Introducing the Shopzilla Publisher Program

If you own a website or two and have taken steps to find out how to monetize it, chances are you would have heard of Shopzilla. Shopzilla is a prolific comparison shopping network that’s comparable to Amazon in terms of popularity.

Merchants would list their offerings and shoppers would flock to the site by the droves to compare product features and prices, ultimately getting the bargain that they have been searching high and low for.

Now, with the Shopzilla Publisher Program, you can do these shoppers a favour and let them access the advantages of price comparison as well as smarter shopping to online shoppers across the world, AND make a pretty penny in the process!

How does it work?

1. Sign up for your own Shopzilla Publisher Program account
2. Choose and place the banner ads or links on strategic spots in your websites.
3. Once a visitor comes along, sees the ads containing the product they are interested in, clicks on the image, they are directed to Bizrate, a sister site belonging to Shopzilla where they can do their own price comparison
4. After making the final decision, they are transported to the merchant site where they can purchase the item
5. The particular merchant will pay Shopzilla for the leads generated
6. Shopzilla will then share the earnings with the Publisher, namely you!

Start your own deal information website using Shopzilla API. Join as a shopzilla publisher and Shopmario will develop the site for you. Please visit the demo here. This application allows you to edit deals and an administrative panel to manage all, where as other application just pull data and display the same which may be a duplicate content in eyes of search engine.

Sponsored Shopping Content area

Here, publishers may opt to display any or all of their varied content types. They include:

• Specific products according to their relevant brands and models
• A cornucopia of related shopping categories such as Baby Clothes, Ladies’ Clothes, Shoes and Bags
• Nifty-looking messages that were created with the Shopzilla advertising brand in mind
• Special advertising messages created according to the current seasons, for example Christmas, Thanksgiving and 4th of July
• Shopping deals and attractive offers to rope in bargain hunters
• Online store ratings

Who can benefit from the Shopzilla Publisher Program

There are several pre-requisites before you are accepted into the program:

• Your website should target primarily visitors from the United States
• Your website must have reasonably good placing in the Google Page Rank and/or Alexa ranking hierarchy
• When registering for the program, you must ensure that the email you are using matches the domain name for your website or blog

Prohibited sites

This is the list of websites that will be rejected by the Shopzilla Publisher Program:

• Ad networks
• Sites that feature pornographic content or any non-family oriented sites
• Websites that focus on sale of vehicles
• Websites that are primarily of the healthcare niche
• Insurance or credit portals
• Websites that offer travel services

Ease of signing up

Signing up is very easy, all it takes are 4 main steps for you to be a Publisher in the program and start earning some serious cash.

Step 1: Completing the registration form

Be sure to enter your contact details, website details as well as email together with a secure password to protect your account. Don’t forget to key in the security code with its case sensitive characters.

Step 2: Verify your details

You can also opt to edit the information if you entered them wrongly before

Step 3: Wait for verification

The email welcoming you to the program should arrive in a day or two at most.

Step 4: Start inserting ads!

It’s time to explore your new account and strategize your ad placements!

Navigating your way around the Control Panel

Once enrolled into the Shopzilla Publisher Program, you can then freely access the Control Panel that features an intuitive interface that makes navigating around a breeze. You can obtain daily reports of your ads’ performance at approximately 8.15 AM Pacific Time. The Control Panel is also where you can create as many as 99 unique Placement IDs to track how well your ads are doing.

How creative are Shopzilla’s creatives?

There are many ad networks out there that are bent on improving their creatives but it seems that the Shopzilla Publisher Program is the top choice amongst most web publishers because it seems to do this naturally. Their content type offerings include “Custom Text Links”, “Top Search Results”, “Product Pods”, “Text Links” and the absolutely essential range of “Banners”.

Getting paid

Publishers can opt to cash out on their Shopzilla Publisher Program earnings as soon as a Publisher hits this amount after which he or she can request for payout via check or Paypal. Most people find that this is a reasonable target for aspiring Publishers while established Publishers think that the sky is the limit!

Earning via Shopzilla’s Referral Program

As if earnings from the Shopzilla Publisher Program isn’t lucrative enough, you can now choose to promote this program by signing up as an affiliate. Most affiliate programs offer paltry sums of cash but not Shopzilla. Apparently, you can earn up to $25 for every account that signs up under your user ID. $25 is quite a tidy sum and at the rate this publisher program is growing, you are sure to garner at least several referees for the first week you promote your affiliate link. Put it in your blog or your newsletter, just get the word across and earning via this referral program will never be easier.

Any setbacks present?

Like any other publisher program in the World Wide Web, Shopzilla’s program is not exempt from minor hiccups that plague the publishers. Publishers have been known to complain about the difficulties involving the Publisher Portal, most notably concerning the viewing of their Earnings Reports. The reports exist in Shopzilla’s back-end but a glitch made the reports invisible to the eyes of the publishers.

Also, when a publisher refreshes his or her “View Reports” tab, they discover that the number ‘0’ is not displayed in a proper manner after the decimal point. However, the fast-acting staff rectified the problems quickly as soon as they found out. This shows how proactive the people behind the Shopzilla Publisher Program is.

What people are saying

It is no secret that the Shopzilla Publisher Program is fast gaining a multitude of loyal fans. People are comparing it to other noteworthy ad networks such as Chitika, Amazon, Adsense and Kontera, as well as the equally high profile WidgetBucks. And for a good reason too. Most publishers are commenting about how good the results are when they sign up with the Shopzilla Publisher Program.

Perhaps it is the ease of integrating ads on the website or even the fact that Shopzilla concentrates on making images on their ad “magnetically clickable”, people are reporting that they are enjoying more clicks from site visitors. Clickable pictures were once commonplace with Chitika eMinimalls but it has since been discontinued to make way for other features.

Shopzilla ads are also unobtrusive and are created to blend in perfectly well into the web interface. Their “Product Pods” are gaining rave reviews on various blogs and websites praising its appealing yet unassuming features that contributes to a satisfying Click Through Rate.

The features in a nutshell:

• The Shopzilla Publisher Program lets publishers earn via its Cost Per Click ad network
• It is ideally used on product-focused websites or blogs whereby publishers can leverage on good ad placement and real estate as well as quality traffic flow to earn from this program
• The range of ad units and creatives available when you sign up as a Publisher is vast; Publishers will be spoilt for choice with the many sizes and types of ad units which are constantly updated periodically. Moreover, these ad units are customizable to a ‘T’ according to your preferred colors and designs
• Ads can be assigned IDs to make performance tracking more viable. This is similar to Adsense and Shopzilla has made a good decision to incorporate this convenient feature
• API is offered in order for Publishers to set extended customizations to their ad units
• A wide array of product categories can be selected based on the Publisher’s web concept and products
• The Publisher Portal allows Publishers to track their earnings and performance in order to analyze your strategy
• Minimum payout is a mere $50

Conclusion

In conclusion, I’d say that this program is worth checking out. It does not hurt to start a campaign and see where it will take you because like millions of Publishers out there, they certainly found the results they desired, so perhaps it is your turn to reap the rewards!

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