cj newbie with questions? help please...

hi, im pretty new to here and cj cheers!...and now i have a questions...

i recieved my first lead (yeehaw) which tells me my cj ads are posted correctly but im confused using the product links.

-there are like four or five codes to highlight. what's the url image one for? ect.? etc?

-im trying to set up a 'store' type page and would like to use a code that has both picture, text and a buy now button. is this the code at the very bottom of the page or do i blend the other codes together?

-is there a way to do more than one product at a time? other than the smart zone way 'cause they are stumping too.

thanks in advance

 

The URL img is a tracking 1x1 Pic that is essentially hidden, but helps for tracking.

Data Feeds - If you want to build out a store, this the way to go. You can download all the links at once and upload to your site. Pretty simple stuff.

Buy Now "Buttons" are a little different. Really its usually just a product image that takes you to the sponsors site...where then the customer clicks the 'buy now' button. You could possibly create your own that takes you to the same page but you'd want to contact the advertiser before you do something like that.

 

i looked into the datafeeds, signed up, recieved my confimations emails ect but...

i dont know what to do with that info?

is there a how to step by step somewhere?

help please, thanks

 

I have heard that CJ is better than CB but don't know really. I am trying to use it for my products.

 

You'd have to look around. I use Excel and Dreamweaver to manipulate the feeds so if you don't have experience with that kind of stuff...it would have to be quite a tutorial....plus if you use different software, I couldn't help you.

I would just stick with what you know for now until you have time to develop your skills. You can easily build a website of 25-50 products built all by hand - you can develop your skills as you go along. By the time you are ready to take it to 100+ products....unless you like cutting/pasting all day, you'll want to automatize some of the process, that's where Data-Feeds come in.

 

hi, i actually have dreamweaver installed but do not have alot of experience using it as of yet. i've since checked the help section and it is a little foreign. the email i recieved from cj has a text file in it could you direct me as to where this information would go within dreamweaver as a little pointer, please? or...if there is a tutorial link somewhere I could attempt to follow it?
thanks, tmc

 

I break down data-feeds kind of the 'Homemade' way...meaning, there is a better way, but for my skills it easier for me to do it in several steps. There are people that know how to parse the data to HTML and its a simple 1 cut and paste...or upload to the server. I suggest once you know a bit more, you check out the coding section of the forums to find people that are much more skilled in manipulating the data...this will save you time over the methods I can give you.

Method #1
If you want to use dreamweaver, more than likely you will be downloading the data-feeds from CJ in XML format. Then opening a XSLT file in dreamweaver...and use that to pull the data from the XML file. This allows you to have a CJ Feed with 10,000 products and pull only the ones you request/need. It also allows you to pull the data about each product...for instance if its shoes...you will pull Brand, Sizes, Gender, Price, Picture of Product ...ect.

Now you need this data in HTML code so it can show up on a website. There are different ways of doing that. As I said, I do it a 'homemade' way where I setup an Excel file where I have HTML code, and I cut/paste the data in my XSLT file into columns of my Excel file so it lines up to read as HTML. Once you have a template in Excel, you simply need to call the data in dreamweaver and cut/paste. There are easier ways of doing it....but for what I do, it works and I'm used to it. If you are planning on doing thousands of items...you probably want to find someone that can help you eliminate this step.

Method #2
You can also download the Data-Feeds from CJ in CSV (Comma Separated Value...I think) Basically means, each line of data is separated by a comma. So you can open this directly in Excel (or open office...ect)...make sure it separates the data by "comma" or ',' Then you setup a template in another Excel file with your HTML code, and you cut/paste the data in CSV file into your template. If you need a sample of this, let me know and I can break it down better.


Read up on XSLT and XML in dreamweaver if that's the way you want to go. Download some data feeds from CJ in XML and CSV and start playing around. If you have any questions let me know.

 

...hmmm, sounds like i need a mentor for this one i'm going to play around with it but i'm not feeling too confident.

i think i may just reroute back to my first question in the meantime...

- for some reason i'm having a hard time creating product links. with all the different choices of html and with page always coming up with an error and the text being blended together...in what order are they copy/pasted?

any takers on re-explaining, the above answer didn't quite stick )...? or linking me to a tutorial?

thanks again!