Cost Data refers to the advertising costs incurred when working with Comparison Shopping Engines ( CSEs ).  Most shopping engines will use a Cost-Per-Click (CPC) cost model that charges a small fee based on each time a shopper clicks on one of your items and is redirected to your online store. 

Requesting to be a part of the ChannelAdvisor Cost File means that the CSE will return the actual cost data incurred for your account, which ChannelAdvisor can use to plug in actual cost values for performance data and reporting.  This is referred to as Actual Cost.

To confirm that you are receiving Actual Cost, from Performance ,  click into  Some Providers at the bottom of the page. You do not want to see the name of the provider in the list that appears after clicking into this link (for example, if NexTag indicates to you that they have turned this on for you, then you do not want to see NexTag listed in the "Some Providers" list).  

Prerequisites

You should be familiar with the following topics before continuing: 

• Getting Started with Data Feeds

Setting Up Cost Data for Providers

Cost Data is important to incorporate into Performance Reporting in order to understand the profitability and success of your advertising with CSEs .  Currently only 6 providers are equipped to return cost data to ChannelAdvisor .  For these 6 shopping engines you will want to ask to be added to their  ChannelAdvisor Cost File :

• Become.com (US)
• Google Shopping (All locales)
• NexTag (US, UK)
• Pricegrabber (US, UK)
• eBay Commerce Network (US)
• Shopzilla (US, UK)
• Pronto (US)

PriceGrabber

You will need the “Daily Product CPC” tab under Tools > Export Data Setup in the PriceGrabber interface. You can have this added (if it is not already there) to your account by contacting your account manager at PriceGrabber .  Once that tab is active in your account, please contact your  ChannelAdvisor Launch Specialist (or Support) to get a valid FTP URL and FTP credentials to use within this tab. Once you receive the FTP URL and FTP credentials you will enter them into the Daily Product CPC tab.You should then begin to receive cost data over the next 24-48 hours. To confirm go to Comparison Shopping > Performance , scroll to the bottom of the page to expand  Revenue/ Cost Information to see the engines that are reporting cost information.

eBay Commerce Network (formerly Shopping.com)

To receive Actual Cost data for this provider follow these steps:

1. You will receive an email that states: "The files you are referring to can be accessed and downloaded from your eBay Commerce Network ftp location."
2. Follow these steps in  ChannelAdvisor
• Navigate to your Feeds > Feeds  view. 
• Select your eBay Commerce Network feed
• Under the Settings Tab select "Yes, I would like ChannelAdvisor to process my cost files" .
• Under eBay Commerce Network Marketing Cost heading, select "Marketing cost reported by eBay Commerce Network will be displayed in the performance reports". 
• Hit the Save and Exit button.

Once that is done we will pull the data that eBay Commerce Network generates.

Shopzilla

To receive Actual Cost data for this provider follow these steps:

1. Sign into the Shopzilla interface 
2. Click on their Contact Us link to send Shopzilla Merchant Services an email requesting to be added to the Cost Data file for ChannelAdvisor
3. Once you request actual cost data Shopzilla Merchant Service will send you an email to agree to privacy terms. Follow the directions in this email.
4. Follow these steps in ChannelAdvisor
• Navigate to your  Feeds > Feeds  view. 
• Select your Shopzilla feed
• Under  Shopzilla Marketing Cost  heading, select "Marketing cost reported by Shopzilla will be displayed in the performance reports".  
• Hit the Save and Exit button.

Once that is done we will pull the data that Shopzilla generates.

NexTag

To receive Actual Cost data for this provider follow these steps: 

1. Sign into the Nex Tag interface 
2. Send a support ticket through their interface to be added to the Cost Data file for ChannelAdvisor .
3. Click Help and then click on the seller support link and request the following: “to be added to the Cost Data file for ChannelAdvisor ”.
4. Once you have been added to the file, NexTag will send an email to confirm that this has been completed.
5. Follow these steps in ChannelAdvisor
• Navigate to your  Feeds > Feeds  view. 
• Select your NexTag feed
• Under  Nextag Marketing Cost heading, select "Marketing cost reported by Nextag will be displayed in the performance reports".    
• Hit the Save and Exit button.

Once that is done we will pull the data that Nextag generates.

Become.com

To receive Actual Cost data for this provider follow these steps: 

1. Send an email to your account manager be added to the Cost Data file for ChannelAdvisor ”. They will send a confirmation once this has been updated. You can send an email to the merchant services email: merchanthelp @become.com.
2. Follow these steps in ChannelAdvisor
• Navigate to your  Feeds > Feeds  view. 
• Select your Become.com feed
• Under Become Marketing Cost heading, select "Marketing cost reported by Become will be displayed in the performance reports".     
• Hit the Save and Exit button.

Once that is done we will pull the data that Become.com generates.

Pronto.com

To receive Auctual Cost data for this provider follow these steps:

1. Log into your Pronto Merchant account.
2. Load the following url: https://merchant.pronto.com/account/contactUs.do
3. Select "Reporting Issues & Questions" option for the "Issue" field.
4. In the "Comments" field, please populate "Please activate SKU level reporting for ChannelAdvisor."
5. Once Pronto support confirms completing your request, you may continue.
6. Log into ChannelAdvisor.
7. Navigate to Feeds > Product Mapping > Feeds view.
8. Click on the feed name for the Pronto provider.
9. Click the "Settings" link in the "Feed Setup" section.
10. Enable the "Marketing cost reported by Pronto will be displayed in the performance reports." option in the "Pronto Marketing Cost" section.
11. Click the "Save and Exit" button.

Once that is done, we will pull the data that Pronto generates.

Setting up Estimated Cost Data for Other Providers

For the remaining CSE providers who do not return Actual Cost data, ChannelAdvisor has set up an Estimated Cost value.  Estimated Cost is an approximate average CPC that is multiplied by the traffic we track coming from a CSE.

Average Cost Per Click * CSE Pixel Hit Traffic

Estimated Cost is setup within a Provider Profile. To learn more about this topic please view the Selecting Your Feed Destination page.