What is a Product Feed
Most offers send all traffic to one destination URL. A Product Feed (also called a data feed or catalog feed) lets an offer carry an entire product catalog instead — hundreds or thousands of items, each with its own image, price, and landing page.
- Attached to a campaign — a feed belongs to one campaign (offer); a campaign can have more than one feed.
- Best for sale-based offers — Product Feeds are designed for CPS / CPA-CPS (cost-per-sale) campaigns, where affiliates earn on the product they sell.
- Same tracking, per product — every product link runs through the exact same click tracking, postbacks, payout rules and fraud protection as a normal campaign link.
A Product Feed is a generic catalog (a file or URL) you control. It is independent of the Shopify / WooCommerce store integrations — you don't need a connected store to publish a feed.
How It Works
Advertiser provides the catalog
From Catalog → Product Feeds, create a feed against a campaign and either upload a file (CSV, XML, JSON) or enter a remote feed URL that Affclix refreshes on a schedule.
Affclix imports & maps it
The feed is parsed, your columns are auto-mapped onto canonical product fields, and every product is stored in a searchable catalog. Re-imports only write what actually changed.
Affiliates browse & deeplink
Approved affiliates open the catalog under Promote → Product Catalog, search and filter products, and grab a tracking link for any product — or export the whole feed.
Clicks & sales attribute per product
Each product link carries the product's ID, so clicks and conversions are attributed at the SKU level and surface in the performance report.
For Advertisers — Creating a Feed
Open Catalog → Product Feeds → New Feed and fill in:
| Field | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Feed name | An internal label, e.g. “Spring Catalog”. |
| Campaign / Offer | The campaign this catalog belongs to. Affiliates approved on that campaign will see the feed. |
| Source | Upload file (CSV / XML / JSON) or Remote URL that is fetched on a schedule. |
| Format | CSV, TSV, XML, Google Shopping XML, JSON — or Auto-detect. |
| Sync frequency | Manual, Hourly, Daily or Weekly (applies to URL feeds). |
| Status | Active feeds are visible to affiliates; Draft / Paused are hidden. |
On Create & import the catalog is pulled in immediately. The feed's detail page then shows its settings, field mapping, sync history, and a product preview — with a dedicated, paginated “View all products” page for large catalogs.
Formats & Field Mapping
Feeds come in many shapes, so Affclix maps your source columns onto a fixed set of canonical fields. On first import the mapping is auto-detected from common column names (Google Merchant g: tags, WooCommerce / Shopify exports, typical spreadsheets). You can override any guess on the feed's Field Mapping panel.
| Canonical field | Notes |
|---|---|
| external_idrequired | The product ID / SKU. Used as the unique key and for reporting. |
| product_urlrequired | The product's destination/landing page. |
| title, description | Product name and copy. |
| price, sale_price, currency | Pricing; “$1,299.00 USD” is parsed automatically. |
| image_url, additional_images | Main and gallery images. |
| brand, category, gtin, mpn, availability, condition | Google-Shopping-aligned attributes. |
Any source column that doesn't map onto a canonical field is preserved alongside the product. A product is only skipped if it has no external_id or no product_url — both are mandatory.
Syncing & Updates
You can re-import at any time with Sync now. URL feeds also refresh automatically on their chosen frequency. Every run is recorded in the Sync History with added / updated / removed counts:
- Added — products new to the catalog.
- Updated — products whose details changed since the last pull.
- Removed — products no longer present in the latest feed (they are deactivated, not deleted).
Imports are idempotent: re-running an unchanged feed writes nothing, and a failed pull leaves the previous catalog intact.
For Affiliates — Promoting Products
Open Promote → Product Catalog. You'll see a card for every feed on a campaign you're approved on. Click Browse to:
- Search & filter by keyword, brand and price.
- Get a tracking link for any single product with one click.
- Export the whole catalog (CSV / JSON / Google XML) with your links baked in.
- Grab your auto-import feed URLs for price-comparison sites and catalog importers.
Feeds only appear once you're approved on the campaign they belong to, and while the feed is set to Active. Ask the advertiser to approve you on the campaign if it's missing.
Tracking Deeplinks
A product link is a normal campaign click link that carries the specific product's destination and ID:
https://{you}.affclix.com/c?c={campaign}&a={affiliate}&url={product_page}&sub_aff_id6={sku} |
- The click is attributed to the campaign and to you, exactly like any other link.
- The visitor is redirected to that specific product page.
- The product SKU rides along so clicks and sales can be reported per product.
Exports & Auto-import URLs
Affiliates can download the active catalog in three formats, each row's destination already replaced with their tracking link:
| Format | Best for |
|---|---|
| CSV | Spreadsheets and simple imports. |
| JSON | Custom tools and APIs. |
| XML | Google Merchant / Google Shopping and comparison engines. |
Each affiliate also gets a stable, tokenised auto-import feed URL per format. A price-comparison site or catalog importer can pull that URL on a schedule and always receive a fresh, fully-attributed feed — no login required.
Performance Reporting
Because every product link carries its SKU, performance is reported at the product level on a dedicated Report page (date-range filter, KPI tiles and a searchable table):
| View | Who sees it | Shows |
|---|---|---|
| Advertiser report | Feed owner | Clicks, conversions, payout and revenue per product, across the whole campaign. |
| Affiliate report | Each affiliate | Their own clicks, conversions and earnings per product. Revenue is never shown to affiliates. |
Click metrics populate as soon as traffic flows. Conversion, payout and revenue columns fill in for the same products once their sales are recorded.
FAQ
Do I need an ecommerce / Shopify store?
No. A Product Feed is just a file or URL you supply; it works on any campaign and needs no store integration.
Which campaign type should I attach it to?
A sale-based campaign — CPS or CPA-CPS — so affiliates earn per product sold.
How big can a feed be?
Large catalogs are supported; products are imported in batches and the lists are paginated and searchable. Very large CSV/XML feeds are streamed, so they don't have to fit in memory.
What if a product disappears from the feed?
It's deactivated on the next sync and removed from the affiliate catalog and exports — but kept for historical reporting.
Can affiliates see my margin?
No. Affiliates only ever see their own payout/earnings; revenue is stripped from every affiliate-facing view and export.