UPDATED: September 28, 2017
Yesterday, a good question was asked by an affiliate who is reading my blog. The essence of it may be summarized as follows:
What are some of the tools for processing merchant data feeds available to affiliates?
So, I decided to sit down, and compile a fairly comprehensive list of data feed tools that are available out there. I’ve come up with a list of twenty such tools (in the order of my personal preference), which I have seen in action, and am confident to list them here:
1. PopShops — Easy-to-use solution with a web interface which allows affiliates to create storefronts mixing and matching products from different merchants on different affiliate platforms.
2. GoldenCAN — Offers a number of easy cut-and-paste integration solutions include on for affiliate data feeds of multiple merchants.
3. WebMerge — Allows affiliate to publish data feeds “with templates from any HTML editor on any web server and then automate it.”
4. DatafeedR — Position themselves as “a system that enables you to creat and embed an affiliate store into your WordPress blog.”
5. Easy Content Units — A U.K. equivalent of PopShops, with a price comparison option.
6. DataFeedFile — Borrowed GoldenCAN’s concept and created a similar tool, adding a price comparison shopping functionality.
7. Datafeed Studio — Classic web application installable on the affiliate’s server to upload affiliate data feeds, turning them into websites.
8. FusePump — Works with a number of (mostly UK-based) merchants helping affiliates “integrate and optimise product data feeds to maximise revenue.”
9. FeedShare — Another interesting datafeed-import tool wiht a variety of integration methods.
10. Store Burst UK — Works as a subaffiliate “network”, allowing its users to create and run affiliate shops driven by data feeds.
11. Price Tapestry — PHP and MySQL price comparison engine based on Magic Parser, a PHP library designed for working with affiliate product feeds.
12. Product Showcase Creator — affSolutions’ “easy to use, web-based tool that creates affiliate-link encoded product showcases in seconds.”
13. Cusimano Scripts — CGI-bin Perl affiliate scripts put together to allow affiliates to either integrate them into their existing website or use new ones.
Per this replaced with: CSVpig — WordPress plugin which “transforms affiliate data feeds into professional WordPress blogs with thousands of content rich self-publishing posts.”
14. myDataFeedScripts.com — PHP scripts simplifying work with affiliate datafeeds of major affiliate networks, and individual affiliate programs.
Also, do not forget about network-based tools like the following ones (in alphabetical order):
15. Affiliate Window‘s Create-a-Feed — Part of a robust ShopWindow Toolset which allows affiliates to work with a database of several million products.
16. AvantLink‘s Datafeed Manager – The product’s slogan — “customizable datafeeds, updated daily” — speaks for itself, and this tool is definitely worth checking out.
17. Buy.at‘s ContentEngine and ShopCentral — Both tools allow affiliates to create dynamic online stores via buy.at’s APIs.
18. LinkShare‘s LinkLocator Direct — “A Web service data feed that provides you with information on advertisers in” the network allowing you “to download different types of creative directly from the advertisers.”
19. PaidOnResults‘ Content Units — A dynamic solution that allows affiliate to cut and past a code into your website, resting assured that “the Content Unit will remain current, with the latest products… without any additional work required.”
20. ShareASale‘s Make-a-Page — A feature that helps affiliates search and select products (across their merchants) and create precoded pages to thereafter cut and paste HTML code from.
As always, if I have missed a robust publicly available tool that you use, please do post about it below (using the “Comments” function).
Hi Geno,
Great list! The one use the most is CSVPig, works with Wordpres. You can pretty much build out a product site in no time. Been using it for over a year now and love it.
James, thank you for reminding me of this nifty little plugin! I’ve just linked your mention of it to their URL (so that others could check it out). Thanks again for chiming in.
AFAIK Cusimano has retired. No response to emails or web contact forms. The site is still there, but script support is gone.
Ah, good to know, Nancy. Will swap it with CSVPig later on then. Thanks for this info.
Geno,
If that many affiliates are active worldwide,
if that many datafeeds are available and used,
taking in consideration how Google is operating,
isn’t that almost the end of this market ?
How much unique content can we design, adding to a pair of trousers ?
Ruud, good point, and Sugarrae’s article on Affiliate Datafeeds and Duplicate Content is something I’d refer everyone to. When it comes to data feeds, do not plug-and-play; but tweak and adjust + add value.
Great post, I would also recommend checking out/adding to the list SellFire. They are a relatively new company/startup in the space and have some great tools for store creation.
Dan, thanks for letting me know about them. Added SellFire as a bonus (or tool #21) to the above list.
These guys have vanished, they offer NO support and their product is very buggy, I have stopped using them and would advise look at some others. The Datafeer & WooCommerce option is awesome
Geno,
I noticed that DataFeedFile refers to GAN by its old name Performics and even has BeFree listed as an affiliate network. I went to their blog and nothing has been posted since 2009. It really doesn’t look active.
