Updates to the affiliate email tool for merchants
Just a quick post to let you know that we released some updates to the affiliate email tool for merchants. Here’s an overview of the changes to this tool.
1. The first thing you’ll notice is that the interface has been simplified significantly.
2. We removed the text email option. Instead, all emails will contain a standard text email part that allows those with text only email capabilities to link to the full HTML version of the email.
3. The HTML email form element has been converted to use the YUI Rich Text Editor which allows for rich formatting of text content, much like a standard word processor.
4. Ad campaigns and personalization text variable tags can now be inserted directly into your email without having to copy and paste HTML like the old version of this tool.
5. Emails can now be scheduled for future delivery. As part of this functionality, we’ve also also added the ability for you to insert staged ad campaigns into your emails. This means that you can setup promotional ads and emails before the promotion start date and schedule the email to be delivered when the promotion goes live. No more staying up late or getting up at the crack of dawn to get your promotional emails out 
Scott Kalbach
AvantLink.com
This is a great update! Thank you.
[...] Once in a while there comes along a feature request that’s so sensible and useful that you wonder how it stayed off the development list for so long. In my case, this happened most recently when one of our merchant program managers asked how to send an email to all of their affiliates that weren’t actively promoting the program. In other words, how to easily contact their inactive affiliates. It took me a while to formulate a response as I was so surprised that we didn’t have this functionality built in, particularly since we had done a large round of updates to the email tool back in January 2010. [...]