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| Also see: Affiliate Benefits | Merchants Frequenty Asked Questions | Ask a question not answered here |
Affiliate FAQ - Affiliate Frequently Asked Questions
- Am I responsible to provide customer service?
- Can DFF be trusted to only replace the 4th Link or Click-through?
- Can I customize DFF's service and tools?
- Can I display only certain Categories?
- Can I display only certain Merchants?
- Do I have to sign-up with any affiliate network?
- Do I need to have my own website?
- How about copyrights, trademarks and ownership of data?
- How can I make my website better than others?
- How can I sign-up as an affiliate?
- How do I contact Merchant Affiliate Managers?
- How do I track my progress and performance?
- How do I use XML web services with Token and Requesting IP?
- How do I use advanced tracking using 'subid' or 'trackingid' ?
- How does the Shared Commission plan work in detail?
- How long does it take before I can start?
- How much does DFF service cost?
- How much would I get paid?
- How to Sign-Up Prospect Merchants?
- How to use Merchant Referral Link to get commission referring merchants to DFF?
- I have many different shopping web sites, should I join DataFeedfile.co.uk with multiple accounts?
- I signed-up but never received any response
- Is DFF service approved by merchants?
- Is DFF service approved by the Affiliate Networks?
- Is DFF service easy to use?
- List of Affiliate Networks
- List of Merchants supported by DFF
- PHP versus Javascript
- What are Prospect Merchants?
- What can DFF do for affiliates?
- What information do I need to get started?
- What is a SKU, CATNUM, MERNUM and MFGNUM?
- What is a Shared Commission plan?
- What is an Affiliate Network?
- What is in it for DataFeedfile.co.uk? How do DFF gets paid?
- What is the Sponsored Merchant Plan?
- What or who are Affiliate Managers?
- When and how will I get paid?
- Where can I find HTML Code samples?
- Which merchant should I sign-up for?
- Why it is worth sharing the 4th click
- Why was I disapproved by some merchants?
- Would DFF's HTML Code increase your search engine position?
- Would I get penalized for search engine duplicate content?
- Would affiliate managers have access to my information and activity?
Seeing is believing. We encourage all affiliate to Sign-Up (free) and test our One Line HTML Code before using it live on their website.
For most network such as CJ, Linkshare and LinkConnector they no longer expose their affiliate ID during the redirection. Which makes this audit quite difficult.
There are several ways you can audit our system:
1. Click through 1 merchant (same merchant) five times and check on the affiliate network report for the click-through results.
2. If you are fast (fast at pressing the STOP button on the browser) after you click on the buy / more info link from DFF HTML for only shareasale, you may be able to see URL at the address bar will have your shareasale affiliate ID 3 out of 4 times.
3. Use our Click-Through Reveal feature to see what your next click-through will be using.
4. You can also make a purchase to a merchant, while your next click-through is using your affiliate ID and follow up with the affiliate network report to make sure you receive commission.
We believe Honesty, Trust and Integrity is the basis of any business relationship especially in the online affiliate industry. Without it none of us would even bother listing any banners, text links or advertisements for any merchant / affiliate network.
Yes, DFF services and tools are very customizable. You can set and save Templates to be used for Javascripts to match your website's look and feel. You can also pre-define Javascript variables before calling the Javascript to further control individual script specific features. By using the options to control the look and feel, DFF services can be integrated to your site seamlessly.
Yes. We know it is important to be able to only show certain categories. For example, if your website is about Books, you certainly would not want to display Pet related products on your website.
You can customize each Template to only display certain categories or all categories.
Yes. DFF service would only display products for Merchant(s) you have selected. You need to select at least one merchant in order to use our service. There is no limit of how many merchants you can select, you can select all if you want to.
Yes, you have to sign-up with as many affiliate networks as you need. You have to apply for advertisement programs/campaigns from each merchant you are interested in to display their products.
First you must find out which Affiliate Network that particular merchant belongs to. If you are already a member of the Affiliate Network you can just apply for the merchant advertisement program. If not you must first apply to become an affiliate at that particular network. Most merchants also require approval before your traffic referral would be counted.
If the program you are applying for does not belong to an Affiliate Network, please check our list of Independent Affiliate Program.
Yes, you must have your own website to use DFF's services. DFF's HTML Code must be used (copy-and-paste) inside your HTML, PHP, JSP, ASP or web page source codes.
The whole idea behind the affiliate industry, is to use affiliates' web sites to bring shoppers / traffic to promote the merchants.
