Thread: CJ Product exports

I've been trying to find a way to do just that. Not got anywhere so far, but will post details if I do.

Cheers

Rennie

You just need to ask

Found this in the Commission Junction help:

Product Data Feed
Commission Junction's product catalog functionality enables publishers to access detailed information on thousands of advertiser products for use on their sites. In addition to accessing individual product links within the Commission Junction Account Manager, qualifying publishers can receive a scheduled data feed from our Data Transfer system containing product data that has been uploaded into our system by advertisers. Examples of publishers who would typically use this data would be online shopping malls, comparison sites, portals, or review/rating sites.

Publishers may customize their feed to contain product information from specific advertisers whose programs they have joined. Whenever an advertiser makes changes to an existing catalog, those changes will be reflected in a subsequent publisher feed. A typical application of the product data would be making it available for Web site queries. These queries would result in product listings that link directly to an advertiser's product information page.

Commission Junction supports a number of data format and transfer method options for setting up a product data export "subscription", which determines the specifications for data transfer. Please follow the instructions below to contact Technical Support (TS) for more information:

1. Select "Ask a Question" in the "Support" drop-down menu at the top right of your Account Manager.

2. Once in the question interface, select the "Linking" category and the "Product Links" subcategory.

I enquired about this. Either you have to make $10,000 a month or they charge you $200 for this facility.
Here's part of the email I got
In order for us to integrate Product Data functionality for your Commission Junction publisher account free of charge, the account must have earned $10,000 in revenue for one month within our network. If you do not meet this criteria, a $200 one-time set-up fee will be required for access. From now through the end of March 2003, Commission Junction will waive this initial set-up charge. This integration fee is applied for the initial implementation of Product Catalog data transfer functionality and will be charged at the end of March 2003 if the $10,000 criteria is not achieved. If you are no longer interested in this additional functionality simply do not respond to this email.

However, if you are interested in continuing, please review the documentation downloadable below, it has the new format of the Product Data File:

Scheduled Data Transfer Guide - Product Data Feed for Publishers
www.cj.com/downloads/tech...t_data.pdf

Is it £10,000 commission or £10,000 in sales as they are not the same target, found that out before.

At any rate I think I would pay $200 to get it set-up myself, but then I would have a few words and show them what I am doing and see if I can't get it as a freebie, because if I was going to use it I wouldn't be doing it to waste anyone's time because for a good system I would have to spend a small fortune my end in programmer time.

Anyone made any use of this data? Any chance of a copy of a few lines so I can see if it covers what I need?

Ben.

It really sets the mind racing as to the possibilites of having the whole CJ product catalogue in xml format

Gimme Gimme Gimme :rollin:

As I am new to this game it would be difficult for me to justify the outlay for this at the moment but its great to know its available, although are Affiliate Window not trialing something similiar on a per merchant basis for free at the moment. Sure I read Show You Love Them is testing this on another thread.

Rennie

I know I need to do this but my eyes glaze over at any mention of xml and integrated product feeds. As someone who 'qualifies' for a free feed I would be willing to pay $200 to someone to get their own in return for $200 worth of help setting up XML feeds. Reply here or ICQ:52507244

Well, if my project doesn't pay back the $200 then I'll just have to be dissapointed, so I've requested to sign up for it, anyone seen a signup link?

I've had to email support.

Ben.

Just Recieved this response from CJ:

Hi,

We are currently working on new functionality for the product feeds which should be available in Q2.

Regards


I'm going to get back to them again though as it would make my life so much easier for a site I am currently working on.

Pestered them again about product data feeds but they aint budging Just got this from them:

Dear Rennie:

We have received your request to enable Product Data functionality for your Commission Junction account.

We are unfortunately unable to supply you with this functionality at this time. Due to product upgrades, we are unable to supply any new datafeeds at this time. We will keep your request on file and when the functionality is in place we will be contacting you.

Thank you much.

Sincerely Yours,
Client Services

I am however new to CJ, Ive not even began promoting them, so this could have something to do with the response, could be different for someone generating them a wedge of cash every month.

If anyone gets anywhere with product feeds or is already using them it would be cool to hear about it.

Cheers

Rennie

I've been using the CJ product data files for a couple of months.

It's free if you have $10,000 in sales, not $10,000 in commission.

You can choose the format of the file, I get mine in CSV format. The file is VERY big. Mine is over 1GB when it's unzipped. So it's probably only usable if you have a dedicated server.


The quality of the data in the file is generally not much good.

There are products listed for merchants that left CJ 6+ months ago.

Lots of duplicated products for some merchants. Sometimes you might get the same product 10 times, and only one is for the "current" version, with the rest having a "no longer available" message on the landing page.

Lots of dead links. Some links go to a "not found" message, even though the product is available, but the location of the product is not the same as the one in the product file.

Some links go to a 404 message that doesn't include any menu items, so people can't even browse the store once you've sent them there.

Price info is often out of date or inaccurate.


So if you're expecting to use it as a quick way to create a price comparison site you may be disappointed, because the quality of the data just isn't up to it.
But it is useful to create a general shopping search function, once you've spent some time weeding out the rubbish.

The price comparison idea did flash through my head, but it wasnt the main reason I was interested in it.

I had written a generic store in java which just sucks all the products out of a database for a given category. It is pretty damn time consuming gathering the data though and just thought this would be a great way to quickly get data for this type of thing. I actually just went to the two main merchants I was intersted in for the site I am working on at the moment and they were great, said they would sent me a file at the end of the week as they were uploading to CJ then.

I have found going directly to the merchants to be the best way to get things done as all have been very helpful. Even merchants who were supposed to be US only have let me join after I explained what I was up to.

In that case, anyone got an affiliate contact at Argos?

Ben.