We recently completed an overhaul of our video ad support here at AvantLink.

First and foremost, we’ve switched over to using the Flowplayer video player for displaying our videos.  We feel that Flowplayer provides a better user experience than our previous player, and it offers a few more features than we had access to previously, like built-in support for viewing videos in full-screen mode.  The initial load-time of the player, prior to clicking the “Play” button is faster than our old solution as well, which is a welcome change.

Additionally, with this upgrade we were able to add scripting to make click-through behavior much more obvious to users.  Moving the mouse pointer onto the video screen now triggers the display of a message stating that you can click on the video to visit the merchant site.  As always, such click-throughs are properly enabled for affiliate tracking, so videos are monetized just like any other text or banner ad.

Take a look at this video below from Brownells.com about their “Uplula Universal Magazine Loader” (a pretty nifty accessory for those handgun users out there) if you want to see these new features in action.

As always, let us know if you have any comments or questions.

-David & AvantLink

Introducing a new AvantLink merchant:

PointBanner

We have added another merchant to our “Marketing” category! Earn 15% on the order total by promoting custom banner design services from PointBanner. Check out their site & packages, and we think you’ll agree that if you have the traffic…this program is definitely worth joining. Here is a snippet from their Affiliate program details on AvantLink:

PointBanner.com allows online marketers to quickly order fully-customized banner ads and receive professionally designed, campaign-ready graphics within 48 hours. Formed to help marketing managers, small-business owners, affiliate marketers and eBay merchants slash the cost of production to as low as $49 per ad, PointBanner.com improves campaign quality with eye-catching banners that are uniquely created for each client.

Program highlights include:

• 15% payout
• 60 day cookie
• Average order value $100
• Site conversion rate 3%

Let us know what we can do to help you get started promoting PointBanner. Contact anyone at AvantLink or the program manager Ayal Ebert, ayal/at/pointbanner.com.

We are sponsoring an educational seminar at the 2010 Outdoor Retailer Winter Market on January 23rd. It’s an introductory session for retailers and direct-to-consumer brands in the Outdoor/Recreation category. Although anyone can attend. Here are the seminar details…

Intro to Affiliate Marketing (for Outdoor Retailers)
Saturday, Jan 23, 2010 – 12:00PM to 1:00PM

Type: Seminar
Track: Retailer Seminar
Location: Salt Lake City Marriott Downtown, Salon E

Learn the fundamentals of performance-based Affiliate marketing from the leaders in the industry. We will talk about how your web store can utilize the most cost effective marketing channel online, the processes for getting started, and how to make the program a long-term success for your company. If you’re curious about performance-based marketing for retailers, already running an Affiliate program or looking at getting a program started, don’t miss this! The seminar will include short presentations and Q&A from some of the top web marketers in the Outdoor category.

Drop us a line if you have any questions about this event. We’re also having an Outdoor Affiliate Meet & Greet that evening – same day. Here is some info on our first OR meet and greet this past summer…more on that soon!

A while back we did a review of our merchant datafeeds to see how consistent product image sizes are from one merchant to the next.  The results were less than impressive.  There were huge variations in both width and height for small (a.k.a. thumb/thumbnail) and large images between merchants, and in some cases within single merchant datafeeds.

For those of you affiliates who build cross- or multi-merchant solutions this likely comes as no surprise – it’s always been that way, right?

Well, we talked over the results internally and decided we weren’t satisfied with maintaining the status quo any longer.  So we began building a solution that would let us scale (resize) product imagery as part of our normal datafeed processing, resulting in feeds that more closely resemble our standard recommendations, namely:

• Small Images – 100×100 pixels
• Medium Images – 200×200 pixels
• Large Images – 300×300 pixels

But part-way through implementing this, it was brought to our attention that our standard recommendations don’t quite suit everyone perfectly, and that there might be some value in allowing affiliates to have some say in the matter.  To that end, we’d like to announce the ability of affiliates to configure their own datafeed image preferences.

If you log in as an affiliate at AvantLink.com, and go to the “Account” page you’ll see a new link to the “Datafeed Image Preferences” page.  From there you can set up how you’d like to see product images, either for your entire affiliate account or individually for specific websites.  Take a look at the following screen shot to get a better idea of what’s available:

For each of the three image sizes (small, medium, and large) you can specify whether to leave the image as we supply it, or to modify it to fit your desired width/height/image type (.png, .jpg, or .gif) preferences.  Additionally, in the case where you have custom processes in place that work best with the original/unmodified image directly from the merchant, you can choose to include that information in your raw datafeed files (or substitute it in place of the normal large image).

