Our dedicated Product and Development Teams are constantly striving to produce innovative functionality that powers our hi-performance affiliate marketing network. One of our most recent and notable improvements has been to our Product Feed functionality.

We recently published an article on our blog that explained what product feeds are, why they are beneficial to advertisers using affiliate networks, and how they can be generated. If you missed that and would like to learn more about product feeds, you can read it here.

Product feeds contain information about your products. If publishers can access this information, then it is easier for them to promote your products to their audiences. The more they promote your brand or products, the more traffic, and consequently sales, you store will receive. Furthermore, a good product feed can make the difference when it comes to attracting new publishers to join your programme.

More about Webgains’ new Product Feeds and recent improvements

• Supportive. The feature offers full support for the Google Standard Shopping Feed, why waste time creating new feeds when you can use the Google feeds you already have!
• Improved performance and reliability. The new Product Feed functionality means a better all-round experience for all Webgains users.
• Multiple feeds. Multiple product feeds can be processed at any one time on the Webgains platform. This allows you to split your products into independent feeds that can be tailored to certain markets or affiliate groups.
• Fully scalable. The Webgains system is fully scalable and can handle feeds of any size.
• Simplified and compliant. The creation and upload of the Product Feed comply with new format regulations. This format removes the requirement to ‘map’ multiple Product Feeds once they have been uploaded. This single input format (also known as the Google Shopping format) simplifies setup for our Advertisers.
• Increased control. The updated creation and management of product feeds increases the level of control a user has to make any necessary changes manually if required.
• More output formats. Webgains offers a variety of output formats for our Publishers, including inbuilt support for Google Shopping.

Access via API

Publishers can also access product feeds directly through the Webgains API and automate the process of retrieving product data.

Our tech team has worked hard to implement this advancement of the Webgains platform, and we are proud to be able to offer it to our users. By using the API, publishers can streamline their work and benefit from seamless integration into their existing systems.

It looks like our customers are already loving the changes…

“Webgains have made some vital changes to their feed system making it quicker and more efficient for us to grab all the information we need for their client base and allowing us to easily scale. The Publisher Team are always super helpful in communicating any changes, providing opportunities, and listening to our needs to ensure the platform supports our objectives.”

– Chris Said, Head of Commercial at Genie Shopping

“The new Webgains Product Feeds provides a higher level of data consistency. As a CSS Publisher, this allows us to create more efficient, better performing Shopping Campaigns.”

– Bernhard Rubner, Global Account Manager at Shoparize

Most importantly, how can you sell more products using Webgains Product Feeds?

As we stated before, your Product Feed is extremely important for publishers promoting your products. Below we have looked at five different affiliate and promotion types and highlighted how they operate and encourage customers to purchase via them.
 

CSS (Comparison Shopping Center) / Price Comparison / Tracking Sites

These publishers are mainly focused on tracking the prices of products over the time, showing customers how the price of a product has increased or decreased from one day to the next. And consequently, where a product can be purchased for the lowest price at any given time. Sites such as these are key drivers of new sales and will not be able to promote your products without a Product Feed available. Webgains works with a number of these Publishers including Google Shopping Search, Redbrain, Incubeta and Genie Shopping.

Comparison Sites

These publishers present multiple comparable products to shoppers, highlighting their differentiating factors such as price and features. Comparison sites are extremely popular in purchase journeys and regularly convert to sales. Since they rely on product data to make comparisons, Product Feeds are essential for them. Webgains works with many of these Publishers including Lyst, USwitch and Pricerunner. If you’d like to learn more about Comparison sites, you can read our Affiliate A-Z article about them here.

Social Media & Bloggers

Publishers of this variety may promote one or multiple products from a brand. They typically explain each product’s characteristics and benefits to their audience either in video or written format, often promoted on social media. They’ll find it easier to promote your products if they have access to a good product feed with all the relevant information clearly presented. Webgains works with a range of these Publishers including Reward Style and TRIBE. If you’d like to learn more about social media and blogger affiliates, you can read our Affiliate A-Z article about them here.

Coupons & Voucher Code Sites

These sites promote brands with offers, deals and voucher codes that provide some form of discount to shoppers. They are extremely popular and provide high conversion rates. The more information they have access to about your products, the better. Data relating to your top selling products may be of particular interest to coupons and voucher code affiliates. Webgains works with many of these Publishers including Vouchercloud, MyVoucherCodes and Savoo.

Generating your product feed

If you use Webgains for your affiliate programme, our expert team can assist you in generating your product feed. They can provide guidance on the format needed for product feeds as well as ecommerce plugins to do the heavy lifting for you. If you are an existing customer and need help in this area, please contact your Account Manager or email uksupport@webgains.com.