Shopzilla UK Publisher Program


Shopzilla’s free affiliate program

Posts Tagged ‘affiliate ads’

How to use Top Search Results?

Monday, July 27th, 2009

The easiest way to create a Shopzilla unit is to use the Top Search Results. It’s the first item on Shopzilla’s dynamic assets list — and it’s the one that requires least work.

How does it work? Type the keyword into a search box, choose a department and a category…and voilà! You have a page-load of ads to choose from!

Shopzilla dynamic rectangle - 4 Pods - 300x250

Shopzilla dynamic rectangle - 4 Pods - 300x250

One unit can contain up to 5 different ads; you don’t have an influence over what products will be displayed, as these are (as the name suggests) Top Search Results - it’s up to you though what type of product the unit contains and what format the banner is in.

Serving an ad with several products can help you target the visitors who haven’t yet made up their minds on “what to buy” and are still researching.  That means that these sorts of units are likely to see the best results on a page with general information about the topic, like buying guides. What about single product pages? For these we suggest using Product Pods - ad units with a single product. However, as always we encourage our Publishers to test what works best for them! Whichever ad format you go for remember the golden rule: be relevant.

As always: if you have any questions, leave a comment or contact us using contact form!

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Posted in Tips & Tricks | No Comments »

How to use Shopzilla’s Product Pods?

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009
Shopzilla dynamic banner featuring MacBook Pro

Shopzilla dynamic banner featuring MacBook Pro

One of the biggest new trends in online advertising is behavioural targeting - a technique using information collected on an individual’s web-browsing behaviour, such as the pages they have visited or the searches they have made, to select which advertisements to display to that individual. Practitioners believe this helps them deliver their online advertisements to the users who are most likely to be influenced by them (Wikipedia). At  Shopzilla’s affiliate program we don’t use this technology ( yet ;-) ), but we give you Product Pods.

A Product Pod is a graphic ad for a product of your choice.  How does it work? Product Pods enable you to “target” your visitors, without their browsing history! It’s quite simple, really - if you write a review on the Apple MacBookPro, you could make an educated guess that your readers will be interested in seeing an Apple MacBookPro advertisement.This type of advertising not only gives you the opportunity to monetize your content, it also makes it more appealing!

Shopzilla dynamic product banner - 234x60

Shopzilla dynamic product banner - 234x60

Currently, we have 5 different formats of Product Pods. To explore this feature log in to your account and go to Get Content > Dynamic Assets > Product Pods.

Any questions? Give us a shout! We are happy to answer any of your queries.

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Posted in Tips & Tricks, Upcoming events | 1 Comment »

Dynamic banners - colouring your ads

Friday, July 10th, 2009

Many of you wrote to us in the past asking about the possibility of changing the design of the banner ads to better match your sites. Here, at  Publisher, Shopzilla’s affiliate program, we understand the importance of ad optimization and how crucial it is for your earnings. That’s why, when creating the dynamic banners product, we made sure our affiliates would have full control over the appearance of the ads they created!

Now you can colour your ads!

Shopzilla's dynamic asstes - Now you can colour your ads!

Now you can customise your ad unit by changing:

  • ad border colour
  • image border colour
  • background colour
  • link colour (that includes before it’s clicked, after it’s clicked, when it’s clicked and when you hover over it…)
  • text colour
  • link target (you decide whether the link opens in a new window, leaving your site open).

How can you customise your ads in order to maximize your earnings? Try to make the ad fit your website’s design. At the same time don’t try to blend it in too much - your visitors should always be able to tell the difference between your own and sponsored content!

If you have any questions regarding this feature contact us and we’ll try to help!

Good luck!

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Posted in Tips & Tricks | 2 Comments »

Dynamic assets: Build your very own banner!

Thursday, July 9th, 2009

Shopzilla Europe are pleased to announce the launch of dynamic assets. Now you can build your own, individual ads.

Within the portal of our affiliate program you are now able to build dynamic assets based on top keyword or category search results, as well as build comparison shopping assets for specific products.  These dynamic assets refresh their content each time your website page is loaded, offering your users a fresh shopping experience each time they visit your website.

dynamic-banners-create-your-own

Build your very own banner with Shopzilla's dynamic assets

Here a few highlights of what this feature include:

1) Publishers are now able to create dynamic assets based solely on category.  This will allow the creation of more generic dynamic assets.  An example of a good use of this sort of dynamic asset would be a placement on a fashion website.  Rather than displaying products defined by a keyword, you will now be able to create a dynamic asset displaying results according to product popularity in a chosen category. This means you will always have the hottest items in your banner.

2) Why not be more specific and create a ‘Product Pod‘ with the dynamic asset within certain categories? This feature allows you to add a comparison shopping experience to your site. However please note that the function of a ‘Product Pod’ asset is to allow for a comparison shopping experience, so you may find instances of a category not retrieving any results if we can’t offer any price comparison for the particular product you have chosen.  This is because there aren’t any available products with multiple offers aligned to them that would support a comparison shopping experience.  (For instance, we don’t have any products in the category “Candles & Home Scent” that have multiple offers aligned to them …I know, seems crazy…so, sadly, you won’t be able to build a ‘Product Pods’ asset for your favourite  vanilla scented candles, as the same candle isn’t necessarily sold by more than one merchant, although we have a great choice of vanilla scented candles.  But you will be able to build one for your favourite mp3 player or laptop.) Best thing to do is to check on BizRate first, whether the product you want to promote has a  “Go compare” site.

