Become Integration

Because Become.com is part of the Connexity network rather than a standalone advertising channel, connecting your feed gives you exposure across several comparison-shopping properties at once rather than a single isolated audience.

1. Shared reach. One correctly formatted feed submitted to Connexity can list your products on Become.com as well as Bizrate, Shopzilla and PriceGrabber, and can be picked up by syndication partners such as Yahoo Shopping.
2. Pay for performance. Connexity's merchant program bills on a cost-per-click basis, with a "Smart Pricing" system that adjusts the price per click based on the expected quality of the traffic, so you aren't paying a flat listing fee just to appear.
3. Research-stage visibility. Comparison shopping engines like Become target shoppers who are actively comparing prices and reading reviews before buying, which is typically a higher-intent audience than general display placements.

The most distinct mechanic of listing on Become.com is that you never submit a feed to Become directly. You create a merchant account and feed configuration with Connexity, and that single feed is what powers your listings on Become.com, Bizrate, Shopzilla and PriceGrabber simultaneously. Practically, this means:

1. You maintain one product feed and one set of category mappings, not four separate ones.
2. Feed content rules (title, description, category, image, and pricing guidelines) apply uniformly across all four sites — there's no Become-only variant to manage.
3. If your feed is rejected or flagged for quality issues, the issue is evaluated at the Connexity account level, so fixing it corrects your listings everywhere in the network at once, including Become.com.

Because Become.com listings are powered by the shared Connexity feed pipeline, the format requirements below are Connexity's documented feed specification (confirmed directly from Connexity's own merchant knowledge base), not a separate Become-only format.

1. Accepted file types are tab-, pipe-, tilde- or comma-delimited .txt or .csv files, including zipped versions; Google/Bing-formatted feeds are also accepted.
2. A tab-delimited .txt file is the preferred format.
3. Excel and XML file formats are explicitly not supported.
4. The file must include a header row with exact field names, and every line must contain the same number of delimiters as the header.
5. Supported character encodings include ASCII, Latin-1, Latin-9, UTF-8, UTF-16BE, UTF-16LE and Windows-1252, with UTF-8 preferred.
6. Feeds are delivered via FTP (Connexity's FTP host is ftp.shopzilla.com) or by submitting a hosted feed URL that Connexity fetches directly.

These are the required and optional attributes as documented in Connexity's own merchant feed specification and field template — the same fields that determine whether your products list correctly on Become.com and the rest of the Connexity network.

Because there is no separate Become-only integration, connecting to Become.com in practice means preparing a feed that meets Connexity's shared specification and submitting it through Connexity's merchant setup.

1. Feedance maps your product data (title, description, category, price, availability, condition, images and identifiers) into the delimited feed format Connexity requires, with correct field names in the header row.
2. Feedance applies the content rules Connexity enforces — no ALL CAPS or promotional language in titles/descriptions, single specific category assignment, clean numeric pricing, and valid values for condition and availability.
3. You (or Feedance, depending on your setup) submit the resulting feed to Connexity via FTP or a hosted feed URL, using your Connexity merchant account credentials.
4. Once Connexity ingests and validates the feed, your products become eligible to appear across the Connexity network, which includes Become.com, without any additional Become-specific step.
5. Feedance can keep this feed refreshed on a schedule so price, stock and promotional changes stay current across every site the feed powers.

Connexity's own merchant guidance recommends refreshing your feed multiple times per day rather than once. Reported guidance points to roughly three updates per day as the recommended cadence for keeping pricing and availability current, while a single daily update is still supported and processed automatically whenever a new file lands on the FTP server. If your prices, stock levels or promotions change frequently, a same-day refresh reduces the risk of showing stale prices or out-of-stock items to comparison shoppers on Become.com and the rest of the network.

Connexity does not publish a public list of specific error codes the way some ad platforms do, but its own merchant content guidelines make clear which mistakes cause products to be suppressed, down-ranked or rejected across Become.com and the rest of the network:

1. Promotional or all-caps text in titles/descriptions. Connexity's guidelines explicitly prohibit ALL CAPITALS, symbols, control characters, bullet points, unnecessary punctuation and promotional phrases like "Free Shipping" inside the Title and Description fields.
2. Category chosen too broadly, or more than one category. Only a single, specific category should be assigned per product — vague or overly broad category placement weakens matching and visibility.
3. Missing or wrong Availability value. Availability must be one of the four accepted values; omitting stock status is called out as a reason a product can rank lower in results.
4. Low-quality or non-compliant images. Watermarked images, placeholder images, or images outside the accepted file types/size range can prevent a listing from displaying properly.
5. Prices formatted with currency symbols or text. The Current Price and Original Price fields must contain numbers only.
6. Merchant-specific or irrelevant content in the feed. Phone numbers, billing details, or other non-product information are explicitly disallowed in product-level fields.

These are general product-feed best practices — not Connexity-specific rules — that apply well to any comparison-shopping feed, including one powering Become.com listings:

1. Write specific, keyword-relevant titles that lead with brand and product type rather than marketing language.
2. Map every product to the single most specific category available instead of a broad parent category.
3. Use clean, high-resolution primary images without watermarks, borders or promotional overlays.
4. Keep price and availability fields synchronized with your actual storefront to avoid mismatches shoppers would notice after clicking through.
5. Refresh the feed frequently enough that sales, price changes and stock-outs are reflected the same day.

1. Is Become.com still active? Yes. It remains an operating comparison-shopping site in 2026, now run as part of Taboola's Connexity division alongside Bizrate, Shopzilla and PriceGrabber.
2. Do I need a separate merchant account just for Become.com? No. There is no standalone Become.com merchant portal — you set up a merchant account and feed with Connexity, and that one feed can list your products on Become.com along with Connexity's other properties.
3. What file format does Connexity require? A delimited text file (tab, pipe, tilde or comma), typically .txt or .csv; Google-formatted feeds are also accepted. Excel and XML files are not supported.
4. How is Become.com traffic billed? Through Connexity's cost-per-click model, with a "Smart Pricing" system that adjusts the effective price per click based on expected traffic quality.
5. How often should I refresh my feed? Connexity's guidance points to several updates per day (commonly cited as around three) for best results, though daily updates are supported and processed automatically.