What Makes A Good Data Feed Tips For Merchants - Slides for eComXpo - 28.Jan 2009

What Makes a Good Data Feed? Tips for Merchants


Jan 28 -29, 2009

Presented by Carsten Cumbrowski

• Each type of affiliate has different needs and requirements to be able to leverage your product feed and integrate it into their web sites.

• What are those different types, what are their individual needs and why?

• Technical best practices and specific actionable tips for how you can make your data feed easily accessible and to work with.

• How to make them work across different platforms to avoid losing big chunks of affiliates for mere technical reasons.

The ingredients for a data feed that is actually useful for your affiliates.

Internet Marketing Resources Portal

Presentation is available atSlideshare.net/Cumbrowski.com


Carsten Cumbrowski - Short Intro

Jan 28 -29, 2009


Born in (East) Berlin/Germany

Came to the United States in May 2000

Affiliate marketer since early 2001

Affiliate manager for BevMo.com 2002-2006 (via CJ)

Operated a price-comparison site for several years,

where I worked with hundreds of product data feeds;

from networks and custom

Blogger at ReveNews.com and

SearchEngineJournal.com

Marketing resources collection at Cumbrowski.com

especially http://www.Cumbrowski.com/datafeeds


The Structure of this PresentationThe Structure of this Presentation

Jan 28 -29, 2009


1.The use of Data Feeds and their Content

2.Technical Tips to Format, Deliverability and Structure


Feed Affiliates are Made EqualFeed Affiliates are Made Equal

Jan 28 -29, 2009



Feed Affiliates are Feed Affiliates are NOTNOT Made Equal Made Equal

Jan 28 -29, 2009



Feed Affiliates are Feed Affiliates are NOTNOT Made Equal Made Equal

Jan 28 -29, 2009



Types of Feed Affiliates (Generalization)Types of Feed Affiliates (Generalization)

Jan 28 -29, 2009


1. Price Comparison Sites2. Niche Directories3. Coupon Affiliates/Price Drops4. Content Affiliates/Specialty Sites5. Bloggers



Jan 28 -29, 2009


4. Content Affiliates/Specialty Sites5. Bloggers

Should not use raw product data feeds, but sometimes do, due to the lag of alternatives


Content Affiliates/BloggersContent Affiliates/Bloggers

Jan 28 -29, 2009


Should not use raw product data feeds, but sometimes do, due to the lag of alternatives

Provide tools that are based on product feeds

1. Widgets/Gadgets2. Product Show-Case

Creators


Content Affiliates/BloggersContent Affiliates/Bloggers

Jan 28 -29, 2009


Use 3rd Party Providers and/or Custom and/or NetworksProvide tools that are based on product feeds. 1. Widgets/Gadgets

2. Product Show-Case Creators



Jan 28 -29, 2009


1. Price Comparison Sites2. Niche Directories3. Coupon Affiliates/Price Drops4. 3rd Party Tools Providers


Examples: Price Comparison SiteExamples: Price Comparison Site

Jan 28 -29, 2009



Examples: Price Drop/Coupon SiteExamples: Price Drop/Coupon Site

Jan 28 -29, 2009



Examples: Niche DirectoryExamples: Niche Directory

Jan 28 -29, 2009



Examples: Content Site (Widgets)Examples: Content Site (Widgets)

Jan 28 -29, 2009



Everybody LikesEverybody Likes

Jan 28 -29, 2009


Unique Identifier of Product within Feed(s)


1. Price Comparison Affiliates1. Price Comparison Affiliates

Jan 28 -29, 2009


Information to match your products with the same product by other merchants

1.BAR Code Information• EAN / EAN-13• UPC-A / UPC-C• ISBN / ISBN-13 (“Bookland”)

and/orand/or

2.Manufacturer Part # / Manufacturer Name


1. Price Comparison Affiliates1. Price Comparison Affiliates

Jan 28 -29, 2009


Info to determine/estimate FINAL purchase price

Shipping Cost Packaging and other Surcharges Tax Information Usually smaller product images/thumbnails preferred

Detailed Description is often appreciated to build info page for “master product”


2. Coupon Affiliates / ”Price Drops”2. Coupon Affiliates / ”Price Drops”

Jan 28 -29, 2009


Start/End Date/Time for “on-Sale” Price, if

available

“Regular-Price” is used for MSRP (SRP or RRP) ?


