15 creative uses for affiliate Datafeeds
Datafeeds (also known as a product catalog or product feed) can intimidate a new affiliate as they immediately scream “I’m not a coder” when the thoughts of XML, CSV, FTP, integration and site builds pop into their heads. It’s true! To maximize the use of a datafeed you HAVE to have tools in place to talk back and forth with the data source to update inventory, prices and include new items. In it’s simplest form a datafeed can be merely a spreadsheet, take a look at the example below, I opened in excel which gives you complete access to manipulate the data, find what you are looking for and glean what you need.
In the search for more tools and tricks to add to your affiliate business don’t dismiss the power of a datafeed because you can’t code, here are 15 uses for datafeeds to get your juices flowing.
1. Comparison Shopping engines – There are a ton of these out there, I’m sure are all fed by merchant datafeeds.
2. Build single, static content pages – Affiliate networks like Avantlink and Shareasale have great tools to help you build quick product display pages and easily embed them into your site, blog or social network profile.
3. Niche stores – create small stores based off of product category, price, brand, etc…If you can keep it small enough you don’t need to be ultra sensitive to automated updates.
4. Widget & Dynamic Creative development – dynamically feed product details into widgets, search boxes or other small “plugin” type creative.
5. Featured products – Create daily, weekly or monthly featured products based off of brand, category or product.
6. Discounted products – Almost every feed I have seen has a price and a sale price. Identify the deepest discounts, compare and promote through your email lists or SEM. Combine the sale price with affiliate coupons for an even bigger advantage!
7. Identify and leverage trends. I guarantee the hottest products get loaded into the biggest merchants’ feeds. Keep an eye on new products!
8. Keyword list building – many datafeeds have a field for keywords, even if yours is missing this you can still combine categories, brands, product names and other fields to come up with a creative keyword list.
9. “Adwords Editor” imports – if you have permission to direct link the merchants datafeed Is a great start to a Adwords Editor feed, tweak the format and import.
10. Build “lists” or product bundles – For example a list of all the back to school supplies kids will need this year, favorite music or video playlists or father and mother’s day gift idea lists.
11. Incorporate product reviews into your site – not all merchants have review feeds and most of the time you HAVE TO ASK your program manager!
12. Quickly find product specific links – easily plug a link into your next blog post or article, open feed, find product, copy/past link…
13. Shopping website – I had to throw this in as some people have the resources to build around a feed.
14. Product Review Blogs – Start blogging about product categories (“new womens shoes”), utilize the datafeed as a link and product information source.
15. Grab the optional data! - Altrec.com has a datafeed in the Avantlink affiliate network that has product video links, sizing charts and other information you can clip out of the feed and incorporate into your content.
Next time you are in Shareasale go apply for some feeds, download them and start playing with the data. You will be surprised at the volume of information and hopefully the ideas above will give you inspiration to get creative!
Tags: affiliat tools, datafeeds, shareasale
26.Apr.08 
Affiliate Blog 
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