I've written a couple of posts before about large product feeds and how to deal with them, most recently with a quick run through on how to use MS Query to extract only the info you want from a large product feed.

What I didn't realise is that Buy.at already offer in-built functionality to only download part of a product feed by editing the download URL.

So for instance, I wanted to download the HMV feed and only get the videogame information. Previously I had downloaded the whole thing and run an Excel macro to get what I wanted. But what I can do instead is grab the download link from within Buy.at (rather than click on it download, right click and copy URL) and then edit it to include "&LEVEL1=GAMES". Then when I access that link, it only returns the results from the product feed which match my criteria.

I found about this on a thread on Affiliates4u, and having read it, I'm not at all sure it works for all merchants, or if it does work for all merchants but you might to need to open it up first to find out what field you need, but it works fine for my purpose - getting games from the HMV feed. So, thanks Buy.at, that's a cool feature!

Now, I can't publish this unremittingly positive post without adding in a small hint of a moan. I looked in the Buy.at help pages under product feeds and saw no mention of this functionality. As I mentioned, I only found out about it when I saw it on the Affiliates4u forum. From what I can see, some merchant feeds might require you to use a category name and some might need a category ID. If you have a good feature, don't hide your light under a bushel - let every one know and document it nicely in your help pages. Obviously some people did know about it since it was discussed on the forum, but I've been faffing around for ages and could have saved time if I had known earlier.

And in other news...

John Lamerton's excellent post on comparing affiliate marketing to eating an elephant has been well publicised in the affiliate blogosphere. But it kind of got me thinking, what's it actually like to eat an elephant. I found this useful recipe - Elephant Soup from the Congo Cookbook

Labels: affiliate network, product feeds