Affiliate Window New Extended Datafeeds

[chrisg]

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Affiliate Window are delighted to now offer extended datafeeds.

Extended datafeeds (version 1.2) offer extra information on top of what is already supplied to affiliates.

Key features include:

• aw_product_id - Affiliate Window's ID for the product.
• deep_link - The merchant's destination URL without the affiliate tracker link.
• merchant_category - The merchant's own category/categorisation structure for that product.
• delivery_cost - Cost of delivery for that product/order.

For backwards compatibility the existing feeds system/structure will remain available for the foreseeable future.

How to download the new feeds

Version 1.2 of the datafeeds is available to download manually on the 'Datafeed' page in the affiliate administration area or by URL download.

Manual download

Once the affiliate has selected the merchant's feed that they wish to download they can choose which version of datafeeds they would like to use. Beneath the list of datafeeds available is a drop down option box to choose the version of feeds that is required. Version 1.0 is the existing feed structure, version 1.2 is the new extended datafeed structure. The drop down defaults to version 1.2. Once the version number has been chosen the format of the feed can be selected and the feed downloaded.

URL download

Datafeeds can be download by URL using the following structure. This URL can be found at the bottom of the 'Datafeed' page in the affiliate administration area.

http://datafeeds.productserve.com/da...ucts.php?user=[AffiliateID]&password=[AffiliateDatafeedPassword]&mid=[all or MID]&format=[CSV|XML]&compression=[zip or nozip]&delimiter=[COMMA|PIPE|TAB]&dtd=[1.0 or 1.2]

Fields available

The following fields are included in extended datafeeds. Data will only be supplied in these fields if the merchants supplies the information to us.

merchant_id
merchant_name
aw_product_id
product_id
upc
ean
mpn
isbn
model_number
product_name
description
specifications
promotional_text
merchant_category
category_id
category_name
language
brand_name
deep_link
thumb_url
image_url
aw_deep_link
aw_thumb_url
aw_image_url
delivery_time
valid_from
valid_to
currency
search_price
store_price
rrp_price
display_price
delivery_cost
web_offer
pre_order
in_stock
stock_quantity
is_for_sale
warranty
condition
product_type
parent_product_id
commission_group
type

Please do let me know if you have any questions.

Regards

[John Jupp]

This is excellent news Chris and as a result we shall be incorporating additional fields in the category mapping section of our Datafeed Manager to roll out soon. One aspect of delivery price you need to consider is that whilst individual items command a delivery cost, orders of single multiple items or larger items worth more than say for example £30 would be delivered free with the delivery cost waived. In the merchant T's & C's in the affiliate panel I'd suggest that delivery waivers be clearly stated.

[John Jupp]

Also well done on taking up the suggestion to allow merchant own categories. These can easily be adjusted where merchants have created a category for a single product to something more useful and their categories can easily be renamed to fit into existing categories.

[John Jupp]

AND the first site set up with 1.2 using direct merchant url's with affiliate id added after using Play.com's feed can be seen at www.trulyamazing.co.uk I'll add more functionality later but more categories, better branding, clearer images and even after inserting a deeplink url and adding the extra letters to the feed url, took just five minutes to permanently reconfigure.

Cheers!

*Note for Datafeed Manager users*

Go to edit/delete networks and in the affiliate window network click edit then add http://shopwindow.affiliatewindow.co...ucts.php?user=[affid]&password=[pwd]&mid=[mid]&format=CSV&compression=&delimiter=PIPE&dtd=1.2 as the feed url and then http://www.awin1.com/awclick.php?awinmid=[mid]&awinaffid=[affid]&p= as the deepfeed prefix and then click update.

Then in merchants select a merchant and click edit then click get prefix in the deepfeed prefix and get url in the feed url and click update. Then just take your time to map the datafeed from scratch and click continue and it's then saved for ever.

[John Jupp]

Just a quick note Chris. Easyart whether it is the raw feed supplied to you or the adjusted AW feed only has art as a category, despite their site having over 30 categories.

So I've extracted their poor long description as a basis for a category display according to type and poster size. This has given me approx 200 categories in four genre.

[deadgoodundies]

Chris did these new extra fields get mentioned in any merchant newsletter??? If so we def didn't get it

[adamski]

Chris did these new extra fields get mentioned in any merchant newsletter??? If so we def didn't get it

It will be featured in the next newsletter. We wanted to let the system run for a couple of weeks before receiving an influx of new feeds.

Adam

[Donk]

Hi Chris

It's good to see the additional will be supplied in the product fields. I guess this will filter down from the merchants in due course.

I'm just updating my own product database and have a few questions.

1/ aw_product_id
Will this be consistent. ie will aw_product_id 5698201 always equate to ELC product_id 47683 and if ELC stop supplying this product will the aw_product_id be withdrawn and not used again?

2/ upc, ean, isbn
These as far as I understand are now all subsets of the Global Trade Item Number (gtin). Would it not be better to combine these fields?
Will the data in these fields be consistent ie no hyphens or spaces between blocks of digits?

