Creating a useful data feed

If you want to promote your products by data feed, here are some tips to make the most of your feed. If you are a merchant and have a feed on one of our partner network FTP services (CJ, Google Affiliate Network, LinkShare, Pepperjam, LinkConnector, ShareASale, etc) then we can access that feed at no cost to you. Be sure and follow their standards carefully so that your feed will be well organized and have the data needed to provide your affiliates with an excellent marketing tool.

If you have a feed that needs custom attention, for example if need us to access your feed outside the network FTP server, a setup charge will apply.

Categorize your feed

If you've got more than 25 products in your feed, then it really pays to categorize. Sure your products can always be located by keyword (if your affiliates know what the name of the product is), but why not throw a bone to those who want to browse? To continue the canine theme, an affiliate who is looking for dog collars does not want to have to flip through 200 pages of other pet products just to make sure she's not missing anything.

Of course each network handles categories differently, and none of them seem to provide easy-to-find information on how to categorize product feeds, but here is what we have divined so far:

• Commision Junction uses the Advertiser Category field. If it is necessary to drill down into subcategories, feel free to do so, but please use the greater-than sign (e.g., Dogs > Accessories > Collars). Other symbols (e.g., slashes, commas, etc.) are read as text and will cause your carefully considered subcategories to disgorge themselves all at once.
• For ShareASale feeds, we pull category data from the MerchantCategory and MerchantSubcategory fields (not the four Custom fields). You can include mutilple subcategory levels in the MerchantSubcategory field, but please use the greater-than sign (>) to separate them.

Custom SKUs, UPCs, etc

Be sure and add as much detail as you can for the individual product if you want to be included in price comparisons, etc. Take note that ShareASale will not generate a custom SKU for feeds larger than 15,000 products and that PopShops can not accept those feeds.  If you are a ShareASale merchant with over 15,000 products and want to include this in PopShops we will need to create a custom import process for you at a nominal charge (usually a $150 - $250 one-time charge.)

Images and thumbnail URLs

If you want to convert to sales, be sure that you have URLs to both small and large images in your feed, and ideally small, medium, and large. 

Thumbnail Image URL = The URL for a small thumbnail image of the product (ideally under 100×100)

Medium Image URL = The URL for a mid-sized image of the product (ideally around 250×250)

Large Image URL = The URL for a large thumbnail image of the product (ideally 500×500)

Custom feed browser

If you would like to offer your affiliates a white-label version of PopShops, co-branded with your company and limited only to your feeds, please contact our team at corporate@popshops.com.