Is there any requirement for any particular hosting company or service? No. Any hosting service would do since our requirement is only to put our HTML Code inside your web page source code, which any hosting service would support.
As a user of DFF's services you have agreed to DFF's terms and conditions which states you do not own nor has any right to copy, reproduce nor reuse any digital content delivered through this service. Ownership of the organized and processed data delivered belongs to DataFeedfile.co.uk, the copyrights, trademarks and actual raw data content belongs to either the merchant and/or manufacturer of those products.
You have been authorized and/or licensed to use and display DFF's services on your website for the sole purpose of generating traffic and sales for merchants and affiliate networks.
There are many factors that make a great website such as quality, design, content and marketing. DFF's services only provide one of these four factors which is content. Even the content can be different from website to website since we allow each affiliate to customize how and what information will be displayed.
To differentiate your website and make it better than your competitors you must put lots of work and efforts into your website. DFF's can provide an excellent content for your website, but it is your job to make sure your website quality, design and marketing will generate the most amount of traffic and sales.
To sign-up and join DFF as an affiliate, you have to read and agree with DFF's Terms and Conditions. Then use this Affiliate Sign-Up Form to apply online. DFF provide services towards affiliates free of charge, depending on the merchant, we may substitute the 4th click-through with our own affiliate site ID (Shared Commission plan). DFF reserves the right to refuse services to anyone or any organization with/without any explanation.
Once logged-in to your affiliate account control panel (ACP), click on the Merchants tab, and then click on the merchant you are trying to contact. You may also find either the affiliate manager's phone number and/or their email address.
DFF have asked participating merchants to put their affiliate manager's contact information within our database for affiliate to use, but it is possible that this information is missing in case for whatever reason the company or affiliate manager do not like to be contacted.
It is important to track your progress and performance at least once every month. DFF can only collect minimal information (pageviews and click-throughs) since we only display the product links and send your customers directly to the affiliate network and merchant website. DFF do not know how much of your traffic has converted to sales. So, our performance reports are limited to traffic related information. To see reports provided by DFF, login to your Affiliate Control Panel (ACP) and click on the Reports tab.
For sales conversion and commission earning reports you must login to each affiliate network and use their reporting tools there.
DFF can delivery shopping and product information using standard XML technology. Using XML you can receive data in its raw format and display them however you like. Using XML you will make your web site look different and very unique. XML is not for novice programmers, it requires intermediate programming skills and experience.
Click here to see DFF's XML web services examples.
In order to use our XML web services, you must first obtain your unique Token. A Token is a long alpha-numeric string uniquely generated for each affiliate as a key to access our XML web service.
In addition to the XML Token, you also must specify which IP address will be used to retrieve the XML data. This IP address will most likely be your web server's IP address.
To get your XML Token or to specify your Requesting IP address you must log in to your Affiliate Control Panel and go to Settings > XML.
DFF support using and passing additional tracking information into the click-through links. You can set certain values for 'subid' or 'trackingid' for each affiliate network.
To set these 'subid' or 'trackingid' values, you have to log on to your Affiliate Control Panel (ACP) and go to Settings > Affiliate IDs.
The best way to describe the Shared Commission using 4th click replacement engine is to imagine
a sequential click-through counter which resets every time it reaches 5 back to 1 and perform substitution every time it reached counter # 4.
We do not count based on per merchant session but per affiliate session.
For example let's say there is an affiliate site called www.affilate-site.com.
1. 1st visitor goes to affiliate-site.com and click on Buy.com. (DFF server increase the affiliate-site.com counter to 1)
2. 2nd visitor goes to affiliate-site.com and click on BestBuy.com (DFF server increase the affiliate-site.com counter to 2)
3. 1st visitor still at affiliate-site.com clicks on Altrec.com (DFF server increase the affiliate-site.com counter to 3)
4. 3rd visitor goes to affiliate-site.com and click on Smart Bargains (SPONSORED MERCHANT) (DFF server does not increase the counter, stays at 3)
5. 2nd visitor still at affiliate-site.com clicks on Overstock.com (DFF server increase the affiliate-site.com counter to 4 + substitute DFF's affiliate ID for this click-through)
6. 4th visitor goes to affiliate-site.com and click on FootLocker.com (DFF server resets counter back to 1)
It really depends on your approval time from the Affiliate Network and each individual merchant. DFF's service can be implemented to your site in less than 10 minutes.
