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Archive for the ‘Assets tutorials’ Category

Sapphire’s Are A Girl’s Best Friend

Friday, December 10th, 2010

By now you will have  heard about the engagement between Prince William and Princess Catherine (as she will soon be known), and seen pictures of her gorgeous engagement ring once worn by Princess Diana.

The ring is a beautiful, large sapphire stone surrounded by 14 diamonds which at the time back in 1981 cost £28,000.  More rare than diamonds, sapphires are actually an ethical and eco-friendly (not to mention wallet-friendly) alternative to a diamond engagement ring.

Representing divine favour, they have been a favourite over the years for high priests and kings alike so William seems to be following tradition here and following in the footsteps of his father. Also known to symbolise faithfulness and sincerity, this jewel is the perfect gemstone for an engagement ring.

A couple of our favourite sapphire rings at Shopzilla:

© The Diamon Store White Gold and Sapphire

© The Diamond Store White Gold and Sapphire

© Ernest Jones White Gold Sapphie and Diamond Ring

© Ernest Jones White Gold Sapphie and Diamond Ring

Dynamic Assets in-depth

Thursday, October 8th, 2009

Why use our content as an everyday web ad when you can truly make it an asset?!  Our color picker tool allows you to customise your assets to complement your website’s design, helping you to better attract your audience and improve traffic quality.

When you log on to your Shopzilla UK Publisher Program account go to: Get Content > Dynamic Assets > find the asset you’re looking for > Get HTML.  Select the part of the asset you would like to change, then choose the color and other options depending on the part of the asset.

colourpicker

Image Border: The border (outline) around each individual image/product inside the asset.

Background: The background color of the full asset.

Link: The links of the images/products shown inside the asset.

A-Link: The color the link turns when it is clicked.

V:Link: The color the link turns once it has been clicked.

H-Link: The color the link turns when it is scrolled over by a mouse cursor.

Text: The text (non-links) inside the asset.

New Window (_blank): This link target will open the new page in a separate browser window.

Same Frame (_self): This link target will open the new page in the same page it was clicked on.

Parent Frame (_parent)*: This link target will load the new page in the immediate parent of the frame.

Main Window (_top)*: This link target is similar to the Parent Frame, but will load the new page in the full body of the window.

Randomise: Definitely take advantage of this feature!  The products shown will randomly change every time the dynamic asset is loaded, giving your audience a different experience each time they visit your website.  If you are displaying a dynamic asset containing products from category ‘MP3 & Media Players’, rather than showing the same three iPods, your asset will cycle between various BizRate product offerings in that specific category.

*advanced

Another feature worth noting is that color preferences will be saved in your user cookie.  If you’re building multiple dynamic assets, your color preferences will be automatically applied, you’ll never have to worry about our dynamic assets clashing with your website design again!

Once you finish touching up your asset, click Get HTML and then scroll to the bottom of the page to get the new code.  Don’t forget to update your dynamic assets periodically to take advantage of our new categories and product offerings, keep your shopping content relevant to your audience.

For further information have a look at the Dynamic Banners section here on our blog, and as always, contact us if you have any questions or comments about the Shopzilla UK Publisher Program!

How to use Top Search Results?

Monday, July 27th, 2009

The easiest way to create a Shopzilla unit is to use the Top Search Results. It’s the first item on Shopzilla’s dynamic assets list — and it’s the one that requires least work.

How does it work? Type the keyword into a search box, choose a department and a category…and voilà! You have a page-load of ads to choose from!

top-search-results-dynamic-banners

One unit can contain up to 5 different ads; you don’t have an influence over what products will be displayed, as these are (as the name suggests) Top Search Results - it’s up to you though what type of product the unit contains and what format the banner is in.

Serving an ad with several products can help you target the visitors who haven’t yet made up their minds on “what to buy” and are still researching.  That means that these sorts of units are likely to see the best results on a page with general information about the topic, like buying guides. What about single product pages? For these we suggest using Product Pods - ad units with a single product. However, as always we encourage our Publishers to test what works best for them! Whichever ad format you go for remember the golden rule: be relevant.

As always: if you have any questions, leave a comment or contact us using contact form!

Video tutorial - how to get dynamic assets

Friday, July 24th, 2009

Shopzilla’s affiliate program for the UK has recently launched its new dynamic assets. Using dynamic content means that you can adjust the look of banners and product pods to the layout of your website or blog. The displayed products within the dynamic assets automatically change every time a user visits your site. Please have a look at our video tutorial to find out how to get dynamic assets in the Publisher portal.

As always we value your feedback and comments on these assets, whether it be to tell us how much you like them or suggestions for improvement! Please contact us to let us know what you think.

UK Shopzilla Publisher Team

How to use Shopzilla’s Product Pods?

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009
Shopzilla dynamic banner featuring MacBook Pro

Bizrate dynamic banner featuring MacBook Pro

One of the biggest new trends in online advertising is behavioural targeting - a technique using information collected on an individual’s web-browsing behaviour, such as the pages they have visited or the searches they have made, to select which advertisements to display to that individual. Practitioners believe this helps them deliver their online advertisements to the users who are most likely to be influenced by them (Wikipedia). At  Shopzilla’s affiliate program we don’t use this technology ( yet ;-) ), but we give you Product Pods.

