Data feed marketing shouldn't be this complex.

What is ChannelBrain?

ChannelBrain is a hosted Web 2.0 SaaS (Software as a service) application that allows customers to syndicate their products to on-line marketing channels and shopping comparison engines to increase revenue and sales, maximize profit and reduce the cost and labor involved with managing a multi-channel marketing effort to Comparison Shopping Engines.

Since ChannelBrain is an SaaS, there is no software to install on your computer, you simply sign-up for the service and use a Web Browser to access the service.

What are Comparison Shopping Engines and On-Line Marketing Channels?

These are Websites or portals which allow merchants, retailers and basically anyone selling products and services to market and sell their products in their "network".

These "networks" give the shopper leverage by recommending and comparing product featrures or prices and sometimes even comparing merchants.

Examples of these places are; Froogle, Shopping.com and Shopzilla. All of which compare prices and product features against each other, and sometimes have valuable information for the consumer so they can make a more educated decision when before they purchase the product.

Why should I include my products into these channels?

The biggest reason is because your competitors are and they are taking business from you.

If you search for your products in a place like shopping.com and find them, then its quite possible you're losing business to competitors who are gaining the business you could be having -- its another channel of sales which you can tap into, and if you're not, you may lose the sale.

CSE's and on-line marketing channels offer an alternative traffic model. They qualify the customer further so that you're not just getting "hits" to your site, but you're getting qualified leads who are set to purchase your product by the time they hit your site.

Do CSE's and On-Line Marketing Channels Cost money?

Most CSE's and marketing channels that allow for you to market your products in their network will charge you money based on performance. Depending on the provider, their costs and payment structures are all different.

Why do I need ChannelBrain?

Its often very complicated and very confusing to get your products into these channels and manage the process. ChannelBrain does all the hard work for you.

By formating your products to ChannelBrain's format, you can send your products to all the channels that you want to go to. ChannelBrain will also report and tell you when someone clicks on something, when they purchased, how much the click cost and more.

If you were to do all this work yourself, it would be time consuming and often merchants only use a several CSE's because the work get to others is by far too hard, let alone understand if you are benefiting -- ChannelBrain fixes all that for you by doing all the hard work AND giving you a view into your performance.

What is a data feed?

Its just a file that contains a list of your products in a special format. CSV stands for "Comma Separated Value" where each piece of data is separated by a comma. Most CSE's request that you create a CSV of your products and "import" that into their system. Each channel has their own format and each channel has their own restrictions on the format.

I only have a couple products, do I need a data feed file?

No, with ChannelBrain you can create and manage inventory within the system. That means you can type your product information in and then have it be sent to the channel providers without having to know anything about data feeds or file formats.

I have a lot of products, will this work with ChannelBrain

The amount of products doesn't really matter, ChannelBrain will support as many as you have. However, depending on the size of your inventory, you will have to choose a package that supports the size of your inventory set. If you do not see this size supported in our packages, call sales and discuss this with a sales persona and they will assist you.

Does ChannelBrain have statistics and analytics?

Yes, included in our Profressional packages, you will have access to statistics and analytics which will help you analize and make decisions about your marketing efforts. The reporting in ChannelBrain gives you a quick "Dashboard" view of your performance for each campaign and you can drill down and get valuable information about visitors, conversions (sales), the cost of your efforts etc. ChannelBrain's reporting is a key part of its marketing tools and gives the customer the advantage of not just syndicating, but syndicating intelligently.