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Affiliate Product Data Feeds Resources, Affiliate Network Services Documentations, Guides and Articles


This page was created to provide you with the resources needed for a successful affiliate data feed integration. The data feed resources are targeted to affiliates and advertisers alike.

If you are new to data feeds, you might want to read my comprehensive article:
Merchant Product Data feeds for Affilates - 101 (extended 9/2006). It is geared towards merchants, but from an affiliate point of view. It is in my opinion useful for people on "both sides of the fence".

The next paragraph has additional references to other articles about the same subject. Chances are good that things in one article that are not 100% clear to you, are explained differently and more understandable in another. It's no easy subject and very technical, but not rocket science either. You can do it!

If you are looking for information to price comparison shopping search engine data feeds, check these resources instead.

Table of Contents


Data feed Resources, Articles and Guides


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If you are a newbie and don't know where to start and what decisions to make regarding datafeeds and also want to know what requirements you have to meet in order to work with feeds properly, then you might want to check out this forum thread. It is a bit long and a lot of noise around it. I want to take my responses from there and write up something cleaner. I just did not have the time to do that yet though. :)

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Data Feed Management For Merchants


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Providing Data Feeds via Affiliate Networks


LogoDescription
AvantLink - Data feed Manager - Affiliate network build around datafeeds. Free datafeed access for affiliates. Three data feed options are available 1) Raw Data feed , 2) Dynamic, 100% Customizable, SEO-Friendly Product Management Tool, 3) simple JavaScript Plug-In. Coupon datafeeds (RSS support) are also available.
Commission Junction (CJ) affiliate network with "Big Catalog" product database feature with access to the merchant product data via web, data feed files via FTP and HTTP via web services. See the "Affiliate Network Specific Implementation Guides and Documentations" section below for implementation guides of product data feeds into CJ, for advertisers and for affiliates.
Linkshare (LS) Merchandiser Service is the data feed management platform of the Linkshare affiliate network. You can also find implementation guides and other Merchandiser Service resources further down below.

Most networks today provide the ability to make product datafeeds available to publishers. You can learn about the networks that offer data feeds and were not mentioned above in the sections further down below.

Independent Data Feed Solution and Service Providers


Affiliate Program Tools by Finon Corporation, an affiliate data feed management and delivery tools suite for merchants. Five tools in one product: 1. External Datafeed Manager allows complete feed management, 2. Product Display Maker, to create customized HTML-based displays of any and all products from your datafeed, 3. Direct Link Maker, 4. Search Link Maker and 5. Search Form Maker. The cost for the solution is only $99/mo and includes hosting and support.

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Affiliate Product Data feeds Tools and Services


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Easy to use "Plug-Ins" and "Widgets"


LogoDescription
DataFeedFile.com (DFF) aggregates hundreds of datafeeds. Provides various tools to affiliates to utilize the data from Javascript Plugins to xml feeds. Contextual matching, category matching, merchant matching, coupons are only a few of the features of DFF. Also check out the DFF Blog by founder and CEO Andrew Nurcahya.
GoldenCAN is an affiliate product data feed, coupon and search integration solution for publishers and advertisers. Golden Can was the first successful service of this kind when it was founded by Asif Malik in May 2005. It remains to this day one of the leaders in providing easy access to product data to the average affiliate.
Product Showcase Creator - creates affiliate-link encoded product showcases. The tool was developed by Akiva Bergstrom in 2003 to provide simple means to affiliates for creating basic product showcases based on a merchants affiliate datafeed.

The tool does nothing else and does not provide any of the advanced features the other services mentioned here provide, but it is straight forward, free and does not require an account with them to generate your showcases.
PopShop.com - easy to generate mini shops and widgets for your site, feed or blog. PopShop lists over 750 merchants with over eight million products across the three leading affiliate networks CJ, LinkShare and ShareASale (more will follow). The interface is easy to use and true Web 2.0 style (Prototype).

Output options range from JavaScript snippets, classic ASP and PHP code, XML, RSS, TypePad or Blogger widget and more. The basic version is free (no "click sharing"), paid versions offer additional features including white label results.

I did a write-up of the PopShops.com features at ReveNews.com in June 2007. Some things probably changed since then, but it still provides a good overview of the service in general. Founders and Execs of PopShops.com are Jessie Jones (CEO), Angel Djambazov (Marketing), Dan Harms (Dev) and Eric Artzt.
FeedShare is an affiliate data feed distribution system. FeedShare provides JavaScript and PHP Storefronts, access to raw (but normalized) data feeds in CSV or XML format and also coupon feeds via web API.

FeedShare does currently provide access to over 140 merchant product data feeds and this number keeps growing. FeedShare is owned by Lushann Web Technologies, LLC and was originally created by Alan Jeric.

