 | Content Units Leave Affiliate Without Width Or Pyjamas! |
Content units! They’re a wonderful invention aren’t they! In the rosey garden of affiliate land it would work like this: an affiliate just ambles along to their favourite network, does a search or two for their selected products and moments later they’ve created a lovely easy to insert into a webpage piece of content. The reality though is affiliate land is far from rosey - whilst the quality of network tools has improved somewhat over time, my god some of you need to go and try playing with these tools to actually implement them on a website!
Easiest to use and work with are Paid on Results content units, and after discovering there’s a more malliable version of their content units I was quite pleased that I managed to go into their system and come out with something that plugged in via PHP. The downside was that it wasn’t quite in the tabulated format I wanted, not POR’s fault and nice to see the options. What I would like to see is a number of products per column/row and customisable width options.
Width was an issue at Affiliate Window too. Their content widget system is a bit more cumbersome, but you can search for specific products at selected merchants which is good… but then you have to select each item you want (no multi select option though) and if you’ve only got a 468×60 banner that shows 2 products I’m not sure why I’d need more than 2 selected products anyway. All that aside, the good news is the units are customisable in colour… but are all specific in size. Why? Why not give me the option to size the unit so I can fit it in with my website? It would be so much better if I can integrate units into the space I have!
If I have a space 500 wide - what good is a 720×300, 300×600, 250×250 or 468×60… let me decide columns/rows!!
Now Buy.at do allow me to decide columns and rows with their Content Engine - hooray! It’s customisable, has a PHP option, although the v3 interface is so painfully slow (bordering on impossible to use - if fact it’s so slow it’s still easier to get banners from v2 which all things considered is pretty poor) and they’ve got no Marks and Spencer Pyjamas! They’re in the product feed we get from M&S, but when I try building a content unit for ‘Pyjamas’ specifically for ‘Marks and Spencer’ (presuming this uses the same Buy.at product feed affiliates use) can I get more than just a “Winnie the Pooh Hot Water Bottle”? Can I eckers like! Where are the pyjamas? Who’s got them? How do I find them?
Other - Cotton Rich Pyjama BottomsMarks and Spencer
Soft and comfortable, these cotton pyjama bottoms can be wor… £9.50 |
Other - Floral Enchanted PyjamasMarks and Spencer
Thanks to Giselle bedtimes have never been so much fun! Thes… £13.00 |
Other - Thin Stripe Long Sleeve PyjamasMarks and Spencer
Crisp and comfortable, these pyjamas are outstanding value £9.50 |
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Truly You - Truly You Satin Spot Camisole PyjamasMarks and Spencer
Glamorous and elegant, these feminine pyjamas are part of a … £14.00 |
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There are some great tools here - and there are some network omissions from the above simply as those networks don’t even have the tools (or if they do they’re that bad they’re not even worth using) - but the one’s here do need to be improved… not least to preserve what remaining hair I have left on my head for the forthcoming winter!
Whilst I’m having a frustrated with creative day the same message has to be echoed to merchants too - what’s with the odd sized content units? Too often they’re designed for “your site” not “mine” - some are just huge monstrosities that I’m sure few affiliates actually use! Another bugbear - why do merchants offer a search system 468×60 wide, but in no other sizes? Why do Amazon have such great widgets, but no customisable Top 10 widget? Why don’t Woolworths have any Christmas creative? In fact, come to think of it, why do so many merchants not have Christmas creative?
Darn, there goes some more hair! :o)
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on November 19, 2007 at 7:46 pm Richard wrote:
Hi Jason,
If you want to customise a content unit that much, aren’t you better off sucking product feeds into your own database and then applying your own design and styles?
Then you’re no longer at the mercy of the merchants…
Good luck with your Christmas selling!
Richard
on November 19, 2007 at 8:28 pm jason wrote:
For Loquax we already do bring in feeds - but for smaller sites/blogs it’s easier to use content units.
Also in some cases merchant product units are quite good and up to date with offers (for example) and they’re often more useful than a product feed.
Jason
on November 20, 2007 at 8:09 am hero wrote:
I would like to get your view on the Webgains content unit system when you have some time