SES Chicago - December 7-11, 2009

September 10, 2009

Google Plans Micropayment Platform for Publishers with Paid Content

Newspaper publishers and other media entities have made no secret about their desire to put content up behind a pay wall. The motivation behind it all is the slow death of traditional media and the loss of revenue that has come along with it.

Now, Google is planning to assist that effort by developing a micropayment platform that can help facilitate the paywall plans. It will be an extension of Google Checkout and be available for both Google and non-Google sites.

Of course, it remains to be seen if these paywall plans even work. Most newspapers had them in place when they first launched on the web. They didn't work, and the paywalls came down.

Google's smart to monetize the upcoming paywall efforts while they last. But don't be surprised if the micropayment platform ends up in the Google product graveyard if the paywall plans do indeed fail.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

March 20, 2009

Google Checkout Now Offers Subscriptions

Google Checkout is now offering subscriptions for sellers who wish to offer them. The option is available through the Beta Features page. Merchants can set up recurring billing through the API as well.

If you're not familiar, Google Checkout offers shopping cart functionality in a way similar to PayPal, which is owned by eBay. In April 2007, eBay teamed up with Yahoo to challenge Google Checkout, part of the ongoing search wars.

Last October, Google Checkout allowed multiple items per purchase. Recently, Google Checkout announced a new (higher) fee structure that will be in effect this May.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 29, 2008

Google Checkout Shopping Cart Allows Purchase of Multiple Items

If you've used the Google Checkout Buy Now button, you know that it's a bit limiting - only allowing customers to purchase one item at a time. Google Checkout's new shopping cart allows your customers to purchase multiple items at once.

To get started, go to the Tools tab in the Google Checkout Merchant Center. Enter your product info, price and image location. An HTML script will be generated for you. Copy and paste the code onto your product pages. Test the button to make sure it's working and you're good to go.

For more advanced options, check out (no pun intended) the developer guide.

Related Reading: Yahoo and PayPal Join To Challenge Google Checkout Google Checkout: Check Out of Commercial E-Mail Google Checkout to Integrate with AdWords

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 11, 2008

Bitten by Sarah Jessica Parker in Google Checkout

You can buy "Sarah Jessica Parker" but you can't get Bitten by her.

Sarah Jessica Parker (the keyword phrase, not the actress) can be found in Google Checkout Trends. "Bitten by Sarah Jessica Parker?" You're out of luck with Google Labs' new tool.

The revenue for "Sarah Jessica Parker" is, according to Google, "(Price x Quantity Sold) Over Time." Imagine that.

Google Checkout now shares retail revenue trends with anonymized Google Checkout shopping cart sales data.

Tony Ruscoe of Google Blogoscoped posted the news with a big chart showing some product comparison trends.

David Wurtz, Google Checkout product manager, announced the new Google Labs competitive intelligence tool. Google Checkout Trends promises to give insight into products that people are buying and selling online. GCT "aggregates sales data of Google Checkout merchants and charts it in a matter of seconds."

My hunch: Google doesn't have permission from some of the big box and multichannel retailers to include their data. That's bad news for fans of Sex In the City.

So if you've been bitten by the "Bitten by Jessica Parker," bug, take Google Checkout Trends with a grain of salt.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 12:00 AM | Permalink

December 20, 2007

Free Google Flip Video Camcorder --No purchase necessary

OK, strike "no purchase necessary." Free Flip video camcorder: "big purchase necessary?"

Google gave big-time advertisers and SEMs (whose clients spend big) a Flip Video Ultra Series camcorder with recording time up to 30 min. and 1GB internal memory.

Search marketer Shimon Sandler recorded an Oscar-worthy short film (YouTubed) of his Google Video Ultra gift being unwrapped. You'll watch the film again and again, if only to get into the Xmas spirit of green envy that children of all ages feel during the Holiday Season.

