Free Clicks from Google Shopping - The Hidden Whitelabel CSS Benefit
Every Google Shopping ad displays a small "By [CSS Name]" attribution that is clickable. When someone clicks that link instead of the product listing, they land on the CSS's comparison shopping website. Without your own whitelabel CSS, those clicks go to a third-party site you do not control. With whitelabel, they come to you. Industry data from Adstrong suggests approximately 3% of total Shopping clicks go to the "By" link. At scale, that is thousands of free, purchase-intent clicks every month.
How "By [CSS Name]" Clicks Work
Google Shopping ads in European markets contain a small attribution line below each product listing. This line reads "By" followed by the name of the CSS that submitted the product data. The text is displayed in a smaller font beneath the product image, price, and merchant name.
This attribution is not just text. It is a clickable link. When a user clicks on "By [CSS Name]" instead of clicking on the product listing itself, they are directed to the CSS's comparison shopping website. Google requires every CSS to operate a comparison shopping site as part of the certification requirements, and this "By" link is the mechanism that connects Shopping ads to those comparison sites.
The click behaviour breaks down into three categories:
- Product clicks (majority): The user clicks on the product listing, which takes them to the merchant's website. This is the standard click that the merchant pays for.
- "By" clicks (~3%): The user clicks on the CSS attribution, which takes them to the CSS's comparison shopping website. This click is free for the merchant.
- No click: The user views the listing but does not click. This counts as an impression only.
The key insight is that "By" clicks are entirely free. The merchant does not pay for them. Google does not charge for them. They are organic clicks that happen naturally as a byproduct of Shopping ad visibility. And they go directly to whatever comparison shopping website is associated with the CSS.
Who Gets These Clicks?
Without whitelabel CSS, the "By" clicks go to your CSS provider's comparison site. With Cobiro Whitelabel, they go to your branded comparison site, hosted on your domain. You control the experience, the content, and the monetisation of that traffic.
The Numbers at Scale
Three percent sounds like a small number. At the scale of a typical agency's Shopping campaign portfolio, it translates into significant traffic volume.
A mid-size e-commerce client generating 10,000 Shopping ad clicks per month contributes roughly 300 "By" clicks to the CSS comparison site. Individually, that is modest. Across a portfolio of clients, the numbers compound rapidly.
| Portfolio Size | Total Shopping Clicks/Month | "By" Clicks (~3%) | Annual "By" Clicks |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 clients | 100,000 | 3,000 | 36,000 |
| 25 clients | 250,000 | 7,500 | 90,000 |
| 50 clients | 500,000 | 15,000 | 180,000 |
| 100 clients | 1,000,000 | 30,000 | 360,000 |
An agency with 50 clients receives approximately 15,000 free clicks per month, or 180,000 per year. An agency with 100 clients receives 30,000 free clicks per month, or 360,000 per year. These visitors did not come from a paid campaign. They did not come from an SEO effort. They arrived because they were actively shopping on Google and clicked through to your comparison site.
To understand what this traffic would cost if you had to buy it, consider that Google Shopping CPC in European markets typically ranges from EUR 0.15 to EUR 0.60. At an average of EUR 0.30 per click, 15,000 monthly clicks would cost EUR 4,500 to acquire through paid advertising. At 30,000 clicks, that is EUR 9,000 per month in equivalent traffic value.
Traffic Value
At 50 clients, your free "By" clicks represent approximately EUR 4,500 per month (EUR 54,000 per year) in equivalent paid traffic. At 100 clients, that doubles to EUR 9,000 per month (EUR 108,000 per year). This traffic grows automatically as you add clients and as existing clients increase their Shopping activity.
What to Do with the Traffic
The visitors who click the "By" link land on your comparison shopping website. This site, which is required by Google as part of CSS certification, displays products from your clients' catalogues in a comparison shopping format. Visitors can browse products, compare prices across merchants, and click through to individual stores to make purchases.
Product Comparison and Click-Through
The primary function of the comparison site is to show products. Visitors see listings from your clients, often alongside similar products from other merchants. When a visitor clicks through from your comparison site to a merchant's store and makes a purchase, that represents a completed transaction that originated from your CSS operation.
Some agencies monetise these click-throughs directly through affiliate arrangements with their clients. Others simply track the traffic as an added benefit that strengthens the client relationship. Either way, the comparison site provides measurable value by driving additional purchase-intent visitors to your clients' stores at no cost to either party.