Site Builder Tools and Scripts based on Data Feeds


LogoDescription
Datafeed Studio by Martin Wood from the UK is a server based solution in PHP to manage your datafeeds, their download from the networks and other sources and normalization for the use on your affiliate websites. It only cost about $150, which is less than some affiliate networks charge for the access to their datafeeds.

Optional services are also provided (details), including setup of the software on your web servers, development of custom parsers for a currently unsupported datafeeds and integration into a Wordpress blog installation etc.
MyDataFeedScripts provides affiliate product data feed driven template sites for affiliates for a one-time fee of about $99 per script. Some feeds are available for a special low price ranging between $19.95 and $85 per feed.

The scripts were developed by a guy who calls himself "The Doctor". The site does currently only accept PayPal as payment method.
FreeDynamicTemplates.com by Evgenii "Geno" Prussakov, AM Navigator. Some free dynamic product datafeed templates for affiliates.
FeedProcessor.com is a service that converts product datafeeds into content-rich affiliate websites easy and quickly. FeedProcessor.com is a web based application and service and does not provide dynamic scripts for developers.
FindItFastGold.com provides tools to build your own software catalogs for your site from a wide range of products that are available via the RegNow and RegSoft affiliate networks. RegNow and RegSoft are owned by Digital River.

Feed Processing Scripts and Desktop Tools


LogoDescription
WebMerge by Fourth World Media Corporation allows you to publish datafeeds with templates from any HTML editor on any web server, fast.
Cusimano.com Scripts - Tools to Boost your Affiliate Sales - Cusimano.com provides easy to use tools for webmasters to increase affiliate sales.
Scripts4YourSite.com aka Recycled Talent - Scripts specifically for internet/affiliate marketing and e-commerce functionality. Coupon and RSS News scripts.
AffiliStore - build and maintain multi-page websites directly from merchant product feeds. Requires Linux hosting, MySQL and PHP. A free "teaser" version is available for download and testing.
Datafeed Extractor by AffiliateWebsiteTools.com is a small Windows tool that allows you to extract only the product records you want from the various affiliate product data feeds. The tool does not support the download of feeds and can only process files from the local hard drive, but is there able to process even the largest feeds that are available. You can try the tool free for 30 days or 100 runs (whatever comes first).

Data Feeds 2 Feeds Tools and Services


DynamiFeeds - Simplify, automate and empower datafeed affiliate marketing! Dynamic RSS affiliate data feeds (currently in beta)

Data Feeds Support Tools


Affiliate Data Cleaner, a free Tool by AMWSO that allows affiliates to clean up merchant Data feeds of unwanted HTML, special characters, hidden carriage returns and other junk that can create havoc in data.

Coupon Data Feeds


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Network Tools and 3rd Party Coupon Feeds


ForMeToCoupon.com is a coupon feed aggregator service that agreegates deals and coupons from over 1,700 merchants into one single feed for you, to be used for your website or service. The service is commercial but a free trial is available upon request.
ShareASale Deals Database XML feed with current promotions and coupons for ShareASale advertisers.
Coupon Feed Syndication (RSS and more) - Note: You must be logged in to Avantlink in order to make this link work. Powered by AvantLink affiliate network, Also available "Deal of the Day" Feed.
Orange Links - promotional links data feeds via FTP by the Google Affiliate Network, formerly known as DoubleClick Perfomics
Promotional Links Data feed Feed by Commission Junction. See CJ transfer guide for publishers below for technical details and implementation.
Link Locator Web Service by LinkShare provides API access to coupons, hot products, free shipping and other promotions for participating merchants. See the Link Locator Web Services documentations and resources below for details.

Also: Information to Link Locator Direct at the LinkShare.com website. LinkLocator Direct Publisher Guidelines and Sample Source Code for ASP.NET () for developers.
Pepperjam Network provides customizable coupon datafeeds via HTTP in RSS format (with custom tags) and in delimted format.

Notes to RSS feed version: The RSS feed uses a custom tag "coupon_code", which contains the promotion code or coupon code, where it is available, but no tag for the begin or expiration date/time of the promotion. This information is only included in text format within the "description" tag and hard to impossible to parse automatically, which makes the RSS version only feasible for real-time useage and not for the import into a custom database application.
OneNetworkDirect by Digital Riverk provides coupon feeds to affiliates in XML, CSV, TAB or PIPE delimited format and RSS as well. See my article Data Feeds Provided to Affiliates by OneNetworkDirect by Digital River for more information.


Coupon Feeds by Affiliates


Note, the feeds are not ready for direct use as an affiliate. You have replace the links that are provided with the feeds with your own affiliate links.