Danny, thanks for the heads up!
BTW, long time, no talk… Hope all is well with you. Thanks for reading my blog.
I have developed a WordPress price comparison plugin targeting the UK market which tries to remove the need to work with datafeeds at all as we do all the processing on our server (there is a lot!). Currently we have a UK mobiles module and a UK video games module on the way with UK books and DVDs coming soon alongside PCs but I’m keen to work with pothers in other countries / niches. Keep up the great work Geno.
Very helpful as you had several listed I had never heard of. However I see a couple that have been dead for a few years now
and not working properly. I also would like to know why goldencan
is so high on your list when every static link is duplicate content
with the same description on your pages. HAVE YOU FOUND a way around it?
Jerry, speaking of “dead” services, when the above-quoted list was put together (nearly a year ago) all of these worked for me. I guess, time is coming for a new/updated post on the topic. 🙂
As for GoldenCAN: they are where they are on this due to the originality of their approach (years back). As far as the duplicate content goes: I always encourage affiliate managers to make their affiliate datafeeds (especially the wording of their product descriptions) different from what the merchant is actually displaying on their website.
On 31st May 2013, the buy.at platform will officially close. There are no longer any active advertisers remaining on buy.at, as all clients now operate through Affiliate Window.
I use SellFire and am very happy with how it performs, because it is really easy to use. The most difficult part of it, is sitting up the merchants on each individual website. It would be much easier if their app to set up a store on their site was spiderable .html or .php instead of JavaScript.
Has anybody any experience positive or negative with FeedMonster? I have ready some good things about it, but have never used it personally.
No, John, I’ve never used it myself either.
I made program that can download milions of affiliate products very quickly, It uses prosperent API: najweb.net/affiliate-datafeed-downloader-free/
Good list Geno! I have been reading your blog since years and always great info to read. Have a question: are there any free scripts available for importing XML, CSV and PAD files to WordPress or only paid solutions? If you know any free solutions, please share. Thanks!
Hi
Please can you tell me if any of these allow you to insert a voucher code datafeed into a website?
Thanks
Sally, check out my Affiliate Coupon Feed Solutions to Automate Integration here. It will give you a few answers to your question.
Hi, I am a retailer just entering affiliate marketplace. Our product data feed will come from our API. We are only planning to work with a handful of dedicated affiliates. I am looking to build an affiliate portal that will enable our affiliates to range and display our products via data feeds. Does anyone have a recommendation on where to build or if there is an existing tool?
Jerry Holmes, GoldenCAN is high in Geno’s list because it’s very simple to use goldencan data feed integration. No doubt, they have less innovation and investment in their program like goldenfeed and popshops but one man ASIF MALIK is enough to cope with goldencan competitors.
As far as Duplicate Contents is a point of concern for you, i recommend you to use goldencan javascript version to avoid duplicate content.
Geno, you wrote good blog.
SellFire is really nice, BUT, they make you pay the bill, without reply to your request, nothing, 0.
There is something that smell of End..
Great article Geno.Have you ever heard of ows software. They have a nice data feed but I can never get them to answer any questions about their product when I email them.
I’ve been using Sellfire, it’s quite easy to set up and works pretty good.
The downside is that if you want to create a page for an item (you are able to) takes forever to load (as it’s being generated at that very moment)
The customer service is lame, I sent them an email 5 days ago and never heard from them
Sellfire is a good option but it has really bad pitfalls and support is one of them, they just never answer any support emails.
Even offered voluntary to help them with support – NO ANSWER.
Sad as it has potential but cannot get anywhere with support it is not worth spending your dollars with.
However if you happy with no support at all then its cheap enough and the interface that works via the plug-in is pretty reasonable.
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Dont forget the new affiliate product feed script from affiliatewinkelxl.nl. Works realy great with product feeds from all affiliate programs
Jasper, does it support Dutch merchants only? I see that your interface is in Dutch. Hence the question.
Sellfire is dead and buried long ago. Apparently they thought they could treat their customers like s-h-one-t and get away with it. But the market will out! There’s another one like that at the moment ~ WooZone ~ on Themeforest. Their product is buggy as hell, with each new release clearing up old bugs and introducing new ones, and they simply just ignore your support tickets. They will no doubt go the same way as Sellfire before too long.
For anybody who isn’t aware, SellFire is out of business. I thought it was a great program at a reasonable price. C’est la vie!!!
Terence, John, thank you for the heads-up! SellFire is now removed from the list.
Any new datafeed aggregator candidates in the field since Sellfire’s departure?
Much as I would lean toward going back to GoldenCAN, the lack of 100% of my top ten merchants like Nordstrom’s is a real downside.
Nice place to list all the tools, but it’s pretty outdated! Channable is also a feed optimisation tool for a large number of affiliate networks https://www.channable.com/ support is really friendly too!