MSRP Problem IllustrationMSRP Problem Illustration

Jan 28 -29, 2009



3. Niche Directories3. Niche Directories

Jan 28 -29, 2009


Product Categorization that makes sense

Don’t “lump” thousands of products into one

category

Also try to avoid one product = one category


3. Niche Directories / Categorization3. Niche Directories / Categorization

Jan 28 -29, 2009


1.1.

2.2. 3.3.

What Makes a Good Data Feed? Tips for Merchants Jan 28 -29, 2009



The Basic ElementsThe Basic Elements

Jan 28 -29, 2009


1.Format1. Column Delimiter2. Row Delimiter3. Escaping of Special Characters/String Formatting4. Headers/no Headers

2.Structure1. Column Names, Order, Types and Defaults

3.Delivery Methods/Access to Feed



1.1. There is NO Right Format or Delivery Method!There is NO Right Format or Delivery Method!

2.2. Provide as many Options as Possible!Provide as many Options as Possible!

3.3. Let each Affiliate Choose for Itself!Let each Affiliate Choose for Itself!



Document it! Document it! Affiliates are NO Fortune Tellers!Affiliates are NO Fortune Tellers!Knowing is ALWAYS better than Assuming!Knowing is ALWAYS better than Assuming!



Whatever you do is entirely your choice and should be Whatever you do is entirely your choice and should be controlled by business sense and economicscontrolled by business sense and economics

Most Affiliates can work with what you got, if you provide Documentation.

One Exception! One Exception! It must be possible to Access and Process your Feeds without any human interaction! 1. No Login Forms to fill out2. No Messages that must be acknowledged3. No Choices that must be made manually every time



The Power of Know! Practical ExampleThe Power of Know! Practical Example

Canon - PowerShot 10.0-Megapixel Digital ELPH Camera – SilverSKU: 8800577

http://.../images/products/8800/8800577_sc.jpg

http://.../images/products/8800/8800577_sb.jpg

http://.../images/products/8800/8800577_sa.jpg

Thumbnail Images (Product Listing)

Medium Size Image (Product Detail)

Large Image (Pop-Up)




Sony - Cyber-shot 10.1-Megapixel Digital Camera - GreenSKU: 8943129

Guess the URLs to the different sized product images for this item!Guess the URLs to the different sized product images for this item!





http://.../images/products/8943/ 8943129_sc.jpg

http://.../images/products/8943/ 8943129_sb.jpg

http://.../images/products/8943/ 8943129_sa.jpg




Correct?





http://.../images/products/8943/ 8943129_sc.jpg

http://.../images/products/8943/ 8943129_sb.jpg

http://.../images/products/8943/ 8943129_sa.jpg




Oops!





http://.../images/products/8943/ 8943129_rc.jpg

http://.../images/products/8943/ 8943129_rb.jpg

http://.../images/products/8943/ 8943129_ra.jpg




Why r and not s? I have no Idea.


Some Specific TipsSome Specific TipsBased on my own personal experience and talks with other people who work with data feeds and both end of the process, including:

Jan 28 -29, 2009


• Merchants• Networks• Third Party Vendors• Other Affiliates, including “competitors”


Some Specific TipsSome Specific Tips

Jan 28 -29, 2009


• Column Delimiter: Column Delimiter: TAB character (ASCII character code 9)Feed content is used in almost every case for the use on the Internet and rendered in HTML.HTML does not have a TAB character or an equivalent for it. Any TAB character in contentof your product catalog should be replaced with something appropriate.

You probably do this already on your own web site, where you get the same problem.Ask your webmaster what they do there. Maybe there is no TAB character in the database Anymore already, or they might replace TABs with a fixed number of spaces. Whatever the Case might be, do the same during the export of your feed and include this informationIn your feed documentation for your affiliates.



Jan 28 -29, 2009


• Row Delimiter: Row Delimiter: Line-Feed (ASCII character 10)The format to indicate a new line in text files (line-break) varies between computer platforms. I strongly recommend to let your affiliates specify the platform they are using to process your feeds, save it with their account and generate feeds for them according to this setting.

