarter.com’s *fourth* birthday!!

Besides a special offer for merchants outlined in the bottom of this post, I thought I’d let you in on a *few* of our proudest accomplishments over the last 4 years (in no particular order):

• First comparison shopping engine in US, China, & Japan simultaneously

• In Fall of ’07, Smarter was included in Inc. 500 Magazine’s top 500 fastest growing private Companies in America

• Smarter’s parent company (MeziMedia) was acquired by ValueClick Media in August 2007

• Smarter reached to #4 ranked CSE (comparison shopping engine) by traffic volume in just 3 years from launch

• Smarter was the first CSE to launch Video Product Reviews through a partnership with ExpoTV (Smarter is currently  featuring 63,251 live product reviews!) 

• Smarter was one of the first CSE’s to offer daily blogs (We currently offer blogs across six categories!) Go to: http://blogs.smarter.com to check them all out!

Over-all Smarter is very happy to be the first CSE to provide an integrated shopping experience for shoppers. We put reviews, rebates, coupons, videos, merchant reviews, product specs, and blogs all right at their fingertips!

Here are some additional key points that a merchant should know about Smarter.com:

• Merchants can add and manage bidding and special offers at the category OR product level!
• Merchants can utilize our ROI Tracker and see all their traffic results down to Cost-of-Sale with one easy account!
• Smarter can take feeds designed for other online sites and use them to populate our site with their products!
• Smarter has recently launched an expanded Ad Deck of additional advertising opportunities for our merchants including display ads and a newly updated Featured Merchant program!

And finally, here’s the moment that I’m sure you’ve been waiting for in this post (drum-roll) - our special B-Day celebration offer! It’s always nice to receive a little incentive, so for any merchant that open’s an account with Smarter within the rest of the month of July (moving forward from today for those who would ask!!), Smarter will offer $50 in bonus clicks to your account! What a great way to begin a profitable time partnering with Smarter.com!

image source: PinkCakeBox.com

 Happy Fourth of July! Hope you have a great holiday weekend planned!

This week I’d like to let you know that two of critical areas of advertising on Smarter.com have come down in cost!

They are:

1. Our Featured Merchant (Product & Detail Pages) program and
2. Our site Display Ads

The Featured Merchant program allows for your listings to be optimally displayed in your participating categories. In addition to having your items highlighted on both category and product listing pages you will receive:

- Your Company logo featured on all of your product listings
- Prominent product placement
- Featured Merchant Logo
- Link to Merchant Store page (Exclusive to all Featured Merchants): Benefit Featured Merchant Store

The Featured Merchant program can be opted into at the category level, and can run as short as 48 hours. Perfect for promoting your upcoming sales!

Also, we offer 4 different areas for you to participate with your Display Ads:

• Search Results Pages (Run of Network)
• Category Search Results Pages (great for a more targeted approach!)
• Blog Pages (check out our blogs at: Smarter’s Blog Home Page)
• Buying Guides & Special Interest Pages

We are currently taking placement orders throughout the end of the calendar year for Display Ads!

Please let me know if I can answer any questions for you regarding Smarter.com and how we can put our significant online marketing muscle to work for your online store!