Tag Archive for "Technology"
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
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AvantLink Newsletter May 26, 2009 Vol 1, Issue 3 |
Affiliate Newsletter
Our Affiliate newsletters feature technology news, promotional opportunities, new merchants, industry insight and more.
We have a lot of new technology to highlight this Spring, which is the emphasis of this newsletter. To help facilitate the use of these new tools, and to get the word out there, Scott Kalbach has done a great job producing v2.0 of our Screencast Series for Affiliates. These screencasts do an incredible job of detailing the powerful tools and scripts you have access to free of charge. We also have a lot of outstanding new merchants since the last Affiliate newsletter, and you’ll find those listed below.
Table of Contents:
1. Affiliate Screencast Series v2.0
2. Inactive Merchant Link Handling
3. RSS Product Feeds
4. Web Service Datafeed Client Improvements
5. Welcome New Merchants
Affiliate Screencast Series v2.0
We started producing v2.0 Affiliate (and merchant) tutorials/screencasts for the large selection free Affiliate tools we offer. In time we plan to have a dedicated section of the Affiliate account interface where we will list documentation files and tutorials. But for now, please click the links below to see the first four v2.0 screencasts for Affiliates:
- Product Ad Widget Screencast – Product Comparison Widget
- Product Ad Widget Screencast – Content Match
- Screencast: Web Service Datafeed Client – Configuration and Installation
- Screencast: Web Service Datafeed Client – Customizing Your HTML Template
Inactive Merchant Link Handling
Introducing brand new functionality for handling inactive merchant links that result from merchants deactivating Affiliates, or leaving the AvantLink network altogether. Affiliates have always had the option of sorting to, and browsing “My Inactive Merchants”, but now there is an option on that page to “Configure inactive link handling” as well.
When a merchant terminates their association with your affiliate account, or leaves the AvantLink.com network altogether, any affiliate links you have to that merchant will cease functioning. For large sites with many deep links to relevant content, it can be a time consuming operation to fully target a new merchant, and while this conversion is in progress your site visitors experience will be less than ideal. This page can help you control how those links behave while you update your site to advertise for other merchants…
We recently added an “RSS Product Feeds” configuration page to your affiliate login (accessible from the “Tools” page, under the “Datafeed Manager” section). When you click the option to “Create an RSS product feed” you will be able to choose a particular merchant datafeed, restrict to a department/category/subcategory, and set various product-level filters. You can also customize whether or not to include product images, abbreviated/short descriptive text, and merchant names in the RSS item content. The end result is a fully tracking-enabled RSS feed URL that points to our Affiliate marketing API.
Web Service Datafeed Client Improvements
We’re proud to say that we have recently rolled out a massive list of improvements to one of our flagship Affiliate tools: the Web Service Datafeed Client. Before getting into the exact details it should be noted that all existing deployments of this tool will work perfectly with the new improvements.
Highlights of the changes:
- Improved the built-in searching functionality.
- Better construction of page keywords (normally used in meta tags).
- Improved/simplified the use of local template files.
- Revamped the communication between your local server and our web service.
- Added support for XML-based sitemap functionality.
Latest merchants to open their Affiliate programs on the AvantLink network (April/May 2009). Click here to browse all merchants.
- Vargo Outdoors (Outdoor/Recreation), 10% commission
- Opedix (Apparel), 12% commission
- TrekLightGear.com (Outdoor/Recreation), 8% commission
- BerenShoes.com (Footwear), 3% commission
- Junonia (Apparel), 8% commission
- Play Outdoors (Outdoor/Recreation), 10%-12% commission
- TopoRanch.com (Apparel), 8% commission
- Backstage Gallery (Photographic Art), 8% commission
- Nantucket Brand (Apparel), 20% commission
- FontanaSports.com (Outdoor/Recreation), 10%-12% commission
- Makai Bikes (Cycling), commission
- InlineSkates.net (Outdoor/Recreation), 8% commission
- WaterOutfitters.com (Outdoor/Recreation), 8% commission
- HucknRoll.com (Cycling), 5% commission
- RealCyclist.com (Cycling), 5% commission
| © COPYRIGHT 2009 Avant Marketing Group. |
Over the course of the past few days David has built, tested and rolled out new functionality for handling inactive merchant links that result from merchants deactivating Affiliates, or leaving the AvantLink network altogether. Affiliates have always had the option of sorting to, and browsing “My Inactive Merchants”, but now there is an option on that page to “Configure inactive link handling” as well. From the configuration page for Inactive Merchant Link Handling:
When a merchant terminates their association with your affiliate account, or leaves the AvantLink.com network altogether, any affiliate links you have to that merchant will cease functioning. For large sites with many deep links to relevant content, it can be a time consuming operation to fully target a new merchant, and while this conversion is in progress your site visitors experience will be less than ideal. This page can help you control how those links behave while you update your site to advertise for other merchants…
By default, if Affiliates do not define specific actions for inactive merchant links, an error message like the following list of similar merchants will be displayed as a result of an inactive link.
You can also control the behavior of that click through message in the following other ways. Configuration options for handling inactive merchant links include:
- Show a listing of similar merchants (default click-through handling)
- Send traffic directly to an alternate merchant (when you use this click-handling option you’ll select which “Alternate/Replacement Merchant” and “Destination URL”)
- Send traffic to a custom page of my choosing (when you use this click-handling option you’ll select ”Destination URL”)
To control the click-through handling for any inactive merchant links in your account follow these simple steps:
- Login to your Affiliate account and click “Merchants” from the main menu.