Google Flip flopped with all the SEMs who only received Google 2GB USB memory cards instead of the Google Flip (with MSRP of $149.99!). The 2GoogleByte USB card was described by our friends at SERoundtable as more or less a lump of coal -- way inferior to last year's Google gift gadget: a sweet digital picture frame.

It would seem only the FTC approves of Google acquisitions these days.

Here at Search Engine Watch, we'll be providing the P.O. Box for Google Customer Returns and the address of the secret Google Gift Exchange location.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 6:46 PM | Permalink

November 9, 2006

Google Offers Free Transactions For Google Checkout Merchants To Compete With PayPal

Over the past few days, everyone was talking about Google Checkout is offering free transactions throughout the remainder of the year. The LA Times reports that this move is to compete with PayPal by encouraging PayPal merchants to give Google Checkout a try. They also have Eric Schmidt saying that the purpose behind Google Checkout is to "generate commissions and encourage more merchants to buy ads." I believe so far, many merchants are not quick to adopt Google Checkout.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 7:51 AM | Permalink

October 23, 2006

Google Checkout Doesn't Allow Donation Payments

Sam Harrelson reports that Google Checkout has dropped Gimme Some Candy promotion that enabled his video readers to donate money to the site. Basically, Google said they dropped the site because the users did not actually buy a real product, instead they donated money to the guy. Many people are upset with this because what is to constitute a intangible product in this case? Paypal clearly allows this type of payment method. Google obviously does not at the moment.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:07 AM | Permalink

September 13, 2006

Yahoo Displaying Checkout Icons In Search Ads

Andrew Goodman spotted Yahoo placing little shopping cart icons in some of the sponsored listings for eBay ads. Just like how Google has implemented it for those AdWords advertisers who have signed up with Google Checkout, Yahoo seems to be displaying those icons near the ads. I don't have any more details at the time, but you can see a screen capture at Traffick.com.

Postscript: Search Engine Journal has an update on this, where a Yahoo representative has confirmed that they "are testing various PayPal icons in some of our Yahoo.com sponsored search results. These icons are designed to help buyers identify where they can use PayPal to make purchases.” The spokesperson continued, "We are currently evaluating how users respond to icons in our sponsored search listings to determine whether such icons improve the user experience and help them identify merchant capabilities that are important to them.”

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:48 AM | Permalink

August 18, 2006

Levi.com Quietly Drops Google Checkout Due To A "Particular Issue"

MarketWatch reports that Levi Strauss & Co.'s has dropped the Google Checkout option from Levi.com, their main web site. Steve Davis, from the firm that Levi used to integrated Checkout, said they dropped it from Levi.com due to a "particular issue," which was not disclosed (as far as I can tell). What is important to note is that Levi Strauss left Google Checkout on the dockers.com web site, so that issue couldn't of been a huge one or even a global issue (I suspect). I personally have yet to implement Google Checkout on any site, so I cannot speak from experience here. The article does say that Levi.com will most likely add Google Checkout back after Google releases an updated version of feature, probably within a few weeks.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:18 AM | Permalink

July 7, 2006

Google Checkout Could Increase Costs For The Shopping Comparison Engines

Google Checkout adoption will translate to higher costs for the shopping comparison engines. Some of the costs will be passed onto merchants, and I’m not sure they’ll stand for it.

The shopping comparison engines are some of the biggest purchasers of pay per click (PPC) listings on Google Adwords and Yahoo! Search Marketing (YSM). Companies like Shopping.com, Shopzilla, and NexTag are also some of the savviest search marketers in the biz, looking at revenue derived from each and every click. Whether you call it arbitrage or not, many of the shopping comparison engines purchase keywords to drive traffic to their sites and then monetize that traffic through their own PPC listings, ideally at a higher rate than what they paid Google or Yahoo!.

As PPC rates on the general search engines have risen over the last couple years, the shopping comparison engines have had to raise their own PPC rates to cover their increased costs. A number of people I trust say that this is faulty logic, but I would say that the rise in PPC costs on the general search engines is definitely one factor in the rise in PPC rates on the shopping comparison engines.