  • - RSS feed with the latest online coupons by MyCoupons.com.
  • - dealnews - 20 most recent deals.
  • - dealnews - Most popular deals.
  • - dealnews - Today's Edition
  • - Hippyshopper
  • - More Stuff 4 Less Bargain Blog
  • - SlickDeals.net
  • - Techbargains.com
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Affiliate Network Specific Implementation Guides and Documentations


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Commission Junction Guides


For Publishers/Affiliates


  • WebServices.CJ.com - CJ's FREE web services for publishers and advertisers. signup, documentations, resources, forums and source codes.
  • CJ Transfer Guide for Publishers (PDF) transaction and commission report, product and promotional links datafeed feed configuration and delivery options

For Advertisers/Merchants


  • CJ Advanced Links Tutorial and URL Encoding for adverisers/merchants and OPMs to be able to easily create CJ tracking links to product pages or any other page, yourself or by your affiliates themselves. It is not required to have the CJ product catalog feature enabled for this. You could use this to provide your own data feed directly to your affiliates, free of charge and outside of the Commission Junction network.
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Linkshare Merchandiser Program/Resources


For Advertisers/Merchants


  • Linkshare Integration Guide for merchants version 5.1 (c)2005
  • Sales Reporting Web Services for advertisers allows reporting of transaction data back to the LinkShare network in real-time, without the delay caused by using the existing batch feed feature. I don't have any documentation available for this feature. If you have one that you could send to me, please contact me.

For Publishers/Affiliates - Merchandiser Services


For Publishers/Affiliates - Merchandiser (Services) Query Tool Web Services


The LinkShare Merchandiser Query tool allows you to query for links to links to products using a keyword search.
  • Linkshare Merchandiser Query Tool API - User Guide for the REST based web service to access product data from merchants who participate in the LinkShare Merchandiser program.
  • Merchandiser Query API Sample Source Code for web developers. Sample Source Code is available for the programming languages ASP.NET (download in format) and for PHP (download code in format).

For Publishers/Affiliates - Link Locator Web Services


LinkShares Link Locator web services allows access to merchant links for affiliates via an API.
The Link Locator service groups merchant links into multiple categories: coupons, hot products, logos, promotion/general, free shipping and best converting. LinkShare distinguishes between two distinct Link Locator Web Services.
  • LinkLocator Direct I allows you to download a list of promotional ads, like banners with LinkLocator Direct II allows you to download a list of any of the ads available to link to a Web site.
  • LinkLocator Direct II allows you to download a list of any of the ads available to link to a Web site.
Resources for the LinkLocator I and LinkLocator II Web Services by LinkShare.

For Publishers/Affiliates - Automated LinkGenerator Web Services


The LinhShare Automated LinkGenerator allows you to build deep links to any product page on the advertiser website.

For Publishers/Affiliates - Easy Links


Formerly known as "Targeted Merchandiser Web Services API". This web service is LinkShare's attempt to get into the contextual advertising business. The API is very limited though. I will publish a review of it soon. In the meantime, here is a local copy of the V1.0 of their implementation guidelines for this new API.

For Publishers/Affiliates - General Resources


I have local copies of all guides and documents from the networks above as backup on my server. If one or the other link to those documents at the affiliate networks website becomes invalid for whatever reason, please contact me and I will send you a link to it. Carsten.

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Google Affiliate Datafeed Marketing


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ShareASale Product Datafeed and XML Dealsfeed


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Other Networks


LogoDescription
Zanox Worldwide Datafeeds - International and US merchants at the Zanox affiliate network who offer datafeeds. The Zanox data feeds can be accessed from within the Zanox affiliate interface. Access to product information is also available via their web services API.
ClickXChange.com Datafeed Merchants - List of merchants at the ClickXChange.com affiliate network who offer datafeeds to their affiliates.
AvantLink Affiliate Tools datafeed manager, dynamic product showcase, custom link builder, dynamic coupon feed and coupon feed syndication provided by the AvantLink.com affiliate network.
Pepperjam Network Feeds - PPJN provides customizable delimted product and coupon datafeeds via HTTP and an interactive store builder tool for affiliate publishers.
Dark Blue Content Feeds Primer, here at Cumbrowski.com, for the data feeds format and access of the small affiliate network called DarkBlue.com available here at Cumbrowski.com.
Kolimbo Raw Product Feeds Guide, here at Cumbrowski.com, for the raw datafeeds of the Kolimbo network by Inuvo, Inc. (formerly known as Kowabunga Technologies) for their MyAffiliateProgram merchant partners.
oneNetwork Affiliate Datafeed Tool for oneNetwork and RegNow affiliates. The tool allows affiliates to integrate products via simple JavaScript code, PHP or ASP/ASP.NET templates, XML feed or CSV feed file.

