Welcome to the new reality. Where, even novice publishers can make it big through affiliate marketing. If you put in the right effort, you could be one of the lucky publishers who make up to 100K a month! Though you’ll have to build up to that slowly.

If you want to reach this goal, you’ll need affiliates to market to. Specifically, products to advertise to your audience. Affiliates usually provide their publishers with referral links and product information. A product data feed is a specific format used to provide products to publishers.

Product data feeds are a publishers’ saving grace. When you’ve got an up-to-date list of potential products to market, you know you can make money that month. The only thing left is to figure out how product data feeds work and how to use data product feeds. Keep reading so you can start using product data feeds immediately!

Affiliate Product Data Feeds

The only goal a publisher should have is to accumulate more traffic this month than they did before. The best way to do this is to increase the number of affiliates and products they have.

Affiliate programs have made life easier for publishers with a tool called product data feeds. Without complicating it, a product data feed is a product listing that publishers can use.

While you may want to use affiliate product data feeds right now, you first need to understand the basics. Below are some frequently asked questions about product feeds to help you out! Once you understand how product data feeds work, you can then use them for affiliate marketing.

What are Product Data Feeds?

An affiliate product data feed is a form of inventory provided by an affiliate. It’s proper etiquette for affiliates to compile a product data feed when they have more than ten items on sale.

This allows publishers to see what products are in stock and if they’re worth advertising.

A product data feed usually contains the following information about its products:

  • Product name;
  • Product images or videos;
  • Product description;
  • Product dimensions and sizes;
  • Product pricing;
  • Product availability.

 
It’s better to provide as most information about a product as possible. That’s why most product feeds have extra, seemingly meaningless product information. Product data feeds allow publishers to upload product lists to create an e-store. There are many tools that publishers can use that incorporate product data feeds!

How do Product Data Feeds Work?

Affiliate product data feeds usually come in a TXT, CSV, or XML file format. Within these files, each product is organized one after another in a table. Each column contains a different set of information about each product. The first column has the product names, while the fifth column has the product colors.

Publishers can use this information by running product data feeds through external tools. Certain affiliates offer tools that import products onto the publisher’s website. Publishers can also find a multitude of helpful tools online.

What are the Different Types of Product Data Feeds?

There are three main types of product data feeds you’ll come across online:

  • Manual product feeds;
  • Content API product feeds;
  • Automated product feeds.

 
A manual product feed is used by affiliates with a smaller product selection. These affiliates need to manually update the CSV or XML file and re-upload it to all channels.

A content API product feed is a direct connection between a publisher’s store and channels. This is a simple automation that updates affiliate product information. Though it lacks customization and your products become public on Google or Facebook.

An automated product feed is a more complicated tool. It allows for optimized product information through extra values and HTML clean-ups.

How do I Combine Multiple Product Data Feeds?

Combining product data feeds is as easy as uploading them into an extension. However, you can always do it manually.

If you decide to take the long route, you can go into each TXT file and copy over product data to whichever feed you want. Though it’s much easier to use a tool that does it for you.

Many CMSs offer extensions and plugins that automate combining product data feeds. This ensures that the product information is always up-to-date!

How Can I Upload Products to My Store Using Product Data Feeds?

Once you’ve got your product data feed in place, you just need to upload it to your website or blog. It’ll be easier to combine everything first, so you don’t have to upload multiple feeds. Affiliates who create product feeds supply extensions that allow you to upload products.

However, depending on the CMS you’re using, you can always find a different extension. WIX, WordPress, and Joomla all offer plugins that make it easier to upload products to your store. There are even extensions that build entire product pages based on the affiliate product data feeds.

Benefits of Product Data Feeds

At this point, you might be wondering if it’s worth it to use product data feeds. A publisher could easily copy across affiliate product information manually? Or use affiliate referral links instead, right? Well, take a look at the following benefits and see if you’re willing to miss out on them:

  • Quick and efficient affiliate data access;
  • Large product selection;
  • Accurate and up-to-date information;
  • Background and compatibility checks.

 
When you first start affiliate marketing, you barely have enough products to market. As a result, manually entering product information into your platforms will appear to be less difficult. But once you’re dealing with over a hundred different items, you’ll need a product data feed to organize them!

You will also require product data feeds as sources when you begin your affiliate career. Product data feeds provide massive lists of potential products for you to advertise. The more products you can market, the more income you’ll receive!

The best part of product data feeds is that they are very accurate and up-to-date. That means you can trust the product information you get from them. You can also see in real time if the product is in stock and how many are left to sell.

Lastly, product data feeds help publishers make better decisions when looking for affiliates to partner with. Product data feeds allow for thorough background checks on the affiliate’s available products. When you see an affiliate’s products, you can decide if you want to advertise them or not.

This avoids any conflicts due to incompatible niches.

How to Use Product Data Feeds

The best affiliate product data feeds for publishers come from the affiliates themselves. When you’re using an affiliate’s product data feed, all you need to worry about is uploading it properly. There are endless apps that can help you with product uploads.

The most important part is finding the right affiliate to partner with. That’s why you should use the Admitad Partner Network. This platform helps publishers connect with the best affiliates they can find. Admitad is in charge of ensuring that interactions between parties run smoothly.