3/mpn
I guess this is the manufacturers (or merchant's) part number.

4/SKU
Stock keeping units.
There is no field available for this. Would merchants therefore use the mpn?

5/ valid_from,valid_to
The dates appear to be in format yyyy-mm-dd is this correct?

6/aw_thumb_url, aw_image_url
Will these always be present (assuming you receive image info from the merchant) and will they be standard sizes?

7/product_type
Will this be a text field or numeric code. If it is text will it be consistent?
Not phone,telephone, mobile etc. from three different merchants.

8/parent_product_id
Would this be the AW or the merchant product_id.

That's enough questions for now. I'll come back with more as I think of them

[chrisg]

1/ aw_product_id
Will this be consistent. ie will aw_product_id 5698201 always equate to ELC product_id 47683 and if ELC stop supplying this product will the aw_product_id be withdrawn and not used again?

The aw_product_id is unique and will always relate to that particular product. This ID will not get re-used for another product when the product gets withdrawn. It will be resurrected if the product goes back on sale again in the future.

2/ upc, ean, isbn
These as far as I understand are now all subsets of the Global Trade Item Number (gtin). Would it not be better to combine these fields?
Will the data in these fields be consistent ie no hyphens or spaces between blocks of digits?

We have decided to not combine them. The data will be as supplied to us by the merchant. The values may include hyphens and spaces.

3/mpn
I guess this is the manufacturers (or merchant's) part number.

This is the manufacturer's part number.

4/SKU
Stock keeping units.
There is no field available for this. Would merchants therefore use the mpn?

The merchants SKU should be supplied in the product_id field.

5/ valid_from,valid_to
The dates appear to be in format yyyy-mm-dd is this correct?

This is correct.

6/aw_thumb_url, aw_image_url
Will these always be present (assuming you receive image info from the merchant) and will they be standard sizes?

They will not always be present. We will only supply an image URL if supplied to us by the merchant. Images will not be a set size. Because images are hosted by the merchant they will be the size that they offer them.

7/product_type
Will this be a text field or numeric code. If it is text will it be consistent?
Not phone,telephone, mobile etc. from three different merchants.

Product_type is used to differentiate if the product is a 'main', 'bundle' or a 'accessory' product. It will be one of those three values.

8/parent_product_id
Would this be the AW or the merchant product_id.

This is functionality to be developed in the future. It will allow a product to assign a parent product. For example if the product is a camera case then the parent product would be a digital camera. This will be the merchant's ID/SKU for the parent product.


I hope this helps. Any further questions please let me know.

[payg]

The new format is an improvement. But it would be really nice if you could keep them updated. I hereby formally request an update for the following stale data feeds:

Jeans Direct
Jewellery.tv
Joshua Thomas Ltd
JustPhones
Key-Golf.com
Letterbox
LoadsMoreStuff
LondonTheatreDirect.com
Marks and Spencer
Mattress Man
newitts
Newspapers Remembered
OfficeGiant
Pharmacy2U
Righteous & Co Limited
Sainsburys Kitchen Appliances
Savapoint
Savastore - Watford Electronics
Scottsdale Golf
Sharper Edge
Simply Swim
Sound Control Modern Music Stores Ltd
The British Museum Online Store
Totally Fitness
With and Without Wires
Alaskan Air Conditioners
Appliance Deals
Appliance-Direct.co.uk
Baby Monitors Direct
Beauty Expert
Bookplace Ltd
Boots Kitchen Appliances
Chums Ltd
Clothes Co
David Bitton Online
Designer Discount
Designer-Lingerie.com
DIY Appliance Warehouse
DIY Supply
Duty Free Perfume
Dyson Spares & Accessories
Edworthys
Gadget Pages
Gear 4 Music
Girls Bits
Go Sports Spex
Golf Products UK
Golfizus
HotelPronto.com
Inkfactory.com

All of the above are listed as "Click here to request an update". Couldn't you just automatically detect that there's a problem and then deal with it? Why do we all have to individually contact the merchant when you can see for yourselves that there's a problem?

[chrisg]

Hi payg

I will be writing an article for our merchant newsletter highlighting our new extended datafeeds and the importance of having a regularly updated feed. This will go to all merchants including the merchants mentioned above.

Some merchants product ranges do not change too often so updating feeds regularly is not required.

I will do my best to communicate the importance of up to date feeds to these and all merchants.

Regards

[Donk]

Hi Chris

Thanks for the speedy reply

A couple of follow up questions.

I assume the language code is two upper case letter code as per ISO 639-1 eg. EN,DE
and also the currency code is 3 upper case letter code as per ISO 4217 eg. GBP,EUR.

It would also be useful to known the maximum field sizes.

Regards

[chrisg]

Hi Bob

Please find the specification information in the file attached to this post.

Language Code does use ISO 639-1 and Currency Code does use ISO 4217.

Thanks