Q: Why does the reporting data within FeedPerfect not match the data that is within the merchant account?

A: FeedPerfect uses a cookie based tracking system. When a shopper clicks through from a shopping engine to your site, a cookie is set on their computer. This cookie is what lets us know that you received a landing. You have the ability to set the life span of this cookie within the “Settings” section for the particular store in question. You can set the cookie life from one to thirty days.

Cost Data:

 FeedPerfect submits the minimum bid per category for the CSE. You can in some cases increase the bid within the actual merchant account for the CSE

Note: Your landings * what you have listed as the bid within FeedPerfect equals your ADCOST. FeedPerfect submits the minimum  It is very important to keep your bids within FeedPerfect in sync with what you have listed in your merchant accounts. If you make changes to your bids within the merchant, you need to update that within FeedPerfect to avoid inaccuracy.

Since the tracking is cookie based, there are some factors that can skew the data. If the shopper has cookies disabled, their landings will not be tracked by FeedPerfect. Some shoppers have internet security programs that block cookies from being set on their machine, these shoppers will not be tracked either.

Since FeedPerfect's tracking can only work within the confines of what resources each CSE provides, we recommend using the reporting within the merchant accounts. This will allow you to get the most accurate data available since it is coming directly from the comparison shopping engine and they are the one charging you.

The comparison shopping engine itself has the final say on click charges. If a shopper clicks through on the same product twice in a few moments, the engine will determine whether or not to charge the merchant twice. FeedPerfect would only count this as one click, since the cookie will have already been set for that click through for that day.

Conversion Data:

FeedPerfect's tracking system does provide data that the merchant accounts can not provide. Let's say a shopper clicks through to your site and bookmarks a product page. Since the cookie has been set, if that merchant comes back within the duration of the cookie life and makes a purchase, that sale will be tracked! The merchant accounts can not provide that type of data.

One problem is that if a shopper makes a purchase and they never had their landing tracked, FeedPerfect can not attribute that sale to the engine. (e.g. shoppers who did not receive the click through cookie when leaving the shopping engine.) Because of this we recommend installing the engine specific ROI tracking scripts within your store. This will give you more even more data to help with your decision making process.

While there maybe discrepancies in the data between FeedPerfect and the shopping engine, you can still use the FeedPerfect data in conjunction with the data within the merchant accounts to help identify trends in the current market and make smarter decisions on whether or not to include certain products in your data feeds.