Easy Content Units - Fully Customisable, Multi-Network Content Units

[John]

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After what seems like an eternity of beta testing (ok, three months) behind closed doors, I’ve finally been given the green light to launch a public beta version of our brand new Content Unit system. And what a system it is - Easy Content Units is the UK’s first multi-network, fully customisable Content Unit system. With more than 2.5 million products across the ten main UK affiliate networks, it’s really simple price comparison content unit to make fantastic looking Content Units, comprising deeplinks to products from multiple merchants, across multiple networks in the same unit, containing in-stock items and up-to-date prices.

With the current financial climate, customers in 2009 are going to be ever more price-conscious. People easy content unitswill still shop online, they will just shop around more for the best deal. Those whose TV blew up in 2008 would have nipped down to Dixons and staggered home with the largest LCD they could carry. If the same happens this year, people will be more likely to go online, and find out who’d selling the cheapest LCD TV - If you can offer them all the prices on your site, then they’re a lot less likely to look elsewhere, and you close the deal - fab!

Which is exactly what Easy Content Units allows you to do - you can create Price Comparison content units (just add the same product from different retailers into a unit), and put those units on any webpage - If you know how to use a mouse and copy & paste, then you can have Price Comparison units on your site in minutes.

But that’s not all - You can showcase a particular merchant’s best sellers, highlight entire product ranges, similar products (why not cross-sell movie merchandise on a DVD site?)

The system is designed to be easy to use (it’s so easy, even I can use it!) - you simply search for products, and then tick the ones you want to add to your unit. Once you’ve got all the products you want, you can then customise your unit - And I mean customise! You can specify how much (or how little) information is displayed, change the height/width to fit your site exactly, change colour schemes, borders, add custom tracking IDs, add a title, Buy Now buttons and more. And your unit will update automatically - any changes you make on the ECU control panel will be reflected automatically on your site - you don’t need to change the code at all.

Best of all, we’ve made Easy Content Units completely free to use - The site works on an 80/20 split system, so the content units show your links 80% of the time, and our links the remaining 20%. However, any a4u member who joins Easy Content Units before the end of the month and puts a unit live can have a little bonus - a 90/10 split in your favour. Just PM me with your ECU username once you’ve put your first unit live, and I’ll put you live on the better split.

ECU has been many, many months in development and testing has been hard work at times, so I’d like to publicly thank Stu, our main Web Dev guy who basically built the system from scratch, and also remind him that the hard work still lies ahead - This is very much version 1.0.0, and we’ve got some huge, easy content unitshuge plans for ECU which we’ll be unveiling throughout 2009 - we’d really appreciate any feedback on the system (particularly any bugs or issues) that you may have - there is a support feature within ECU, but obviously you can grab me through the normal channels too.

We’ve really worked our asses off on this system, so hopefully you’ll find it useful! I’ve included a few examples of units below so you can see the different look and feel that can be achieved very quickly and easily with Easy Content Units - Please note they’re not the actual units themselves - these are simply images, so the links won’t work (and there’s a spot-prize for the first person to spot the deliberate mistake on one of the units!)

[Elaine]

I had one of these lovely little babies up and running in 10 minutes - they are that easy - I am Waaaaaaaay impressed. :tup

[Shane]

Nice one John.. yet again another useful bit of kit from the Lammo stable .. no doubt plenty will have thought about doing something like this but not got around to it/ had the stones... so kudos for getting stuck in and developing it.. good luck with it

[Keith]

I have written for my own use mainly a wordpress plugin for Easy Content Units, it doesn't do a great deal but does in my opinion make embedding them into a post just a tad easier, more details here Easy Content Units Wordpress Plugin

If you have a play with it feel free to rip it apart and improve on it, however if you do let me know.

[ContentBoss]

That's a way cool plugin, Keith. I'll have a play with it, and let you know. Obviously, we have customers running THOUSANDS of wp blogs - typically just to provide backlinks to their real sites. This looks like a way to make the end destination 'just another wordpress site' as easily as plugging in adsense!

[stu-art]

Most impressive - particularly like the look of the little price comparison unit. Will have a good look.

[dougs]

John

You any example sites?

Doug

[ContentBoss]

who you talking to, Doug?

[3wdl]

Looks great John, well done

[Jason]

Hi Doug

I think John must be away at the mo, we have a few demos available where you can see the types of uses you can employ the units:

Range of Halfords products
Mens Shirts from a variety of merchants
Range of garden fountains from one merchant
Nike Slingshot range of golf products
Price comparison basic unit for World of Warcraft Battlechest

These examples are live but not "clickable", Keith has given permission for us to use one of his sites as a live example - Smock Top ideal for your beach holiday | Beach Clothing

We will be putting together a showcase page once permission has been sought from site owners.

If you have any questions or suggestions feel free to contact me by email/msn jason [at] bigideamedia [dot] com

[dvdbargains]

Hi Jason,

Thanks very much for the message, more than impressed with what I have seen.

Do the content units automatically self update and reflect price changes on an ongoing basis?? For example if somebody had a product at £15.99 and then put it on sale at £9.99, thus becoming the cheapest, would the content unit then reflect this merchant at the top???

Thanks.

[John]

Hi Jason,

Thanks very much for the message, more than impressed with what I have seen.

Do the content units automatically self update and reflect price changes on an ongoing basis?? For example if somebody had a product at £15.99 and then put it on sale at £9.99, thus becoming the cheapest, would the content unit then reflect this merchant at the top???

Thanks.

Hi there,

Yup, that's exactly how Easy Content Units works - The prices (and other information) update once every 24 hours for each merchant, and the changes are instantly reflected in your Content Units.

Should any products go out of stock, or are removed from the merchant's site as part of this update, we'll also drop you an email to let you know.

Hope that helps - Please don't hesitate to shout if you have any questions at all

[dvdbargains]

I would want to feature all the DVD/video game merchants from the top affiliate sites (Aff Window, Aff Future, Tradedoubler, Webgains, Buy.at, Commision Junction, OMG and also Amazon) meaning around 30 retailers in all. (Assuming you can integrate Amazon Associates?)

Could I set out one template, for regular usage, and the simply change the unit I want it to feature?? For eg. first up could be a Rambo DVD, next could be COD 4 on PS3 etc.

If it is capable of that then I am in!! 20% affiliated to you is a bargain :tup

Thanks.

[John]

Amazon is coming - we're working on integrating it as we speak - without getting too technical, it means re-writing the entire system to seamlessly integrate - I can't give a defniate timescale on this, but I will be pushing for it as soon as possible, as I know everyone's itching to get Amazon on there.

Regarding Templates, yup, this is already possible. Jsut choose your template name when creating a unit, and all your settings will be saved for future units.

[dvdbargains]

Sounds good, just a shame about Amazon. Could you make a note and give me a shout when Amazon is integrated if I sign up to the service??

Also (last but not least!) the million dollar questions that have to be asked!!

1 - How secure is your site as sign up requires me to input all my affiliate ID's

and

2 - Do I get any assurances regards the 80-20% split in my favour??

Thanks again (sorry to be a pain!!)