3) Another nice element of the dynamic content is that you are in control over the appearance of the ad you want to place on your website. This means you are pretty much the designer of you own banner. Choose the colours that best match your site.
To create a dynamic asset, log into the UK Shopzilla Publisher Portal and choose the ‘Get Content’ tab. From here you will find a “Dynamic Assets” link. If you need any help creating these assets, please Contact us.

Enjoy!

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Posted in Info on Publisher Program, Publisher Feedback, Publisher Program Updates, Publisher in Media, Tips & Tricks | No Comments »

How many ads are too many?

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

If you are new to affiliate marketing you are probably asking yourself questions about how to make the most of your adverts?

Many believe that the answer is in sheer volume: “if you have enough banners on your site, someone must finally click on at least one?”. At Shopzilla Publisher UK, we don’t restrict the number of adverts you can place on your webpage, but we actively encourage our Publishers to optimize their ads thus limiting the displayed ads to the best performing ones!

Here are a few tips you might find helpful:

  • Remember, “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander” is not always true when it comes to advertising so test different formats of the ads and find out what works best for you! How? With the use of ID-placements.
  • Try to “refresh” your banners ever so often. (It’s particularly important with static banners!). This way you have the opportunity to convert your returning visitors!
  • If you want to maximize the possibility of a click, think of embedding text links in your text. Using text links enables you to turn every reference to a product into revenue opportunity! Read more about how to use the Publisher program for custom text links.

As always, if you have any questions, please contact us using the contact form.

Your friendly Shopzilla Publisher Team

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Posted in Tips & Tricks | 1 Comment »

Dynamic banners - get ready!

Thursday, May 7th, 2009

Example of a Shopzilla Publisher US dynamic asset

Example of a Shopzilla Publisher US dynamic asset

Shopzilla Publisher Teamhas worked hard to deliver you a top of the range product thus enabling you to become successful Publishers. That’s why we have been investing a lot of our time and resources in developing a new feature: dynamic assets.

What’s so special about them?

1. As the name says, the ads are ‘dynamic’ - the offers you display change just as offers on BizRate do. This way you never risk linking to a product that’s no longer available!

2. Dynamic assets feature will enable you to populate the ads with products you choose - you build dynamic assets based on top keyword or category search results, or build comparison shopping assets for specific products.

3. You can choose the length of your creative - if you are an experienced affiliate marketer, you probably know that sometimes short description works better; in other cases long creative, including more details, will be more attractive to your readers/customers. Our new type of ads give you best of both words, with the choice of ads with long or short descriptions!

4. Customize your assets to complement your website’s design -  you will have the full control over the appearance of your dynamic ads: from the background colour to the link colours before they’re clicked, when they’re clicked and when you’re thinking about clicking them. And more!

Are you excited? We certainly are!!

So now the big question - when can our Publishers expect this new feature to be available? Well, it will be available on 7th July and onwards.

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Posted in Info on Publisher Program, Publisher Program Updates | No Comments »

Video tutorial - how to get text links

Tuesday, February 10th, 2009

Most Shopzilla Publisher program ads contain nice pictures and are very eye-catchy. Beside banner ads, text links are unmissable. Together with dynamic leaderboards, text links are very valuable and are offered by Shopzilla’s publisher program, too. They can directly be integrated in a text or a navigation bar on your website.

Shopzilla provides text links in a number of different ways:

- You can link to a department within Bizrate*

- You can link to a popular result from Bizrate’s search engine*

- You can link to a page on Bizrate*

In order to get text links, you just need to:

- log on to the portal

- select the “Get content” tab and the “Text links” link

- choose the text link of your choice

- open the HTML code

- and copy and paste it to your website

Please watch our video tutorial “How to get text links” for a detailed explanation, how you can create your own custom text links.

*Shopzilla also operates the BizRate consumer feedback network that collects millions of consumer reviews of stores and products each year. The publisher program promotes Bizrate, so that your users will make the best shopping experience. Besides comparing products they will also be able to read customer reviews and store ratings.

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Posted in Tips & Tricks | No Comments »

Video tutorial - how to get search boxes

Tuesday, February 10th, 2009

Shopzilla Publisher program offers search boxes as well.

You can choose to link your search box directly to one of Shopzilla’s categories or you can link it to the Shopzilla homepage. Clearly matching the subject of the search box to the content on your website is likely to help generate more searches. Other than banner ads and text links, it’s recommended to put just one search box on your site.

All you need to do is:

- log on to the portal

- select the “Get content” tab and the “Search boxes” link

- choose the search box of your choice

- open the HTML code

- and copy and paste it to your website

Please watch our video tutorial “How to get search boxes” for a detailed explanation.

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Posted in Tips & Tricks | No Comments »

Video tutorial - how to get stock banners

Monday, February 9th, 2009

Shopzilla Publisher program offers a wide range of stock banners.

In the Publisher portal you can choose stock banners in six different formats. The stock banners provided cover many different Bizrate categories and products. New stock banners are regularly added.

All you need to do is:

- log on to the portal

- select the “Get content” tab and the “Stock banners” link

- choose the department/category of your choice and select the banner you prefer

- open the HTML code

- and copy and paste it to your website

Please watch our video tutorial “How to get stock banners” for a detailed explanation.

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Posted in Tips & Tricks | No Comments »

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