If you have already have most / all of your Affiliate IDs ready, you can start displaying data from hundreds of merchants within 10 minutes.
Nothing, Free, Nada for any affiliate. You will not have to pay anything towards DataFeedfile.co.uk ever.
DFF gets compensation either from merchants (sponsored) or from Shared Commission replacement of the 4th click or click-through with our own affiliate site ID.
How much you would earn depends on each merchant, how much traffic and sales you have generated.
Each merchant has their own advertisement campaign which offers different types of commissions and plans. There are many different types of campaigns and they can change anytime. Affiliates are responsible to apply, understand and agree to each merchant's terms and condition.
To sign-up prospect merchants (you have to login as affiliate to see list of prospects), first you should call the Affiliate Manager and talk to him/her about DataFeedfile.co.uk services.
It is important for you to know that DFF service is free for all merchants using the Shared Commission plan. Any merchant can upgrade to Sponsored Merchant to eliminate the sharing of commission between DFF and affiliates by paying for DFF service.
There are 2 (two) ways a prospect merchant can sign-up:
1. Online sign-up form
DFF affiliate can earn commission for referring merchant, learn more about Merchant Referral Link.
2. Fax back our merchant sign-up form to fax: (832) 201-9364
Since we have 2 merchant plans there are 2 forms, but only one need to be filled out:
a. Shared Commission (free)
b. Sponsored Merchant (see pricing here)
Do affiliate get reward or commission for referring merchant to DFF?
Starting March 1, 2008 we will reward £10 for each Shared Merchant and £50 for each Sponsored Merchant referred to DFF.
Click here to get the Merchant Referral Link (you must be a DFF affiliate).
Starting March 1, 2008:
1. First you have to be an affiliate of DFF, if you are not, Sign-Up Here.
2. Login as DFF affiliate and click on the Merchants Tab.
3. Find the link to Merchant Referral Program page at the bottom left navigation bar.
3. Copy and Paste the Merchant Referral Link.
4. You can use the Merchant Referral Link in Emails, your Website and Banners.
We appreciate your help to recruit more merchants.
More about the terms of the Merchant Referral Link program can be found below the Merchant Referral Link on the Merchant Referral Program page.
I have many different shopping web sites, should I join DataFeedfile.co.uk with multiple accounts? Top
As for DFF, we recommend different accounts to be able to see individual report for each site.Also, separating accounts will help our merchants distinguish who you are.
Since our tools use links tracked by the Affiliate Network (Linkshare, CJ, etc)
It is best you use the APPROPRIATE affiliate ID for each one of the sites, also
unless you have stated each one of your sites to be aliases at each one of the affiliate network.
DFF staff review and reply to affiliate application every business day in the morning usualy between 8am - 10am CST.
We do not review affiliate appliation on Saturday, Sunday and Holidays
Our reply of your Approval or Denial will be sent to you via Email.
If you do not receive any email from us within 72 hours, it is probably because our email has been blocked by your spam filter or our email has been put into the Spam folder. Try to look for our email there.
Next you should try to login anyways incase the email never goes through.
Yes, all merchants benefit from DataFeedfile.co.uk's service. Since our service introduce more affiliates to the merchants and most importantly generates more sales because affiliates like you can use their data feed better.
DataFeedfile.co.uk offers a Win-Win situation for both merchants and affiliates.
Yes, DataFeedfile.co.uk has been approved by Commission Junction, Linkshare, Share-A-Sale and Performics. We rely on cooperation from the affiliate networks to track your traffic, provide reports and distribute payments for affiliates.
DFF is an extension of the affiliate networks by providing additional tools and services to assist affiliates to generate increased sales for merchants. DFF is the missing link between the affiliate networks and their thousands of affiliates.
Yes, we have designed our service to be as easy as possible to use. Most of our services only use one single line of HTML code. You simply cut and paste this code in your HTML, PHP, ASP source page. That is all.
Below you will find a list of Affiliate Networks who DFF has relationship with:
(click the links below to apply)
United States:
- LinkShare (US)
- Commission Junction (CJ) (US & UK)
- Share-a-Sale (SAS) (US)
- Performics
- Amazon (US & UK)
- Powell's Books (US)
United Kingdom:
- Affiliate Windows (UK)
- Commission Junction (CJ) (US & UK)
- WebGains (UK)
- Affiliate Future (UK)
- Trade Doubler (UK)
- Amazon (US & UK)
See DFF's full list of United States Affiliate Networks and Independent Affiliate Programs. See DFF's full list of United Kingdom Affiliate Networks.
