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Publishers: getting and using a tracked product feed

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A product feed is a brand’s catalogue: its products, their prices, pictures and availability, in a file the brand keeps up to date. On Affilae, you do not use that file as it is. You get a tracked version of it, in which every product link already carries your affiliate identifier: every sale made through those links is attributed to you, without creating a single link by hand.

Requirements: an approved partnership with the brand, and a product feed it made available to you. Not every brand offers one.

What a tracked feed is for

Showing a whole catalogue. Price comparison site, product search engine, deals site or affiliate shop: you bring in hundreds or thousands of products at once.
Saving time. Every product link is already tracked. There is nothing to create in the Link builder.
Staying up to date. The tracked feed is built from the brand’s catalogue at the moment you download it. Prices, stock and promotions follow its updates.
Earning commission as usual. A click on a feed link is a tracked click like any other, under the commission rules of your partnership.

Where to find your feeds

MANAGE MY PROFILES

My Blog

Configuration

Partnerships

Medias

Ads

Product feed

Vouchers

On the publisher side, the “Product feed” page sits under “Medias”, inside the profile menu.

In the sidebar, under Manage my profiles, click your profile name.
Expand Medias and click Product feed.
The table lists the feeds of the brands you partner with, in the columns Program, Title, Created the, Format, URL and Status. The search field filters the list by program name.

The Products feeds page: each feed shows two addresses, each with its copy button. Sample data.

You only see the feeds the brand shared with you: a brand can keep a feed for some partners only. The feeds of a partnership still awaiting approval do not show. A feed with the Inactive status is no longer distributed by the brand.

A brand can let you know by email when it makes a feed available to you. You also get an email when it activates or deactivates a feed that concerns you, with a link to this page.

The two addresses of each feed

In the URL column, each feed shows two rows, each with its copy button:

Feed URL: the brand’s original file. Its links are not tracked. Do not use it to publish, your sales would not be attributed to you.
Tracked feed URL: the version to use. It is unique to your partnership and its product links carry your affiliate identifier.

The Tracked feed URL looks like this:

https://feeds.affilae.com/api/feed/affilae/builder?url=…&partnershipId=…&encoding=UTF-8&separator=,&format=csv

Good to know: if the Tracked feed URL row shows a dash, the brand has not finished setting up its feed. It then shows as Inactive and cannot be used yet.

What the tracked feed contains

The same file as the brand’s: same format (CSV, XML or JSON), same encoding, same columns.
Only the link of each product page changes. It is replaced by a tracked link in your name, built with the program’s settings, like a link from the Link builder.
Column names and the choice of columns are the brand’s own and vary from one program to the next. Find the product link column in each file: that is the one carrying the tracking.
Feed links carry no SubID. To track a specific placement with a SubID, create that link with the Link builder.

Using the feed in your tools

Copy the Tracked feed URL with its copy button.
Paste it into your tool: your site’s import module, comparison engine, script, feed aggregator or spreadsheet. Give it the format shown in the Format column.
Schedule an automatic update, for example once a day, to pick up the brand’s new prices and products.
Publish the feed links as they are. Do not edit or rebuild them: an edited link may fail to record your clicks and sales.

Tip: before plugging in your tool, compare a link from the tracked feed with the same product in the Feed URL. They differ: the tracked link is the one that attributes the sale to you.

Already automating your tools? The list of your feeds and their tracked URLs is also available through the Affilae API.

How often to download it

The tracked feed is built at each download, from the brand’s file. Downloading it more often than the brand updates its catalogue brings nothing: once a day is usually enough.

If you download again too soon, Affilae answers with the A6 code, giving the delay to wait before retrying. That delay is also given in the HTTP Retry-After header.
If your tool supports the HTTP ETag header, send the value you received in the If-None-Match header of your next download. If the feed has not changed, Affilae answers 304 Not Modified, with no file: there is nothing to download again, and you get this answer even when the download is close to the previous one. The If-Modified-Since header is not taken into account.
A large catalogue can take a while to download. Let your tool finish, without starting the same download again in parallel (A5 code).

If the feed does not answer

When the tracked feed cannot be delivered, Affilae returns a code and a message instead of the file. The most common ones:

A2: the brand’s file is in error. Nothing to do on your side, the feed is available again as soon as the brand fixes it. If it lasts, let the brand know through the messaging.
A3: your partnership is not, or no longer, approved.
A6: download too close to the previous one, retry after the delay given in the message.
D25: the feed was deactivated, deleted or changed by the brand. Go back to the Product feed page and copy the Tracked feed URL again, it may have changed.

Every code is detailed in Product feed error codes.

Best practices

Always use the Tracked feed URL, never the Feed URL.
If you manage several profiles, copy the URL from the profile that will publish the links: each partnership has its own tracked URL.
Show the prices and availability of the latest download. A sold-out product or an outdated price loses the sale and your visitors’ trust.
When a brand deactivates a feed, remove its products from your site rather than leaving offers that are no longer up to date.

Use cases

A price comparison site. It imports the tracked feeds of ten brands every night and shows their offers side by side. Each sale goes to the right partnership, without a single link created by hand.
A cooking blog. It builds its pick of the week from the feed of a cookware brand. Prices stay right without any manual update.
A deals site. It spots the promotion and voucher columns in the feed, when the brand provides them, to highlight current offers.

Frequently asked
questions

Three possible reasons: the brand offers no feed, it kept the feed for other partners, or your partnership is still awaiting approval. You can ask the brand through the messaging whether a feed is planned.

Not to publish. Its links are not tracked and your sales would not be attributed to you. Always use the Tracked feed URL.

Yes: same format, same encoding and same columns. Only the product page links are replaced by tracked links in your name.

Once a day is usually enough: the tracked feed is built at each download from the brand’s file. If you download it too often, Affilae answers with the A6 code and the delay to wait.

No, feed links carry no SubID, and they must not be edited. To track a specific placement with a SubID, create that link with the Link builder.

The brand has not finished setting up its feed, which cannot be delivered as a tracked feed yet. The feed then shows as Inactive. It becomes usable once the brand completes its configuration.