UK's First Dynamic Search Widget Available Through Affiliate Window
December 3rd, 2009
The innovative new Product Selector tool, designed and built by PrismaStar, is now available on the Affiliate Window platform. Developed in response to feedback from the affiliate community, this software allows publishers to create third party links with a single click.
The AnswerOil® Product Selector is the latest in online product search technology, offering an alternative to the traditional vertical filtered form. The software works by pulling merchant product feeds and placing the contents, along with the attributes, within the tool. Product Selector’s allow web browsers to filter their product specifications with a dynamically updated display of products that meet with their specific criteria. With a simple copy and paste process for affiliates, the application can be integrated in to a publisher website within minutes.
Unlike traditional filtered search, the Product Selector Content Widget has the ability to prioritise search results so that it will never show zero items, instead displaying products or services closest to the user’s defined parameters; you can view the demonstration here. This gives the added benefit of ensuring shoppers are never short of options when at the purchasing stage of the buying cycle. An interactive and well-designed promotional method, these widgets provide content for affiliates whilst aiding customer conversions.
Ennis Al-Saiegh, Director of E-Commerce at PrismaStar added, “The Product Selector Content Widget is an outstanding new tool at the forefront of cutting edge technology in the online arena. The affiliate product selector content widget project with Affiliate Window is an exciting new step forward for us, with the potential to change the way in which affiliates operate in the future.”
To integrate a Product Selector simply log-in to your affiliate account and access Web Services & Tools > AWin Apps; for more information see our User Guide.
December 8th, 2009 at 10:44 am
I cannot see this tool being extensively used. For me it has too many negatives and not a whole load of positives.
1. It is not search engine friendly … all the products are delivered via Javascript
2. It is merchant specific .. i.e. no price comparison across merchants
3. It has very broad product categories … no granularity whatsoever
4. Very limited AW merchants featured
5. associated with point 3-4 … no filtering for Affiliate by keyword
6. No visitor search functionality
7. VERY slow to load .. i expect visitors to use the back button
As a real example of uselessness, one of the few categories set up presently is TVs. There is an enormous range of features preconfigured to help a visitor drill down to determine whether a particular subset of TVs meet their buying criteria …. with one notable exception …. the screen size.
December 8th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Hi David,
Thank you for your comments. We appreciate your feedback, and rest assured it will be used to improve the Dynamic Search Widget and other third party Apps that we will be building to complement our own tools and technology.
I’ll go through your comments one by one, and will hopefully be able to shed some light on the issues you have raised.
1. This is a fair point, however Javascript is crucial to product and provides functionality that otherwise would not have been possible.
2. The aim of the product was to be merchant specific, at least in the initial phase. We will work alongside the provider to see if there is any opportunity to expand this in the future. If you are looking for comparison across merchants then please use our own Content Widgets for the time being.
3-4. The limited merchant/product categories are because the provider has only generated data for use in these particular areas so far, and we are also limited by the amount and quality of the data that is provided by merchants. We have focused on some key merchants and sectors, which will hopefully allow affiliates to make use of the tool. Watch this space, because we hope to be able to add further merchants in the not too distant future.
6. Again a good point, although the aim of the widget is to display products selected by the affiliate, along with key attributes for those products. The tool was not meant to be searchable by the user.
7. This is the first time the slowness of the widget has been raised. I will take a look at this with the provider and see if there is anything that can be done to improve loading times.
Screen size is definitely available as an attribute in the TVs category. I have successfully built a widget using the screen size attribute for Pixmania. Give me a shout directly – aclements@affiliatewindow.com – if you would like to discuss this issue in more detail.
I hope third party applications such as this enhance the Affiliate Window tools already on offer, and provide very useful functionality to affiliates. We will continue to work with the companies that provide these applications to make them as useful as possible to affiliates.
Therefore, if anyone has further feedback, comments or suggestions on the Dynamic Search Widget please let me know.
Kind Regards
Anthony Clements
Client Services Director
Tel: 020 7553 0353 Email: aclements@affiliatewindow.com
December 9th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
Hi Anthony,
Thanks for the detailed feedback.
I think that overall the biggest problem is that a content affiliste cannot drill in to a detailed level and save the parameters to deliver the widget as they would like it to be presented.
Instead the widget is customised by the visitor to their own product attribute criteria … or did I miss something there? All I saw was the the customer would be presented with ebery TV from that merchant abd would have to click as many boxes as necessary to drill down. I didn’t see any way that I could save a widget with only say 19″ LCD screens.
I think that you also hit the nail on the head about data quality … this shouldn’t be Prismastar’s job nor AWs to ensure robust product information, but it should be down to merchants .. and I congratulate those who have cleansed the data sufficiently to make the widget happen. Is that data already available via the AW feeds in that form too?
I think that the widget has promise if affiliates can customise it & filter it before presenting to the visitor, but I think that we need cross-merchant functionality otherwise people may use the widget to see the set they like, but use something else for the final price comparison.
I will have a look again, but I still don’t feel that this is ready for my use just yet. I suppose that other affiliates may hold different views though.
December 10th, 2009 at 9:30 am
This is a nice widget.
http://www.stylefeeder.com/explorer#/Jewelry/f//Watches/2-10////variety-none////
December 11th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
I would like to see if this widget will be updated soon.
Regards, Gordon.
February 2nd, 2010 at 4:25 pm
Why don’t any of these work?
- collectinstore.co.uk
- offeroftheday.co.uk
- prophotoinsights.net
- digitalphotographyprojects.com
- turkeyherald.com
- vouchers-and-deals.com