It is important to realize that the preferences you configure apply only to product imagery from merchant datafeeds, and can affect the following tools:

• Raw Datafeed Files
• Web Service Datafeed Client
• RSS Product Feeds
• Product Ad Widget
• Product Display Builder
• Additional Product Content Widget
• ProductSearch API

Ad/Link tools (e.g. merchant banner ads) and Dynamic Coupon/Deal tools (e.g. Deal of the Day) are not affected by these settings.

Changes to your image preferences take effect immediately across AvantLink.  So something as simple as a grid-formatted product search request will show an improvement on the very next request once you’ve implemented standard image preferences of your own.  Note that there is no HTML image sizing involved in the screenshots below; the product images are all being displayed at their native sizes:

Product Search API Results – Default, “as-is” product imagery

Product Search API Results – Standardized product imagery

Of course, we’re going to continue working with merchants to improve the quality and standardization of their datafeeds from our end as well.  We want to to provide the cleanest, most usable datafeeds – by default – in the industry.  We are the datafeed people, after all.

Questions and comments are always appreciated.  Let us know what you think!

-David & AvantLink

Introducing a new, exclusive AvantLink merchant:

Suburban Blend

Suburban Blend has provided 11 years of great products, prices, quality, selection, and outstanding service…and more recently a killer online shopping experience featuring some of the best brands in the board sports industry. Promote Suburban Blend’s snowboard or skateboard gear and apparel exclusively on AvantLink, which means no toolbars, trademark bidders or other rogue Affiliates stealing your traffic!

From their Affiliate program details: Shoptheblend.com has select Snowboard, Skateboard and Street Wear. Rider Owned and Operated Since 1997. Our goal is to set ourselves apart from the traditional e-commerce snowboard/skateboard store. Our shop is 100% owned and operated by snowboarders/skateboarders who pick the best gear and a wide selection of lifestyle apparel for their needs.

Program highlights include:

• Earn 8% on sales you send us
• 120 Day cookie duration: Get paid up to 4 months after the click.
• Solid Brands like: Obey Giant, Forum, Special Blend, Capita, Protec, Zoo York and More! This means stoked buyers, better conversion, and bigger commissions.
• Dedicated Program Management: An expert is available to answer questions and make you a success.
• Dedicated to keeping it real.

Let us know what we can do to help you get started promoting Suburban Blend. Contact anyone at AvantLink or the program manager Billy Bacon, baconzoo/at/gmail.com.

Introducing a new AvantLink merchant:

Saratoga Wine Exchange

Saratogawine.com is the source for wine lovers and collectors alike, offering over 15,000 wines available online. Great opportunity to promote Rare Bordeaux’s, Burgundy, California Cult wines and much more. In addition to all those wine choices, they have the technology to allow customers to narrow their selections by appellation, region, country, vintage, varietal, winery, wine critic selections, wine publications selection and more…all of which increases conversion and helps you earn more.

Be sure to get Saratoga Wine Exchange links added asap before the holidays are in full swing. Note their exceptionally high average order value and conversion rate!

From their Affiliate program details: Currently our selections ranges from the modest Kendall Jackson Chardonnay for around $15 a bottle to the exotic Screaming Eagle Cabernet for around $1800 a bottle to the extremely rare Chateau Petrus at around $4000 a bottle.

Program highlights include:

• Commission Baseline Payout: 5% with potential to earn more
• Cookie Days: 90
• Average Order Value: $250
• Average Site Conversion: 3.5%
• Product Data Feed support
• Dedicated Program Management
• Featured wine specials and coupons
• Value wine feature
• Limited quantity collection features

Let us know what we can do to help you get started promoting Saratoga Wine Exchange. Contact anyone at AvantLink or the program manager Peter Dean, affiliatemanager/at/saratogawine.com.

The Affiliate Link Encoder (ALE) automatically turns merchant direct links, keywords and text on your web pages into affiliate tracking links.

In this screencast we cover how this tool can be useful to bloggers, forums, community content based websites, or affiliates who would just rather not worry about logging into their affiliate account to get tracking links for their AvantLink merchants.

We also show you how you can install the ALE within a WordPress blog as well as a brief demonstration of the tool “in action”.

Scott Kalbach
AvantLink.com Affiliate Network