[Chris1]

I have noticed that sometimes merchant feeds for Commission Junction, LinkShare and Google Affiliate Network often do not include the actual code. How do coupon sites get the codes when they are not included in the feed?

For example, the info we get from a feed might look like this:
Take $25 off $100
Take $25 off $100 at Merchant! Expires 3/31/10

We get the offer/coupon, link and expiration, but there is no coupon code. I understand that some links use cookies to activate coupons, but I am talking about coupons that require a code for the coupon to activate. How do coupon sites and other affiliates getting codes when they are not included in the 'name' or the 'description' fields of the merchant feeds?

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Chris

[vicjg]

I've never came across that, do you have an example?

[nyranger1974]

Yes, i have noticed that as well. I work with CJ. The promotional link feed they provide doesn't have the actually coupon code in the Name or description field. So it is a big mess. I am not sure if the problem is because of the merchants who provide the information incorrectly.

Thanks

Raj

[Chris1]

Sorry, I was away from my computer over the weekend.

Here is an example of what I mean. CJ merchant, Max Studio had a coupon that expired at the end of February: $20 off $100 with coupon code HOLIDAY09.

In the feed, the following comes through...

Name: $20 off $100 at MaxStudio Exp 2/28
Description: $20 off $100+ at MaxStudio.com

If you manually find this offer in the CJ interface, you can find the code "HOLIDAY09", but its not in the feed.

How do coupon affiliates stay updated in cases like this?

[Chuck Hamrick]

Chris1, did you contact the affiliate manager? Some codes are triggered by the link itself.

[vicjg]

Originally Posted by Chris1

Sorry, I was away from my computer over the weekend.

Here is an example of what I mean. CJ merchant, Max Studio had a coupon that expired at the end of February: $20 off $100 with coupon code HOLIDAY09.

In the feed, the following comes through...

Name: $20 off $100 at MaxStudio Exp 2/28
Description: $20 off $100+ at MaxStudio.com

If you manually find this offer in the CJ interface, you can find the code "HOLIDAY09", but its not in the feed.

How do coupon affiliates stay updated in cases like this?

Are you using their webservices (linkSearchServiceV2) to download links? I am not joined to MaxStudio so I can't see exactly what you're referring to, but if you are using linkSearchServiceV2, does the code appear in the "linkCodeHTML" field?

[ParadigmWilliam]

Sadly, this happens a lot. There can be a lot of reasons why it happens; merchant doesn't properly know how to add a coupon. I see a lot of campaign link mislabeled. That's why there are coupon feed services out there.

[vicjg]

This is pretty much what we do by using "Regular Expressions" it gets tough though since each merchant can use different wording or formatting.

[yorktower]

I think that's the problem from merchant side. Merchant should always include coupon code in "Link Name" and "Link description" fields if it's not a auto generated coupon code.