- Sort Merchant Status to “My Inactive Merchants” and click “Get Merchants”.
- At the right of each inactive record you’ll see a link “Configure inactive link handling”.
Look for help 
notes a long the way. Questions, comments, suggestions always appreciated.
We’re proud to share another Merchant testimonial, this time from Rett at Backcountry.com.
AvantLink is a true partner for innovation. Their technology is first class and their attention to detail is impressive. The interface is ultra fast and easy to navigate, which saves us valuable time every day. The standard reporting options cover the majority of our needs and customization is easy to implement. AvantLink understands the affiliate space better than most and is very accommodating when additional functionality is requested. Merchants will not be disappointed with the affiliate network provided by AvantLink.
Rett Clevenger
Online Media Manager
Backcountry.com
Thanks Rett! It’s been our pleasure to work with you, Brian and the rest of the team. Here’s to a great 2009 and beyond. 
Merchants, is your Affiliate network keeping up?
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Learn more about AvantLink.com by visiting our web site, or from the links below…
AvantLink Value Proposition for Merchants
AvantLink Affiliate & Merchant Testimonials
AvantLink Support Forum at ABestWeb
Time to expand the Testimonials category on our Affiliate Marketing Blog to include AvantLink merchants. We’ve been publishing Affiliate testimonials for a while now, but we also have a bunch of Merchant testimonials to share. To start things off, here is what Chuck Hamrick sent us recently on behalf of Affiliate Crew’s client Little Giant Ladder.
AffiliateCrew.com has been very pleased with the technology and support that AvantLink has given us on the Little Giant Ladder Affiliate program. When we wanted to test an unscrappable coupon code, AvantLink was the only network capable of giving us the tools necessary to make it work. Scott Kalbach and team are always one step ahead of our needs with new features coming out monthly. Gary Marcoccia has helped promote our program(s) and given us invaluable advise for online PR. AvantLink creates Affiliate tools that people want to make their sites convert better in these competitive times.
Chuck Hamrick
AffiliateCrew.com
Thanks Chuck! We value our partnership with Affiliate Crew, Little Giant Ladder and their fine Affiliates.
For the next Affiliate Best Practices article I’d like to discuss our Affiliate Link Encoder (ALE) tool.
Bloggers and forum owners should pay special attention to the ALE, but any Affiliate site can benefit from this innovative tool we rolled out in October of 2007. In a nutshell, the ALE allows webmasters to place one line of Javascript on any page and/or site-wide template, and if a direct link (without Affiliate tracking data) to an AvantLink merchant exists on the page, the script will automatically convert the direct link to a tracking link on the end user’s browser. The script scans the page for domain matches, than does it’s thing.
Please note with the ALE that Google and the other search engines will still see the direct link as it exists in the html code. So if you mouse over a store link on an Affiliate page utilizing the ALE, you’ll see (in the browser status bar) the tracking details. However, if you view the source code of that same page, all you’ll see for the merchant URL is the direct href link code. And if you look hard enough, you’ll see the ALE Javascript on that page as well! To see a great working example of the ALE in action check out the ALE information page on our site.
Now on to the best practices for the ALE…
For bloggers and/or forum owners, the benefits should be easily apparent. In fact, with direct input from Greg at AlpineZone.com (read Greg’s testimonial on this blog), and a few other valued Affiliates, it was apparent that they were sending loads of traffic (and sales!) to merchants without necessarily getting credit. This was because their community members would often post direct links to outdoor retailers that are a part of AvantLink. Rather than editing the content of the community, Greg was more interested in finding a way to convert the click on the fly to one that would rightly set a cookie and credit him for any subsequent sales.
So for forum owners that may be in the same boat, here’s the secret. And it’s quite complicated…not! Simply login to your Affiliate account and generate an ALE script for a particular site configured in the network. Once you have the one line of Javascript, simply place it in a site-wide template (for example, your header or footer) and wala. Instant tracking on any direct to merchant link that exists anywhere on your forum (as long as the merchant is in AvantLink). You should also note that this include ALL direct to merchant links, even archived links from months or years ago!
For bloggers, same concept. You might have years worth of archived content that can be monetized just by adding this one line of Javascript. Talk about easy money. And we do have multiple success stories already in regards to bloggers benefiting greatly from the ALE. Here’s just one example: Lou runs a legendary blog for backcountry skiing enthusiasts called WildSnow.com. Over the years, Lou has posted links to Backcountry.com and other retailers quite regularly when he reviews products, etc. Since Lou’s a blogger, and not necessarily an Affiliate marketer, the thought alone of logging into a network to generate a tracking link every time he linked to a retailer was tedious. So he added the ALE and instantly began generating revenue on years worth of archived content. Of course, this includes the links people posted in the comments’ section of each post.
General use of the ALE is also encouraged for people custom building many optimized pages. Rather than taking the time to use our Custom Link Builder tool (which, btw, is easy as pie), simply include the ALE Javascript in your base template. Once that’s in place it’s just a matter of writing your editorial, using the merchant image source for the product, and adding a deep link to the product detail on the merchant web site. No logging into the network for link code is necessary.
So there you have it! To generate the Affiliate Link Encoder for your site, follow these simple steps:
- Login as an Affiliate, and click “Tools” from the main menu.
- Under “Ad/Link Tools”, click on “Affiliate Link Encoder”.
- Select your website, and add a custom tracking code (which is optional).
- Click “Get Html”, and you’re done!
I hope this helps and Happy Converting!
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