I still can't believe more merchants aren't offering datafeeds in RSS format for affiliates yet. CJ recently announced tips on exactly how to do it, so now merchants who have been afraid to take the plunge can do it more easily. I know lots of you don't read your CJ newsletters so I want to post some of the info here. 1st, so merchants can understand that affiliates DO want RSS feeds and why - here is a quote from Jeremy, a top CJ affiliate about the benefits of Audible's RSS product datafeed:
Quote:
"One of the toughest things about publishing is the effort required to keep fresh content on my 100+ sites, so using Audible's RSS feed was a no-brainer. I literally got it up and going in 15 minutes and because it requires no maintenance, it's simpler than a data feed or product catalog. I love the convenience factor of RSS - it's definitely the wave of the future."
Merchants, here is a snippet from CJ on how to create an RSS product feed. Note: this could also be used for a coupon feed so affiliates would never need to update them and you would never need to worry about expired coupons being displayed! Visit the link below for complete info.
Quote:
"How to set up your RSS feed through Commission Junction: Set up your RSS feed today by using tools like those featured at FeedBurner.com. Once you've created a feed, you must be able to deliver it in a manner compliant with Commission Junction tracking. Convert all of the links within the RSS feed to Commission Junction compliant tracking URLs. And if you need help, Commission Junction's technical services team can give you more information on how to do this... Take advantage of Commission Junction's "SmartLink" functionality to make the RSS feed content available to your publishers via the CJ Account Manager. SmartLinks are link types that allow publishers to access advertiser-hosted content (like an RSS feed) from the CJ Account Manager..."
Affiliates do you want RSS feeds? Do you use them now? Tell merchants that read this forum what you think.
__________________ Linda Buquet :: Affiliate Recruiting, Promotion & PR
The free forum support we provide is made possible by all the 5 Star programs at the top of the right sidebar & in the directory below. Please visit & support our merchants.
I think RSS feeds are a great idea... wish there were more merchants using them... there also needs to be more offered in the way of "tools" to get them onto my pages...
Being a non programer, I sometimes have difficulty using new technology to my advantage because i dont know how to write programs to make of of it...
Joe
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that's my2cents, 'cuz I'm a legend in my own mind.... :eek:
Can't wait Stephen! Where is that clapping smilie???
__________________ Linda Buquet :: Affiliate Recruiting, Promotion & PR
The free forum support we provide is made possible by all the 5 Star programs at the top of the right sidebar & in the directory below. Please visit & support our merchants.
One thing you can do is stay tuned here. I will be promoting this prodsct as soon as it's ready, and have given Stephen some advice and additions for it. Plus I'm sure he will be posting about it here as well as on his Top-Affiliate forum.
__________________ Linda Buquet :: Affiliate Recruiting, Promotion & PR
The free forum support we provide is made possible by all the 5 Star programs at the top of the right sidebar & in the directory below. Please visit & support our merchants.
That sounds great, Linda. I think I need to make your forum one of my "regular" stops during the day. I've been busy creating 'portal sites' and need to get back into the affiliate game in a bigger way so I can stop relying on Adsense so much.
By the way, hope you don't mind me asking this in this post but can you recommend a good merchants for pearl jewelry, hopefully Mikimoto style?
Oh man, I've posted so much stuff about affiliate RSS datafeeds all over this forum, on my blog and on other forums too. Just had not updated this old thread. Thanks for letting me know I come up. Oh Wow, I come up #1 too.
Here are some important blogs I've written with new products for datafeed to RSS conversion and other RSS datafeed articles.
__________________ Linda Buquet :: Affiliate Recruiting, Promotion & PR
The free forum support we provide is made possible by all the 5 Star programs at the top of the right sidebar & in the directory below. Please visit & support our merchants.
While you are waiting for a new tool to come up, play with Joomla and its add-ons - completely free.
It has a built-in RSS Newsfeeds aggregator. Other CMSs also come with built-in aggregators. Joomla is free and comes with many Linux hosts who offer cPanel with Fantastico.
For example, I have an eBay RSS feed that keeps one page updated automatically. In theory I could have a thousand such pages on the site.
I went to eBay and did an Advanced Search and clicked the affiliate tracking information link and entered my CJ PID. Then I did the search and clicked the RSS icon, which gave me a URL such as (I have edited the Aff id with 9s in the example): http://rss.api.ebay.com/ws/rssapi?Fe...&fss=0&saatc=1
I entered this in Joomla's Newsfeed item URL field and enabled it in a menu, and that's it. The example is on my site, as is one from Amazon and Yahoo news.
CJ RSS Datafeeds
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