Some networks have way more problems sorting their incoming merchant feeds than others, so I assume that the ones that work well have various character filters on the incoming feeds.

Presumably the networks with reliable feeds have a database guru. Its certainly needed as its no easy job to screen for sets of rogue characters and replace them with spaces or whatever. Bad enough doing it manually !

Mind you, although I have a friend who seems to be able to name a price for working on corporate databases, apparently general db work doesn’t pay that well.

So, 1. we don’t launch without a feed. 431 live programs on the UK, 352 have a feed, that’s 82%. The remaining 18% is dating, gambling, lead gen programs for the most, and some retailers whose feeds we disabled for poor quality.

2. the feed we get is scrutinised for its quality – we have sector templates which we strongly recommend are followed by the merchants. Categorisation is important too, so we are very particular with that. To the point that we might delay the launch, but I believe it’s best to get it right from the start rather than troubleshoot later (lucky I’m not a developer, I would never finish a project).

3. the feeds are largely automated and on daily updates. This means that they pull the info directly from the site real time or close enough and we get that info every night. Some merchants do need to push the file for update even if it’s automated. Manually updated files are chased up and we mostly manage to have them updated. We display the date of the last change, so affiliates can see who updates and who doesn’t.

4. we have quality control in product and image urls, as well as pricing info. We check 100 products from each file and display our findings to the affiliates in the feed checker. We use that too to troubleshoot feeds with the merchants.

And, 5. if you do spot any problems with a feed, give us a shout and we are very fast to get it fixed if we can from our end, or pester the merchant until it is.

thanks

Obviously agree completely on the importance of feeds etc. In order to do something about it, could I suggest that you speak to Kevin Edwards, new Chair of the IAB Affiliate Council, as I believe that he has an education piece on the best practice when producing/maintaining a feed on his roadmap.

Matt

The only thing that will change this is good merchant education – we’re nagging merchants on a daily basis at ECU, and I know most networks take a similar stance, but there are more than a few networks for whom product feeds are an after-thought, and many many merchants who don’t know how or why they need to update their feed.

IMO every merchant’s feed should be interlinked with their own inventory database – That way every item on there is in stock, and priced correctly. Quite a few do this, but perhaps the networks should club together and offer a free inventory/feed creation/management tool to all their merchants?