Microsoft Windows (and MS DOS) uses the character combination of Carriage-Return (CR, ASCII character 13) and Line-Feed (LF, ASCII character 10) Unix and Linux systems only use the Line-Feed character (LF, ASCII character 10)Macintosh uses only the Carriage Return character (CR, ASCII character 13)

Most Windows and Macintosh DB applications are capable of handling the Unix line-break.



Jan 28 -29, 2009


• No special enclosure of text values, e.g. using double-quotes

There is no need for this special treatment, especially if you replaced all column and row delimiters that appear in the content itself. I did not have the space left in the previous slide, but I strongly suggest replacing any line-breaks that appears in your content with Something else and again include this information in your feed documentation.

I suggest using <BR/> , which is the HTML tag to generate a line-break. The advantage of doing this is obvious and publishers who do not like it can easily strip or replace it duringthe import of your feed, if they want to.



Jan 28 -29, 2009


Include Column header as the first Row within the feed. Do not use any special characters in the name, including spaces. Use only the characters a-z and/or A-Z, 0-9 If you want to _ as a separator between words for better readability. Make the column titles as descriptive as possible, but also as short as possible. This is not a substitute for a Written documentation of the feed structure. It only supports it, like a reference cardonly supports a user manual, but not replaces it.

Do not make the titles longer than 64 characters

• Use First Row in the Feed for Column Titles/Headers



Jan 28 -29, 2009


You want relay hierarchical information within your two-dimensional data feed. For example a product category structure. The semi-standard method of doing this is toinclude all parents of the node in the column data, which contains the information aboutthe node where the item is attached to in addition to the node itself. The individual levelsare usually separated by the character “>”. The value starts with the top parent node in the root and ends with the node itself.

Example: Item A is attached to sub-category Z. Sub-category Z is a child node of Category Y, which is right below the root of hierarchy. The content for the category information of Item A

would look like this: Category Y>Sub-category Z

• Transmitting Hierarchy Information



Jan 28 -29, 2009


• Initialize cells with no values for the item properly

Numeric ValuesUsually 0, if there is no value. You can use the initial value to relay information about the format of the data in this column, if you actually have data for an item.This is especially helpful, if only few items have a value for it or if the value isseasonal in nature and not used all the time.

0.000 Numeric values with up to 3 digits after the decimal point (e.g. weights)0.00 Numeric values with up to 2 digits after the digital point (e.g. price values)0.0 Numeric values with up to 1 digit (e.g. length, dimensions)0 Numeric values without digital point. Numbers.



Jan 28 -29, 2009


• Initialize cells with no values for the item properly

Date/Time ValuesOften left empty if item has no value for this property. What is the format, if thereIs a value? Is it just a date or only a time or date & time? U.S. date format, British?Maybe ISO xxxx or something entirely different . Maybe even just text entered bya human with no rules (oh horror!). There are ways to let publishers know (additionallyto spelling it out in the documentation of the feed) via the initial values in the feed data .

Examples for some initial date/time values that can “talk” about the format for records that do have real values to watch out for:

01/31/190031/01/50 12:00 AM19001231



Jan 28 -29, 2009


…

There are many more tips like this, but beyond the time limit and scope of this presentation.I included the ones that I consider to be the most important ones and caused me at least the most head-aches and problems with the processing and use of merchantsProduct data feeds.

There is much more. See the resources recommendation at the end of my presentation.

… and more; and more… etc.


Recommended Data Feed ResourcesRecommended Data Feed Resources

Jan 28 -29, 2009


ArticleMerchant Product Data Feeds for Affiliates – 101

http://www.Cumbrowski.com/datafeeds101 and Slideshare.net/Cumbrowski.com

Collection of Resourceshttp://www.Cumbrowski.com/datafeeds


This Presentation is available at:This Presentation is available at:

Jan 28 -29, 2009


Slideshare.net/Cumbrowski.com

Carsten [email protected]

www.Cumbrowski.com/about

www.Cumbrowski.com/contact

Thank You!

Business

What Makes A Good Data Feed Tips For Merchants - Slides for eComXpo - 28.Jan 2009