Monday: Learn About Data Feeds Any data feed is essentially a convenient compilation of data on product inventory. It comes in the form of a file (CSV, XML, XLS, or any other type) that lists all the product information (such as product ID, product name, description, price, stock avail- ability, and so on) that you want to make available to your affiliates. The format of the affiliate data feed is normally such that the affiliate can interpret and understand it, be it with or without the help of any additional piece of software. By supplying affiliates with data feeds, merchants are making it easy for the affiliates to feature the merchants' products on the affiliate websites. For this purpose, they also include URL paths to thumbnail and larger product images, URLs leading to the pages where the individual products are featured, product categorization, and, often, even product-specific keywords. Affiliates can import merchant data feeds into their websites with the help of a software application (I'll discuss them in detail tomorrow) or by possessing the rel- evant programming skills themselves. The final goal is to present either a merchant's entire product line or a certain part of it on the affiliate website (Figure 8.1), giving the visitors of the latter a chance to browse, search, and view the products right on the website. Customers get transferred to the merchant website only when they click a Buy, More Info, Purchase, or a similar button or link on the affiliate website. Therefore, merchant data feeds have a powerful potential to enhance almost any affiliate website. 130 S , A N D P L U G - I N S