The content of the feed(s) can be restricted by various filters, including product category, vendor and keywords. Additional layout options are available for the JavaScript and templates implementations.
Data Feeds Provided to Affiliates by OneNetworkDirect by Digital River, a guide written by Carsten Cumbrowski about the varous available feeds, their formats, options and things to watch out for.
LinkConnector Datafeeds Primer here at Cumbrowski.com, an unofficial documentation for the affiliate product data feeds provided by the small affiliate network LinkConnector. They offer product feeds for about 40+ of their merchants is CSV format.
ClickBank Marketplace Feed Feed File (about 3 MB). The ClickBank Marketplace Feed is a XML file (about 18 MB in size) compressed with ZIP. It only changes once per day, so you do not have to download the file multiple times per day. The file format is not RSS. The definition of the XML file can be found in the .DTD file, which is also included in the ZIP archive together with the XML product feed file. Also see the Marketplace FAQ at the ClickBank website.

There are several tools available for the Click Bank Marketplace Feed. One example is the ClickBank Feed Generator.
DatafeedExamples.com (ConverseonFeeds.com) provides product datafeeds and resources for affiliates of programs that are managed by the outsourced program management company (OPM) Converseon.


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Affiliate Program APIs and Webservices


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LogoDescription
Amazon.com Webservices, also known as AWS is a collection of web service for several services provided by Amazon.com for webmasters, web developers and marketers, including an API for Amazon.com affiliates to tap into the millions of products sold at the Amazon.com website. (See AWS Details at Cumbrowski.com)

Amazon operates their own in-house associate program and is not using one of the large networks. To be able to generate commission via your application that is based on the product related web services of Amazon, visit their partner homepage at associates.amazon.com and apply for a publisher account.
eBay Developer Program provides access to the eBay web services API and editor toolkit for eBay affiliates and software developers to build custom applications that leverage the vast amount of products available at the eBay marketplace that provide value to users and let you earn commission at the same time.

eBay moved their affiliate program from Commission Junction in-house. In order to earn commissions by using the eBay developer network tools and services, you must apply as publisher to their new partner program at eBayPartnerNetwork.com.
WebServices.CJ.com - CJ's free web services for publishers and advertisers. Signup and access documentations, resources, developer forums and examples of reusable source code.
LinkShare Web Services Overview at the affiliates resources center at LinkShare.com. Information to LinkShare's Merchandiser Services Query Tool API, Link Locator Web Services and Automated LinkGenerator Web Services.

For more information and list of web services provided by LinkShare, see the section of LinkShare services above.
Zanox Developer Kit (ZDK) (login required) provides access and information to the zanox Webservice API (For an overview and registration click here).

You are able to access product data via the zanox Web Services API, which also provides access to merchant information and reporting data, such as transaction details.

Zanox was an early adopter of web services technology providing a full-fletched API (non-beta) since early 2005. Their API is mature, reliable and robust and improved over the years.
Affili.net Developer Portal - Affili.net is a European affiliate network and not active in the United States or Canada yet. They provide extensive data to their publishers via their web services API and feeds. Program and Link information for advertisers, product data and also extensive reporting data are accessible via their API.

The developer portal site provides detailed specifications, documentation, sample source codes, test tools and a developers online forum to support publishers, who want to utilize the available interfaces to automate recurring administrative and maintenance tasks. They also provide a test environment to test applications prior the use in the production environment.

Other networks should have a look at the Affili.net Developer Portal and learn from them, how to do it right.
DR OneRiver Web Services API for affiliates provides access to advertiser details and reporting data via a SOAP/WSDL web services interface. See the brief documentation of the web service here on the site.
Clickbank API provides the ability of integrating automated and real-time transaction notifications by ClickBank via their web services API.


Out-of-the-Box Scripts


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LogoDescription
zip archive Youtube Ebay Amazon Mashup Affiliate site script (PHP code) by Mark Wielgus from 45n5.com (now DigitalProductReporter.com). The script is free and was released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. See details and a 10 min video that explains how it works. It uses the Amazon, Ebay and YouTube APIs and you require for each of them an API key (free).

Download Source Code (ZIP)

Update! The script is not compatible as is with the new YouTube API and the new eBay in-house program. Mark stated that he does not plan to update the script in the near future, but you can use the script and modify it to make it work again, if you'd like to. It is still better than starting from scratch.

Associate-O-Matic is a PHP script collection to build web stores based on Amazon.coms web services API for their affiliates. The free version of the script replaces your Amazon Associate ID with theirs for every 10th click, lacks some SEO features and RSS feed option, the ability to completely white label your site and to host the shopping cart by yourself without redirecting the users to the Amazon.com website.

The paid version has all those features and for $90 for the first year and $20 per year there after, is the paid version a bargain.

You require a Linux hosting service with Apache, PHP and MySQL Server in order to be able to install Associate-o-Matic.

More APIs including search engine APIs, blog and blog services APIs as well as other web development resources can be found at my web development resources and web services resources pages.

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