Lead Generation for Agency Services
Your comparison site is branded with your agency name and identity. Every visitor sees your brand. A percentage of those visitors are not just consumers but e-commerce professionals, including store owners, marketing managers, and agency decision-makers who are researching products in their own categories.
By including subtle agency branding elements and a "services" or "for merchants" link on your comparison site, you create a passive lead generation channel. Visitors who are impressed by the quality and breadth of your comparison site may inquire about your agency services. This is particularly effective because these leads are self-qualifying: they are already in the e-commerce space and have seen tangible proof of your capabilities.
Agencies that optimise their comparison sites for lead generation report that it becomes one of their most cost-effective lead sources within 6 to 12 months, generating 5 to 15 qualified leads per month at zero acquisition cost.
Affiliate Revenue
Some comparison sites generate direct revenue through affiliate programmes. When a visitor clicks from the comparison site to a merchant's store and completes a purchase, the comparison site earns an affiliate commission. While this is typically not a primary revenue driver for agency-operated CSS comparison sites, it provides a supplementary income stream that can offset platform costs.
The SEO Opportunity
Your comparison shopping website is not a static brochure. It is a dynamic, product-rich website that continuously adds new content as your clients' product catalogues change. Over time, this creates significant SEO value.
Product Data as Content
Every product listing on your comparison site is a page of content. Each product has a title, description, price, images, and category information. Search engines index this content, and over time, your comparison site begins to rank for long-tail product queries. A comparison site with 50 clients and 50,000 products has 50,000 pages of product content, each targeting specific product-related search terms.
Organic Traffic Growth
The organic traffic to your comparison site starts slowly but compounds over months. In the first few months, Google is indexing your pages and establishing your site's authority. By month 6 to 12, you typically begin to see meaningful organic traffic for product-specific queries. By year two, well-optimised comparison sites can receive more organic traffic than "By" click traffic.
This organic traffic is highly valuable because it is purchase-intent by nature. People searching for specific product names, model numbers, and price comparisons are actively looking to buy. Your comparison site provides exactly what they are looking for: a side-by-side view of products and prices from multiple merchants.
Compounding Asset
The comparison site is a compounding digital asset. It starts with "By" click traffic from your CSS clients, then builds organic search visibility over time. After 12 to 18 months, the site generates traffic from both sources, creating a diversified and growing traffic base that increases in value every month. For more on building an effective comparison site, see our comparison website guide.
What Happens Without Whitelabel CSS
It is worth being explicit about what agencies give up when they use a standard CSS instead of whitelabel.
When your clients run Shopping ads through a third-party CSS, the "By" attribution displays the provider's brand name. Every "By" click goes to the provider's comparison shopping website. The provider captures the traffic, the SEO value, the lead generation potential, and any affiliate revenue that comes from those clicks.
Your agency gets none of it. Zero clicks. Zero traffic. Zero leads. Zero SEO value. You are effectively generating free traffic for someone else's website as a byproduct of campaigns you manage for your own clients.
This is not a small sacrifice. Over the lifetime of a client relationship, the cumulative "By" clicks that go to a third-party comparison site can number in the tens of thousands. The SEO value of having those products indexed under your domain rather than someone else's grows more significant with each passing month.
Switching to whitelabel CSS redirects all of that value to your own branded comparison site from day one. There is no transition period. As soon as your clients are on your whitelabel CSS, every "By" click comes to you.
Capturing Your Free Traffic
Setting up whitelabel CSS with Cobiro includes the creation of your branded comparison shopping website. The site is built on your domain, carries your branding, and is configured to receive the "By" click traffic from all your clients' Shopping ads.
The comparison site goes live as part of the CSS setup process. Once Google approves your CSS and you begin onboarding clients, the free traffic starts flowing immediately. There is no additional configuration or investment required to begin capturing "By" clicks.
To maximise the value of this traffic over time, consider these steps:
- Ensure your comparison site is well-designed and fast. First impressions matter. Visitors who land on a professional, well-organised comparison site are more likely to engage, click through to merchants, and return.
- Add agency branding and service information. Include a clear link to your agency services so that e-commerce professionals who visit your comparison site can learn about your offering.
- Monitor your traffic analytics. Track "By" click volume, visitor behaviour, and conversion paths. This data helps you optimise the comparison site and demonstrate its value to clients.
- Optimise for SEO. Ensure product pages have unique descriptions, proper meta tags, and clean URL structures to maximise organic search visibility over time.
Ready to get started? See our Getting Started guide for a step-by-step walkthrough of the whitelabel CSS setup process, including Google's requirements and client onboarding. For a broader view of all whitelabel benefits, return to the Benefits overview.