I've had a few articles recently that talk about Become.com, the shopping research turned actual shopping search engine. It's a nice site, good data and some nifty features. In the past I've pointed out the benefits to searchers, but this time around, Become.com has something to offer online merchants.

Shopping search engines can be a great lead generator for small online businesses. It gives them a chance to get in along side some of the top brands and also tends to deliver better results than standard PPC. It's important to remember that pay-per-click catches buyers when they are still researching products. Recent studies show that up to 80% of online searches ultimate end up being off-line conversions. That means that on average, you've only got about a 20% shot of landing a sale from search generated advertising. With shopping search engines, the users are not just in research mode, they are usually in buying mode. Get your product in front of them and you may have a good chance to convert them to a sale.

Become.com understands this and their temporary discount could be a great motivator toward giving the site a test run. Get the full story on the discount in my article: Become.com Offers CPC Discount to Merchants.