Admitad is great for any publisher who wants to connect to popular brands, such as:

 

Join Partner Network Now!

An expert affiliate marketer may decide to open their own affiliate program at some point. If you’re one of these publishers, there are many ways you can use a product data feed to gain traffic:

  • Run ads on shopping channels;
  • Sell product information to distributors and retailers;
  • Sell products on marketplaces.

 
A publisher with an affiliate program can sell their product data feeds to sources. Shopping channels on Facebook, Amazon, and Instagram will buy your product data feeds. This includes using the available marketplaces on these social media networks!

A product data feed can also be sold to distributors and retailers to keep their stock up-to-date.

The more an affiliate program sells their product data feeds, the higher their income will be. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how you use the product data feed. It only matters that you use them in as many places as you possibly can.

How to Create a Product Data Feed

When you’ve got a whole affiliate program to run, you need product data feeds to organize everything. There are two ways to make a product data feed, namely:

  • Use Google Docs or Microsoft Word;
  • Use product data feed software.

 
You could take the manual route of copying product information into a TXT, CSV, or XML file. You’ll need a program like Google Docs or Microsoft Word so you can save your file in the right format. This is best for beginner affiliates who only have a handful of products to monitor.

The other option is to use product data feed software for publishers. These tools automate the process and link products directly to all your channels. For affiliates with many products, this will save you hours of time.

Once your product data feed is in place, there are a few best practices that publishers should follow:

  • Check the requirements for each channel;
  • Add unique products to each channel;
  • Keep inventory and prices updated;
  • Make product feeds search-friendly.

 
Each channel that you supply your product data feed to has different requirements. This could be the format in which the products come, or even the products themselves.

Some channels may ask for products that are completely unique to them. Make sure to fulfill any requests from your channels to keep your products available.

The same goes for stock availability and pricing. Make sure that all your products are updated on a regular basis. This avoids any purchases of items that are out of stock.

You also want to avoid the risk of someone buying a product at the wrong price!

Lastly, make sure your product feeds can be easily searched through. There’s nothing worse than losing out on channels because your feed is too messy!

Affiliate Product Data Feeds for Publishers

Ecommerce product data feeds are difficult to manage. That’s why we’re fortunate enough to have product data feed management tools to help us out. Anyone can use one of the below options to make product data feed organization easier:

  • DataFeedWatch;
  • GoDataFeed;
  • FeedOptimise;
  • Channable;
  • WakeupData;
  • VersaFeed.

 
DataFeedWatch allows you to easily create and adjust product catalogs. This is a great tool if you want to integrate with Shopify, WooCommerce, OpenCart, or Shopware.

GoDataFeed is an intuitive tool that makes importing and exporting products simple. The tool offers a fantastic automation feature that avoids any manual updating.

Channable specializes in automation. While the other tools listed here work great, Channable excels at automated product updates. All you need to do is connect the extension to your products and watch the magic happen.

WakeupData is more focused on ecommerce businesses. That is, affiliate programs with a wide range of products. Especially programs that need to connect with Shopify and PrestaShop. WakeupData has a very helpful and responsive team for any issues you may run into.

VersaFeed is a trustworthy management tool when it comes to product data feeds. The company has been around since 2007 and specializes in affiliate data feeds. VersaFeed offers great features to further optimize any products you upload.

You can even combine multiple product data feed management tools to get the most out of all of them. The more organized your products are, the easier it is to advertise. If you want to make money online every month, you have to keep improving your product data and organization.

Common Product Data Feed Mistakes

While product data feeds might seem accurate, this is dependent on the publishers who keep them updated. To ensure that your product data feeds are the best that they can be, watch out for the following mistakes:

  • Exceeded character limit or all caps;
  • Broken, outdated, or mismatched product data;
  • Incorrect price formatting;
  • No product categorization;
  • Out of stock items.

 
The first and most common mistake is creating long product titles, or names that are in all caps. While you might feel that it’s descriptive, long titles deter potential customers. All caps or bad grammar make any content look harsh and unattractive.

As product listings are used on a daily basis, any broken product data creates issues. When the information makes no sense, the products can’t be sold.

Customers will return a product with outdated information when they see the reality. Plus, product information that’s on the wrong product page is just asking for trouble!

Another mistake that publishers make is incorrectly formatting the product price. Different channels have entirely different currencies and pricing formats. Products with the wrong format can cause glitches on the channels’ side.

The last one that everyone seems to forget about is stock availability. It’s no use having a billion attributes for a product that you don’t have in stock.

You need to build up trust with channels by providing information that is accurate and as recent as it can be.

Conclusion

Product data feeds are only a part of the tools you’ll need to make money with affiliate marketing. Every publisher should make use of as many options as possible. From social media networks to old-fashioned email marketing.

Anything and everything will increase your potential income.

Whatever platform you decide to use, make sure to activate any monetization features. Most platforms require you to reach a certain number of subscribers or views first. But if you use ConvertSocial, you can instantly monetize any network you come across. ConvertSocial even lets you monetize messaging apps like WhatsApp and Telegram!

With all your marketing efforts, make sure to listen to your users’ feedback. The more you can keep your viewers happy, the more income you’ll make in the long run. Remember that your revenue is based on how many user interactions you can accumulate.