PHILADELPHIA, PA (February 10, 2016) Elite SEM, a digital agency specializing in performance marketing, has launched a division to assure that marketers reach active online shoppers as close to purchase as possible. Operating from Philadelphia, Elite SEM’s Shopping & Feed Division manages a number of different services including Google Shopping and Bing Shopping, Data Feed Management, and Comparison Shopping Engines (CSEs) for clients that feature anywhere from a few thousand to tens of millions of products in online stores. The division is led by Evan Kirkpatrick, who has been named Shopping and Feed Team Lead, a new position at the company.
“As online shopping grows and diversifies, marketers need a dedicated team to achieve sustainable success at retail,” says Ben Kirshner, CEO of Elite SEM. “Evan has fielded a team of accomplished practitioners solely dedicated to online shopping and the data feeds that enable it. As the only independent, self-funded company on Google’s list of top 25 search marketing agencies, we can be ruthlessly objective in helping clients run the right product ads in exactly the right place at exactly the right time.
“Shopping is still so new that many agencies attempt to manage it through their search marketing divisions,” adds Mr. Kirshner. “The result is poor data quality, because shopping requires a completely different skill set. A few of the biggest agencies have many, if not all, of the components we do, but they manage them independently – so they are slower to change and miss details that fall between the silos. We’re developing full-spectrum expertise, so we can anticipate more, diagnose deeper, and make the right changes faster.”
Elite SEM Shopping & Feed provides a full-service shopping program that includes importing raw product data feeds, manipulating and optimizing them for each particular channel, and managing campaigns and accounts.
Google & Bing Shopping: Elite SEM manages all aspects of clients’ Google & Bing Shopping programs, continuously adjusting bids and budgets across campaigns. Following the Elite SEM segmentation philosophy of breaking product groups out extensively, the team can prioritize the greatest opportunities, bid more efficiently and improve budget allocation.
Data Feed Management: The team optimizes shopping feeds at a granular level – using such feed management platforms as ProductsUp and GoDataFeed – honing every data point that helps determine the performance of a client’s e-commerce program.
Comparison Shopping Engines (CSE): By focusing on the full spectrum of the CSEs, the team can identify new opportunities relative to a brand’s competition within the CSE universe (eBay Commerce Network, Polyvore, Shopzilla/Connexity, Nextag and more) and optimize data for each individual channel.
“Marketers need a more individualized commitment than they are getting from current providers,” says Mr. Kirkpatrick. “Much of what is in the market now is automated and broadly focused. We are offering a level of hands-on targeting and optimization that exists nowhere else. We can combine search and shopping, in ways that channel partners can’t and agencies typically don’t, to create higher ROI at every step in the retailing process.”
Elite SEM (http://elitesem.com), a digital agency specializing in performance marketing, is the only independent, self-funded company on Ad Age’s list of top 25 search marketing agencies. Founded on search in 2004, the agency now provides holistic cross-device digital marketing including Paid Search, SEO, Shopping & Feed, Performance Display, Paid Social, and Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO). Elite SEM account managers are all stakeholders whose compensation is tied directly to the success of their clients. This translates to a +94% retention rate for employees and clients such as Hugo Boss, Eddie Bauer, and Pandora.
Elite SEM is headquartered in New York with six regional offices throughout the U.S. The company has been honored with a number of industry and workplace awards, including #1 Top Company Culture (Entrepreneur), Agency of the Year: Best Agency Culture (Ad Age), #1 Best Search Agency (U.S. Search Awards), #1 Best Tech Company to Work For (Mashable), and one of the “Best Place(s) to Work” for four years running (Crain’s New York Business).