DFF is not an affiliate network. Affiliates must have relationships and approval from both the network and the merchant program.
Please Click Here to see the list of Merchants who participated with DFF. This list also has the categories and number of products for each merchant. Please note, you have to apply to each merchant program once again in DFF even though you are already approved for that merchant at the affiliate network.
PHP is only available for affiliates who use PHP as their active scripting language.
PHP is the most popular open source dynamic scripting language in the world.
PHP script tools provided by DFF are as easy to use as Javascripts. Most of the time PHP scripts are only 1 line long.
Unlike Javascript which is hidden / blind from search engine robots, PHP scripts executed from DFF servers return HTML codes readable by the client. HTML content returned by PHP execution are also SEO friendly and may be indexed by search engine robots such as Google and Yahoo!.
Prospect merchants are online merchants who have not participated with DFF yet. DFF already have their datafeed in our database, all we have to do is activate them to be included on affiliate sites.
Click here to see our current list of Prospect Merchants.
DFF rely on our affiliates to help us sign-up prospect merchants, please click here to learn how to help us Sign-Up Prospect Merchants.
DFF makes it easy for affiliates to use data feeds file from hundreds of merchants. DFF's one line HTML codes are very easy to use. Affiliates can display merchant products, perform searches, browse through categories and compare prices. You do not have to spend a lot time or money to get great results. DFF is free for any affiliate to use.
You need to Sign-up with DataFeedfile.co.uk as an affiliate for free. We will collect minimal personal information only to pass this information towards the merchants. Once you have signed-up and verified your email, you will also need to enter as many affiliate IDs as possible into your affiliate settings.
Then finally all you have to do is pick as many merchants as you want or need to be included within your search, browse and price comparison service.
Unlike other affiliate tools, DFF actually aggregates merchant data feeds into our own database. During this consolidation process we also organize and normalize the data into our own standard using our own Product SKU, CATNUM (category number), MERNUM (merchant number), and MFGNUM (manufacturer number).
We have provided different finder tools at the bottom right portion of the home page. Using the different finder tools, you can locate the right value for the different variables you need to use with our Javascripts and XML tools.
PRODUCT SKU = this is a unique number for each product we have identified in our database
CATNUM = category number
MERNUM = merchant / store number
MFGNUM = manufacturer number
A Shared Commission refers to the action of replacing every 4th Link with DFF's affiliate ID instead of yours. This also means every 4th click-through will use DFF's affiliate ID. This is the reason why we are able to deliver this service for you without any charge. If a sale or lead occurs on the 1st, 2nd or 3rd click you will earn the commission. If a sale or lead occurs on the 4th click, DFF will earn the commission.
Some merchants actually compensate DFF directly therefore eliminating the need for Shared Commission for that particular merchant's products listing. These merchants are called Sponsored Merchants, you will earn 100% of all the commissions and click-through from Sponsored Merchants.
Please refer to our list of merchants to see which plan each merchant has participated with.
An affiliate network is a commercial company who manages relationships between affiliates and merchants. An Affiliate network's job is to connect merchants with as many affiliates as possible. Affiliate networks list advertisement campaigns, links and data feeds belonging to online merchants for affiliates to use on their website. The affiliates will display the merchant's advertisement and try to bring as much traffic as possible toward the merchant's website.
Depending on the merchant's advertisement campaign, some campaigns may pay-per-click or cost-per-click (PPC / CPC), but most would actually pay-per-action or cost-per-action (PPA / CPA), meaning you would get paid for every sale generated from traffic referred from the affiliates' website.
Click Here to see a list of Affiliate Networks.
There are 2 ways DataFeedfile.co.uk gets paid, first by the Merchants (sponsored) and second by Shared Commission.
Shared Commission means DFF will replace the 4th click-through affiliate site ID with DFF's affiliate site ID. Meaning 1 out of 4 (25%) affiliate links and/or click-through will be replaced by DFF's affiliate ID instead of yours. Affiliates' links will be used 75% of the time and DFF's 25%.
This plan is called the Shared Commission Plan. Share Commission plan would only be used for Merchants who do not pay DFF directly or sponsored DFF, non Sponsored Merchants.
If DFF's receive compensation directly from the merchant, we will display that particular merchant's products and links using 100% Your affiliate site ID, DFF will not replace or substitute any of the links or click-through from that merchant. This plan is called the Sponsored Merchant Plan.