A Product Pod is a graphic ad for a product of your choice.  How does it work? Product Pods enable you to “target” your visitors, without their browsing history! It’s quite simple, really - if you write a review on the Apple MacBookPro, you could make an educated guess that your readers will be interested in seeing an Apple MacBookPro advertisement.This type of advertising not only gives you the opportunity to monetize your content, it also makes it more appealing!

Shopzilla dynamic product banner - 234x60

Shopzilla dynamic product banner - 234x60

Currently, we have 5 different formats of Product Pods. To explore this feature log in to your account and go to Get Content > Dynamic Assets > Product Pods.

Any questions? Give us a shout! We are happy to answer any of your queries.

Dynamic banners - colouring your ads

Friday, July 10th, 2009

Many of you wrote to us in the past asking about the possibility of changing the design of the banner ads to better match your sites. Here, at  Publisher, Shopzilla’s affiliate program, we understand the importance of ad optimization and how crucial it is for your earnings. That’s why, when creating the dynamic banners product, we made sure our affiliates would have full control over the appearance of the ads they created!

Now you can colour your ads!

Shopzilla's dynamic asstes - Now you can colour your ads!

Now you can customise your ad unit by changing:

  • ad border colour
  • image border colour
  • background colour
  • link colour (that includes before it’s clicked, after it’s clicked, when it’s clicked and when you hover over it…)
  • text colour
  • link target (you decide whether the link opens in a new window, leaving your site open).

How can you customise your ads in order to maximize your earnings? Try to make the ad fit your website’s design. At the same time don’t try to blend it in too much - your visitors should always be able to tell the difference between your own and sponsored content!

If you have any questions regarding this feature contact us and we’ll try to help!

Good luck!

Use Placement IDs for better ad performance

Saturday, February 21st, 2009

The Shopzilla UK Publisher Program makes Placement IDs available for your use to help track the effectiveness of your chosen assets, or their placement on your website. You can define and use unique Placement IDs on different sections of your website to track your earnings on a more granular level.

For example, let’s say you have a Shopzilla UK Publisher Program ad on the top of your homepage and one placed at the footer of your homepage. You can define Placement ID 1 to identify the ad on the top, and Placement ID 2 for the ad in the footer. The Shopzilla UK Publisher Portal Reporting will allow you to break down your earnings by Placement ID. By using Placement IDs, you can fine tune and optimize ad placement to ensure that you are maximizing your website’s earning potential.

Picture_8

A few important things that you need to remember about the use of Placement IDs:

1) A Placement ID must always be used.

2)
The default Placement ID is 1. You may leave it as 1 for all of your assets if you do not wish to take advantage of Placement IDs. Just remember Rule #1: A Placement ID must always be given!

3)
Placement IDs must by a positive integer. Zero, decimals, negative numbers, and non-numeric characters are not allowed. Should you pass a Placement ID with a character that is not allowed, it will convert to the default ‘Placement ID 1′.

4)
Placement IDs 1-99 available and are visible in the Shopzilla UK Publisher Portal Reporting. If you use Placement IDs above that, you won’t be able to see any earnings associated with them through the Shopzilla UK Publisher Portal Reporting. Placement IDs that are not formatted properly will converted to Placement ID ‘0’, and Publishers will not be paid.

Start using Placement IDs today to get better insight into ad performance. If you have any questions about using Placement IDs, please contact us.

Video tutorial - how to get text links

Tuesday, February 10th, 2009

Most Shopzilla Publisher program ads contain nice pictures and are very eye-catchy. Beside banner ads, text links are unmissable. Together with dynamic leaderboards, text links are very valuable and are offered by Shopzilla’s publisher program, too. They can directly be integrated in a text or a navigation bar on your website.

Shopzilla provides text links in a number of different ways:

- You can link to a department within Bizrate*

- You can link to a popular result from Bizrate’s search engine*

- You can link to a page on Bizrate*

In order to get text links, you just need to:

- log on to the portal

- select the “Get content” tab and the “Text links” link

- choose the text link of your choice

- open the HTML code

- and copy and paste it to your website

Please watch our video tutorial “How to get text links” for a detailed explanation, how you can create your own custom text links.

*Shopzilla also operates the BizRate consumer feedback network that collects millions of consumer reviews of stores and products each year. The publisher program promotes Bizrate, so that your users will make the best shopping experience. Besides comparing products they will also be able to read customer reviews and store ratings.

Video tutorial - how to get search boxes

Tuesday, February 10th, 2009

Shopzilla Publisher program offers search boxes as well.

You can choose to link your search box directly to one of Shopzilla’s categories or you can link it to the Shopzilla homepage. Clearly matching the subject of the search box to the content on your website is likely to help generate more searches. Other than banner ads and text links, it’s recommended to put just one search box on your site.

All you need to do is:

- log on to the portal

- select the “Get content” tab and the “Search boxes” link

- choose the search box of your choice

- open the HTML code

- and copy and paste it to your website

Please watch our video tutorial “How to get search boxes” for a detailed explanation.

Video tutorial - how to get stock banners

Monday, February 9th, 2009

Shopzilla Publisher program offers a wide range of stock banners.

In the Publisher portal you can choose stock banners in six different formats. The stock banners provided cover many different Bizrate categories and products. New stock banners are regularly added.

All you need to do is:

- log on to the portal

- select the “Get content” tab and the “Stock banners” link

- choose the department/category of your choice and select the banner you prefer

- open the HTML code

- and copy and paste it to your website

Please watch our video tutorial “How to get stock banners” for a detailed explanation.

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