*Opinion* – If you’re an advertiser on comparison shopping sites, it’s that dreaded time of year again. Time for the annoying holiday rate increase emails. They  started yesterday for me… one from Pronto and one from Nextag, with more to come.

Each year I get really annoyed at these increases. Why? Because I don’t feel they’re justified.  While some really large advertisers may benefit in some way from some form of extra push or efforts that the comparison site may offer; most smaller advertisers don’t get anything extra except an extra expense through the holidays.

As much as I’d like to pause my comparison shopping site advertising during the holidays, I don’t. They do provide traffic that converts. I won’t argue that. Yes, the conversions increase, but because the overall shopping traffic increases. I just don’t see that the comparison sites do anything extra to make this traffic increase happen. It happens naturally because of the holidays.

Since they increase the advertising rates does this mean that I get to increase my prices for the holiday?

To me, it’s like homeowners insurance going up for a month because it’s hurricane season. Or your car insurance agent calling you on the phone while your driving home from work to tell you your rates are going up for the day because it’s raining outside. Or your cell phone bill going up during the holidays because you’ll be talking more to family and friends.

The comparison shopping sites are not increasing demand. They provide the same service as normal… demand increases simply because people shop more during the schooldays. On the other hand, they don’t have an affect on supply either. In my opinion they increase the rates because they know they have the advertisers by the b**ls… so why not make an extra few bucks when no one can do a thing about it.

Oh well, it’s one of those necessary annoyances in my opinion. I don’t like it, but I work with it. That’s my 2 cents. What do you think?