A Sponsored Merchant Plan refers to merchants who has made direct compensation arrangements with DataFeedfile.co.uk to allow any affiliate to use DFF's service for 100% free without Shared Commission or replacement of Affiliate Site ID on every 4th click. Meaning you will earn 100% from your traffic and sales generated from your website.
Please Click Here to see list of merchants under Sponsored Merchant Plan.
Affiliate Managers are employee(s) of the Online Merchant company whose job is to manage affiliate programs, campaigns and budgets. Most affiliate managers are directly employed by the merchant company, but a few are paid 3rd party professional affiliate managers.
Affiliate managers will monitor, track, approve and disapprove affiliate participation and activity. Affiliate managers are directly responsible for the performance versus monies spent by the merchant company, therefore it is there duty to encourage, help and answer any question from affiliates.
Payments are issued directly from each affiliate networks or independent affiliate programs. When and how much you will be paid depends on the terms and conditions you have agreed with each affiliate network or program. Most affiliate networks have minimum payouts to avoid sending insignificant amount of money. If your accumulated commission does not meet the minimum, they will not issue your payment in that period.
To track your earnings better we recommend all affiliates to use 'subid' or 'trackingid' for all click-through links from DFF. You can set specific values into the 'subid' or 'trackingid' from the Affiliate Control Panel > Settings > Affiliate IDs.
DataFeedfile.co.uk's sample HTML Codes along with Live working samples can be found under our Examples tab.<BR>
Go to our Example Web Site.
Our example site or pages also displays the actual Javascript or XML request procedure you need to use. For further clarification, you may View the HTML Source of our example pages to see the exact integration HTML source code.
You should sign-up for the merchants that have products which best match the theme of your website. If your site does not have any particular theme you can sign-up for as many affiliate networks and as many merchants as you want (there is no limit). DFF's one line HTML code allows you to display or search all products, but you can limit the service only to certain categories or merchants if you wish.
DataFeedfile.co.uk has created a full featured price comparison shopping engine that took 5 experience programmers 1.5 years to create. Not to mention the hundreds of human labor hours spent identifying and categorizing products.
DataFeedfile.co.uk has a total of approximately 25 million products as of today (8/28/2006). About 2 million has been identified and normalized with UPC / ISBN, have proper description and product pictures.
In order for an affiliate to re-create DFF tool and provide a similar shopping functionality, the affiliate would need at least 6 high-end servers, 2 years development time and hundreds of hours organizing product information. Not to mention the daily routine updates.
Remember this service has been given as a privilege for any affiliate to use and/or participate. Merchants are not require to provide this service to anyone and/or any organization, actually since they are the owner of the information, merchants have the right to refuse services to anyone without the need for any explanation.
If you have been disapproved by any merchant, you will receive a generic / automated email informing you about your disapproval. Even though the notification email described several possibilities of why you have been disapproved, you can try to contact the affiliate manager of that particular merchant and asked for a more detailed explanation.
DataFeedfile.co.uk is not responsible for approving or disapproving affiliates.
No. DFF's one line HTML Code uses Javascript technology which means the information was delivered from DFF's web server instead of your own. Almost all search engine robots ignore Javascripts and will not execute them, therefore the robots would only see read the HTML text around the Javascript, but not the result output of the Javascript.
For proof you can try to display any of DFF's service on your site using Microsoft Internet Explorer or other browser. Then click on the 'Edit' menu bar, then select 'View Source." Find DFF's Javascript code within the HTML source and you will see that there are no merchant product related HTML data within the source code.
No. DFF's one line HTML Code uses Javascript technology which is completely ignored by search engine robots. Since search engine robots do not read, index and/or cache the output content of a Javascript code, there is no risk of duplicate content from DFF's service output. It does not matter how many people uses our service, as long as the surrounding content of your HTML page is unique, you should do fine on the search engines.
DFF's XML web services however will be displayed using your own server side scripts. Which means robots will see those data and may index them. As long as you put original / unique contents of your own around our XML data your page should not be considered a duplicate content.
Yes. The affiliate industry is all about team work, relationship and cooperation. The participating merchants have given us the privilege to list their products and earn meny, in return we are required to share with them the following information, your name, website URL and traffic activities. We will not disclose any personal information such as email address and/or phone numbers to anyone.
Please refer to our Privacy Policy for more information.
| Also see: Affiliate Benefits | Merchants Frequenty Asked Questions | Ask a question not answered here |