What are people using for their affiliate datafeeds?

[pbryd]

I have a few domains that I would like to develop further by starting to use (affiliate window) datafeeds.

I've used storeburst and easy content units in the past, but would really like to get to grips with datafeeds.

What does everyone else use?

Custom scripts? Wordpress + plugins etc?

By the end of this thread I really hope to have a good understanding of what's available (don't mind paying).

And I'm sure others who'd like to start using datafeeds would find your answers useful too.

So, come on.

What are you using for datafeeds?

 

[retired_member21]

Custom System

I have my own system at the moment however it's limited to the Affiliate Window network. It uses the API there are no feeds involved (as they take too long to download)

Basically on a cron job I have a list of phrases and an import mechanism - this runs every night importing new products / updating prices on existing products automatically.

For example if I have an import phrase with the words 'oak effect laminate' then every night my system will search the AW database for products with 'oak effect laminate'. It's useful as I don't have to worry if merchants have been added / removed from the network it's done automatically.

Next step is (hopefully) to implement stock levels which is down to the merchants updating their feeds correctly, adding a system which combines products (hence price comparison) and integrating with the Amazon API which should improve range and overall conversion rate as theirs is quite high.

I am working on a wordpress plugin but have a couple of issues. I am also considering to make it a public system but have no idea how to a) price b) make each installation unique for SEO purposes. Last thing I want is millions of clones/spammy sites.

 

[accelerator]

If you have the skills, I would also look at using the Affiliate Window API, the main benefit being you can query live data and don't have to bother continually updating feeds.

Rgds

 

[AssetDomains]

Depending on how many sites you want to run I'd have to say price pricetapestry is the daddy of the shelf solutions simply due to fantastic support of the developer if there's something you want doing the guy bends over backwards to get it sorted.


That being said it not a simple plug and go solution bit of a steep learning curve on the first setup the new wordpress plug-in might have helped with this though haven't really tested it in a while.

 

[retired_member21]

Here's the place to look if you are interested in reading about the API

I don't think (or is just me) it's uber hard to get going - there's a good selection of sample php files which are ready to go once you get an api key

http://wiki.affiliatewindow.com/index.php/ProductServe_API_v3

 

[pbryd]

Here's the place to look if you are interested in reading about the API

I don't think (or is just me) it's uber hard to get going - there's a good selection of sample php files which are ready to go once you get an api key

http://wiki.affiliatewindow.com/index.php/ProductServe_API_v3

From that link I opened WSDL v3

This is a .wsdl page

In the code it talks of categories and products.

So where do I get the catergory and product ids to place in the code, or am I looking at this all wrong?

 

[pbryd]

I've downloaded the php files for the productserve api, I'll take look at them

 

[retired_member21]

http://wiki.affiliatewindow.com/index.php/Welcome_to_ShopWindow

https://www.affiliatewindow.com/downloads/api.client.zip

 

[Admin]

I have my own system at the moment however it's limited to the Affiliate Window network. It uses the API there are no feeds involved (as they take too long to download)

Basically on a cron job I have a list of phrases and an import mechanism - this runs every night importing new products / updating prices on existing products automatically.

For example if I have an import phrase with the words 'oak effect laminate' then every night my system will search the AW database for products with 'oak effect laminate'. It's useful as I don't have to worry if merchants have been added / removed from the network it's done automatically.

Next step is (hopefully) to implement stock levels which is down to the merchants updating their feeds correctly, adding a system which combines products (hence price comparison) and integrating with the Amazon API which should improve range and overall conversion rate as theirs is quite high.

I am working on a wordpress plugin but have a couple of issues. I am also considering to make it a public system but have no idea how to a) price b) make each installation unique for SEO purposes. Last thing I want is millions of clones/spammy sites.

That's awesome. I've used their ShopWindow tool like that in the past but it's buggy and you soon use up all your API allocation.

 

[pbryd]

Nick I've seen the links and opened the php constants.inc.php file in Dreaweaver.

I have used a little php before so I'm not a complete newbie but...

The sheer lack of 'how to' or user guide on setting these feeds up is absolutely ridiculous.

It's very frustrating

 

[pbryd]

Just found this which looks like a guide to affwins productserve api

http://www.awinapi.com/

Looks useful

 

[nick-harper]

I am using the Product Feeds rather than the API as the API can become quite slow.

I just have them updating in the background a few times a day which I guess it does leave prices and products out dated for a few hours if they are changed but it means the sites load a lot quicker and the data is local for me to sort however I want it.

The product feeds are a LOT simpler than the API too, simply open them up with PHP and then parse them to get all of the info and dump it into a database. Job Done

 

[retired_member21]

I am using the Product Feeds rather than the API as the API can become quite slow.

I just have them updating in the background a few times a day which I guess it does leave prices and products out dated for a few hours if they are changed but it means the sites load a lot quicker and the data is local for me to sort however I want it.

The product feeds are a LOT simpler than the API too, simply open them up with PHP and then parse them to get all of the info and dump it into a database. Job Done

Totally agree they are much easier and more comprehensive. The only reason I wanted to build an API one was that at the time I couldn't search by keyword and didn't want to download huge CSV files - once I built a system which searches the AffWin product database I went from there. If you can do it with feeds importing entire merchants/merchant categories/categories etc way better but I was after something without downloading. You are also limited to 1000 results per API query though which is a right pain as downloading something like 'flooring' has to be broken up into subqueries which each have < 1000 queries.

Loving the thread

 

[nick-harper]

Totally agree they are much easier and more comprehensive. The only reason I wanted to build an API one was that at the time I couldn't search by keyword and didn't want to download huge CSV files - once I built a system which searches the AffWin product database I went from there. If you can do it with feeds importing entire merchants etc way better but I was after something without downloading. You are also limited to 1000 results per API query though which is a right pain as downloading something like 'flooring' has to be broken up into subqueries which each have < 1000 queries.

Loving the thread

Exactly, I just take each merchant's feed and then you can search by product name or model number (if they have it on their feed) and it works a lot better.

 

[pbryd]

The product feeds are a LOT simpler than the API too, simply open them up with PHP and then parse them to get all of the info and dump it into a database. Job Done

It's one of those things that's easy when you know how to do it.

Can you point me in the direction of a simple guide to getting started?

I've got an datafeed in xml format

 

[nick-harper]

Do you know much PHP?

Basically you will need to use simple xml to open it:

$xml = simplexml_load_file("/feed/path/feedname.xml");

This then puts everything into $xml, you can var_dump it to see exactly what you have to work with.

To list items you can do something like this:

foreach($xml->merchant->prod as $product){

echo $product->text->name;
echo "<br/>";

}

That should then list all of the products from the XML file. If you keep var_dumping you will see all of the data available, it is just a case of then sorting it and picking what you want from it and then putting it into a database

 

[pbryd]

Hi Nick

That's working fine, displays a list of products on the page.

Brilliant, thanks.

Feels like I'm getting somewhere now, I'll keep studying it.

 

[nick-harper]

So now you can get things like prices and descriptions

Vardump is your friend while you figure out the structure and just keep testing it out

If you have a vps or command line you can automate it all

 

[pbryd]

So basically what I'm doing here...


... is selecting the data I need from the xml feed and getting it ready to insert it onto a mysql database.

Once it's in the database, it can be pulled from there and put into an online shop.

Phil

 

[nick-harper]

Yep, then you can sort the data as you please

I am thinking of writing a blog with code snippets to help do things like this!