Linkshare updates API

Great news from linkshare today - they announced the merchandiser query tool that allows affiliates to use their REST based API to “just enter your search term and get the link you want”

From the announcement email:

As we continue our year of innovation, LinkShare is pleased to announce the release of a new Merchandiser Query tool that allows you to search for products within your Merchandiser data feeds. This API makes your life easier! No more digging for product links, just enter your search term and get the link you want.

Using a REST-based web service, the Merchandiser Query tool allows you to do a full text search for products that match keywords in any of the following categories:
* Product Name
* Primary Product Category
* Short Product Description
* Long Product Description
* Keywords

Finally, a GIANT leap forward by linkshare in the “programmable affiliate-web” department.

A PDF user guide for the API can be downloaded here…

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Google’s widget ads announced

Suddenly, a lot of major players have started announcing widget advertising initiatives. This time, it’s google announcing the launch of their widget gadget ads, which will now be available to select adwords advertisers.

Google Gadget Ads have been spotted before, but now Google made them official with a press release – albeit they’re still only available to some select AdWords advertisers. Gadget Ads, as opposed to normal text link or image ads, contain interactive content such as Flash or HTML connected to a potentially updating data source… as they’re part of the iGoogle gadgets API. Google presents a gadget ad example (a small Flash game, basically) saying that of the 94.5 million impressions the ad got, it was interacted with 0.3% of the time.

Google Gadget Ads - Google Blogoscoped

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BTW, In other (bigger) google news that I just read (I’m catching up with the RSS feeds after almost a week of social media inactivity), Adsense for Mobile was also announced yesterday!

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Amazon 2.0s it’s affiliate program even more, launches (monetizable) Widgets

After context-links, Amazon has taken yet another step to let the latest generation of internet publishers make use of amazon’s huge catalog to monetize their web properties/presence.

According to a press release sent out earlier today…

“Bloggers and active online social networkers have asked us for a fun and interesting way to display Amazon products on their pages as a way to showcase their favorite things. With Amazon Widgets, they can now do this and make money at the same time,” said Sean McMullan, Manager, Amazon Associates.

Amazon today launched seven new widgets in the Amazon Widgets Gallery, and there are more specialized widgets coming soon.

Some of the widgets released today (available at widgets.amazon.com) include widgets for wish lists, product searches, product previews, slideshows and amazon unbox videos previews.

This widget below is a tag cloud of some of the popular products on amazon:

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“Rich Ads” on Google SERPs

It so happens with google, that if I write something about them, the very next post here also has to be about google and nothing else.

Anyway, Google has, since the beginning, opposed the use of image ads (or banners as they were called back then) in it’s search results, this is probably about to change soon, and it doesn’t seem as unlike google as it would have, say, a year ago, now that SERPs are universal search results.

The ads could include image or video ads in a variety of ways, offering more options to advertisers. Google insists that whatever image and video ads are shown, they will match the type of content you’re searching. So you’re more likely to see an image ad if you’re conducting an image search. The same goes for video. Remaining relevant with these types of targeted ads is a self-proclaimed objective for Google.

Google might soon include image and video ads on SERPs arrording to this post on google sytem.

[via mashable]

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Adsense now let’s publishers create an “Allowed sites” list

According to the latest blog post and adsense, some publishers are afraid that someone will steal their adsense code and put it on inappropriate sites - which could get the publisher banned from adsense.

In order to prevent this, Google has introduced a new “Allowed sites” feature to the adsense interface where publishers can list the websites they actually are using adsense codes on, so even if your code is on an ‘inappropriate’ site (in which I hope MFA sites are counted) - that’s okay, the publisher won’t get banned or paid for that.

There is, ofcourse a google twist to all this. Free Advertising (on websites that woudl otherwise get publishers banned from adsense):

Sites that aren’t on your list can still display ads using your ad code; however, impressions and clicks for these sites won’t appear in your reports, advertisers won’t be charged, and you won’t receive any earnings from them.

Allowed and Clear - Google Adsense blog

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YPN now using paypal to pay publishers

It is probably obvious from some of my posts here that I like paypal, and so does Yahoo!, I guess. Yahoo’s publisher network is now offering the option of receiving payments via paypal. Cool!

More on: Affiliate Fortune Cookies, Affiliate Tip

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Commission Junction releases new APIs

CJ Announced yesterday via email, the availability of two brand new APIs and upgrades to existing ones.

Developers can now access CJ’s (almost) real time transaction reports and daily sales reports via the new APIs.

From the email:

Along with this release, Commission Junction has updated the widely used product catalog and link search APIs. The Product Catalog API now offers new request parameters and response fields that match the Product Catalog datafeed. The Link Search API now delivers the ability to query promotional links similar to those found in the CJ Account Manager. With these updates, you can expand your applications to further enhance your customer experience, increase conversion rates and drive higher transaction volume.

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Nuvy.com: Social Shopping + Video Reviews + Affiliate Marketing:

There is a very interesting new social shopping / video reviews website that Jamie Birch just posted about on the revenews blog.

Nuvy - is a youtube clone plus a comparison shopping engine, that - pays - users to upload videos, that are product reviews.

The idea is this: Anyone, can review any product on video, and upload it on the website, the community votes on how good the video is, and based on that, the reviewer is paid a anything between $1-$10.

Video pages are very similar to youtube - but also a little more - there are three tabs below each video - “Product Description” , “Comments” and ” Where to buy” (so that covers the social part in a simple but elegant way)

There are two reasons why I like this:

First, Nuvy is making really fantastic use of the social media/web 2.0 as an affiliate marketing platform.

Secondly, they are actually paying “consumers who are also content creators” - you don’t see that a lot on web 2.0, but that’s what web 2.1 is for - if users create content that helps make a social media platform money, then the users should be treated partners in the business, the best way, IMO is to reward users according to their contribution - in cash.

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Update: I was reading costpernews a while ago, and read Sam’s 600th post there where he is upset at the pace at which affiliate marketers are adopting the new media. So … To cheer Sam up, who is a fellow believer in the salvation of Affiliate Marketing through Web 2.0, I send this Trackback.

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Speaking of Google, Why are they buying doubleclick?

The official google blog has detailed why exactly they are buying the internet advertising company Doubleclick.

We believe DoubleClick can help Google deliver better, more relevant display ads, which improves the online experience of consumers. From a technical perspective, Google will also be able to get web pages to load faster by reducing latency from ad servers. Publishers will benefit by making more money from remnant inventory and – as has been the case with other technologies we’ve acquired – we hope to make ad serving more accessible. Smaller publishers would get access to DoubleClick’s ad serving technology, enabling them to better compete in the global marketplace.

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Google (AdSense) does the Apple thing

Q: Why is every product made by Apple stylish and sexy?
A: Because they have rounded corners!

Google wants to make adsense ad units look sexy, and whether or not they give credit to apple for inspiring this new design of their ads, I’m sure google wants adsense to eventually be as cool as apple - which is why, they have come up with this -

To get started with these new ad shapes, visit the ‘AdSense Setup’ tab in your account. As with all format options like sizes and colors, different corner styles will perform better for different publishers. We recommend that you choose the corner style that best matches the look and feel of your sites. Please keep in mind that if your page background color, ad background color, and ad border color are all the same, these new corners won’t be visible.

We go round and round — (Inside Adsense blog)

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