Google Adwords ranks PPC ads ?based on their maximum cost-per-click (CPC) and Quality Score on Google.com. (For the top positions above Google search results, we use the actual CPC.) The Quality Score is determined by the keyword?s performance history on Google: its clickthrough rate (CTR), relevance of ad text, historical keyword performance, landing page quality, and other relevancy factors.? (Full Explanation).

Now here comes Google Checkout. If you?re an AdWords advertiser, you can hook up your Adwords and Checkout accounts and display a Google Checkout shopping cart icon in your Adwords ads. If Google Checkout takes off, consumers will start to look for ads that have the Checkout icon, thus driving up the CTR of these ads. Because CTR is one determinant of ranking on Adwords, the merchants who list the icon should move up in ranking.

The comparison engines will not be able to show the Google Checkout shopping cart icon in their listings (unless some special deal is struck). This means that to effectively compete with the merchants who are displaying the icon, the shopping comparison engines will have to increase their maximum CPC bid, driving up costs.

If the shopping comparison engines are paying more on Google Adwords, they are going to have to raise the minimum price floors they charge merchants. Merchants are already pissed at the perceived high costs on the shopping comparison engines (I say perceived because I don?t think that all advertisers are properly tracking costs or optimizing listings and therefore could actually afford to bid a lot higher) so rate increases are always met with disdain.

Most of the large shopping comparison engines will increase their pricing in preparation for the holiday season. This is a normal phenomenon because conversion rate goes up during the holiday shopping season, but I think the engines also raise their rates to cover their own click costs. Now add the Google Checkout factor and shopping comparison engines might have to raise their rates even more.

To see a sample of what the Google Checkout shopping cart icon looks like in an AdWords ad, see my full Google Checkout post.

Posted by Brian Smith at 11:32 AM | Permalink

July 6, 2006

eBay Disallows Google Checkout

Andy Beal reports that eBay has officially banned Google Checkout as a payment solution on eBay. Here is a list of payment solutions not allowed on eBay, including Google Checkout.

Payment Services not permitted on eBay: AlertPay.com, anypay.com, AuctionChex.com, AuctionPix.com, BillPay.ie, ecount.com, cardserviceinternational.com, CCAvenue, ecount, e-gold, eHotPay.com, ePassporte.com, EuroGiro, FastCash.com, Google Checkout, gcash, GearPay, Goldmoney.com, graphcard.com, greenzap.com, ikobo.com, Liberty Dollars, Moneygram.com, neteller.com, Netpay.com, Nochex.com, paychest.com, payingfast.com, paypay, Postepay, Qchex.com, rupay.com, scripophily.com, sendmoneyorder.com, stamps, Stormpay, wmtransfer.com, xcoin.com

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 11:06 AM | Permalink

June 30, 2006

eBay's PayPal Mocks Google Checkout

Philipp Lenssen cracked me up with just the title of his post named EBay Guy Trashes Google Checkout, Then Deletes Post. Here, read the post;

I find it amusing how the general media is claiming GBuy [aka Google Checkout] will be a significant competitor to Paypal based on GBuy having near zero buyers actually using the service vs over 100MM using Paypal. Let’s recall something here folks. In its current form, GBuy is a glorified merchant account.

The post was then deleted, but you can read it all here.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:13 AM | Permalink

June 29, 2006

Not GBuy: Google Launches Checkout

The wait is over for Google's long-awaited payment service that's been the subject of so much speculation. Google Checkout is a new system that makes it easy for online merchants to process credit-card payments, and also streamlines the checkout process for consumers. The service also raises some thorny issues for AdWords advertisers, who may be reluctant to let Google capture customer transactions, and yet advertisers that use the system may benefit from improved rankings in search results. More on the new service and the issues it raises for search marketers in today's SearchDay article, Google Launches Checkout, not the Rumored GBuy.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 12:01 AM | Permalink

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