Tag Archive for "RSS"
Affiliates, did you know that in addition to publishing promotional-related (dynamically updated) content on your sites, you can also promote RSS subscriptions to those feeds? Think about that for a second. If you’re site visitors subscribe to one of these RSS feeds from AvantLink that you promote, then your tracking details are embedded in all links within that feed…for the life of that feed subscription!
(Note: You can easily promote RSS subscriptions via the tools highlighted below by grabbing popular reader icons just like you would a banner, and pasting that in your site along side the feed itself with a call to action like “Subscribe to this daily deal from Patagonia!”. We also provide a standard RSS icon embedded with tracking code as well as the RSS URL itself.)
Fast forward months later, and to that RSS feed sitting in someone’s reader or live bookmarks after the 60 day cookie from the click is long expired. The shopper you enticed to subscribe sees a killer deal from one of our retailers, clicks the link directly from their RSS reader or live bookmark, and there you have it; your Affiliate cookie is set again for another 60 days (or whatever cookie life the particular merchant offers). This gives you, the Affiliate, an additional level of ownership over that customer that goes above and beyond the cookie duration defined on a standard click.
We call this Affiliate Link Syndication, and it’s been around since we opened our Affiliate network in 2005. I talked about it previously here, but the post was a little long winded (which I’m notorious for), so I wanted to bring it up again to be sure everyone knows about this RSS promotional option.
And if you take this one step further, think about the possibilities in terms of syndication to other sites. Of course, you should check the terms of use for content syndication to any site you don’t own. But for the purpose of this article I’ll use Squidoo.com as an example (their TOS allows the syndication of any content to their site). Squidoo offers an RSS module for use. So take one of the RSS URLs we provide with various campaign subscriptions, paste that into your Squidoo RSS module, and you’ll have content that’s not only dynamic but parsed to static HTML. Gourmet Google food indeed… 
Check out the following tool offerings for Affiliate Link Syndication using RSS available from AvantLink.com (note you can find any of these by clicking “Tools” on the main menu once you login):
- Dynamic Coupon/Deal Tools
- Dynamic Coupon/Deal Feeds (RSS integration option)
- Coupon/Deal Syndication Links
- Deal Of The Day Sign-up (RSS integration options)
- Datafeed Manager
- RSS Product Feeds
Thanks for reading and as always comments, questions or suggestions encouraged. Gary M
The goal of the AvantLink screencasts are to help current (or prospective) Affiliates and Merchants learn more about our network, and the technology we offer.
This screencast focuses on our Feed Syndication options, and how Affiliates can syndicate promotional feeds through embedded RSS Affiliate links. Link syndication options are available through our Dynamic Coupon Feed and Deal of the Day tool as well.
Take a look at the Coupon Feed Syndication screencast below, or CLICK HERE to view the full sized version.
We are happy to announce that two new branded blog categories are now live on AvantShare.com. Avantshare is where our Affiliate network blog lives, and where a number of our merchants sponsor branded categories for their Affiliate programs. This is a powerful distribution channel, not only because AvantShare is tagged with authority from the major search engines, but because every merchant blog headline gets published as one of the “Latest Merchant Blog Entries” on EVERY Affiliate’s login screen (not just the Affiliates active in the merchant’s program).
If merchant blog headlines are compelling enough, it proves to be a very effective new Affiliate acquisition/recruitment tool.
The two new blog categories we just introduced include a branded presence for both The-House.com and their sister site Proboardshop.com. Click their respective logos below to visit their new blog categories, and be sure to subscribe their RSS feeds for up-to-the-minute promotions and import news about these Affiliate programs.
Time for another blog article for the Best Practices category of AvantShare.
Affiliates, with this article I would like to discuss a unique tool that’s available to you only through AvantLink. It’s officially called the Coupon Feed Syndication tool in the network tool center, but a similar variant of the tool comes with the dynamic Deal Of The Day campaigns we provide as well.
This is a unique proposition because it allows you to syndicate your Affiliate feeds (product content or ad campaigns) to your site visitors by way of RSS feed distribution. When one of your site visitors in fact subscribes, the outbound links from these subscriptions will have your Affiliate tracking embedded in them. This provides a new level of customer ownership for you that moves well beyond that of a cookie placed on an end user’s PC.
With these powerful Affiliate feed syndication options, you can effectively promote RSS subscriptions to deal feeds, as well as display the feed content on your site(s). So it’s very much in your interest to become proficient at not only selling the products, but selling subscriptions to the feeds from AvantLink!
This is sometimes hard to explain to folks because it doesn’t fit the traditional mold of any type of Affiliate marketing campaign that you may have seen before. But I’m here to tell you that it’s VERY effective, and from those who have embraced these syndication techniques for the deal feeds, we’ve seen impressive sales volume.
Your question at this point might be: “How do I go about promoting subscriptions to RSS feeds for coupons and daily deals?”
Ok it’s simple. Really simple. Just remember that every merchant on our platform has the ability to easily flag text links to be included in the Dynamic Coupon Feed. Once they do that, it’s accessible to you.
Here’s how to offer RSS subscriptions to merchant coupon feeds:
- Login to your Affiliate account, and click “Tools” from the main menu.
- Under “Coupon Feed Syndication”, click “Get Merchant RSS Coupon Feed Syndication Links”.
- Select the merchant for the coupon feed RSS subscription you want to promote, and your website.
- Click “Get HTML”.
After you click “Get HTML”, in part, here are the instructions you’ll find:
“Subscribe icons for some of the most popular RSS readers are available below. Simply grab the code, paste to your site, and encourage your customers to sign-up to the feed. This creative has your Affiliate tracking ID embedded, which gives you lasting control over that customer.”
So in essence, you’re retrieving the RSS reader subscription icons through our system just like you would retrieve a banner.
Paste this code on your web page next to the coupon feed itself, and offer a call to action like “Subscribe to the REI deals feed and have their latest sales, promotions and coupons delivered directly to you.”
Note that you can find these same RSS subscription icons in the output HTML for the RSS integration option of the Deal Of The Day tool. So the same call to action (encouragement to subscribe) can be applied to those as well. Both the coupon feeds and the daily deal feeds are compelling subscriptions for shoppers, because it saves them some bucks. Take a stab at it, and you may just secure long term subscribers who will set your Affiliate cookie on every click from the feed for months, even years, to come!
Comments, questions and suggestions are certainly encouraged!
Gary & AvantLink
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