The headliners for today’s updates are adding XML feeds to offers, tracking servers responding to POST requests, and the awesome ability to change time zones within reporting.  We’ve also added customizable media domains and some additional information you can share with affiliates.   

XML Feeds

Ecommerce stores and other advertisers use product feeds to group thousands of products together.  Rather than affiliates loading thousands of different offers for individual products, XML feeds make it possible for affiliates to pull products from one feed.  For example, an affiliate may want to promote products at Nordstrom, but rather than use individual offer URLs for each of Nordstrom’s thousands of products, an affiliate can be far more efficient by pulling the appropriate product from an XML feed and serving it to a user.  Learn about the importance of product feeds in today’s blog post Affiliate Data Feeds.

XML feeds basically include thousands of links and creatives for specific products.  This new feature converts individual product links into affiliate tracking links that redirect users to the appropriate landing page, while tracking the user’s click and recording a conversion when the transaction is complete. 

MultiOffers converts individual product links by searching the original XML document for all tags that contain the links to product pages. It then appends the product URL to an affiliate tracking link.  So when a user clicks the link from a MultiOffers XML Data Feed, the user is first directed to MultiOffers tracking servers to record the click and then redirected to the specified product URL.

Allowing affiliates to consume XML Data Feeds allows them to send users to product specific landing pages while still being able to easily track sales they generate and compensate accordingly.

Learn more about implementing XML Feeds here:


POST Requests

There are two ways to send data between servers over HTTP, “GET” and “POST”. A GET request works by loading a URL that includes all the parameters within a query string. A POST request works by submitting parameters in the head without values in the query string. GET requests are used for linking while POST requests are used with forms.

Previously, MultiOffers’ tracking servers only responded to GET requests. They didn’t respond to POST requests, and for this reason, forms could not be used to track clicks or conversions.

Now MultiOffers’ tracking servers also respond to POST requests. Clients may use forms to track clicks and conversions. Simply use the URLs for tracking links or conversion pixels / postbacks in an HTML form. The query string of the tracking link or conversion pixel / postback URL would be the action of the form while the parameters in the query string would be objected in it.  Since it’s just a different way to submit data to tracking servers, you don’t need to enable or change anything in your account in order for click or conversion requests to work with the POST method.

To submit a POST request to a tracking link, use a form with the action of the tracking link without the query string, and set offer_id and aff_id as form values. You can include any other optional parameters used in tracking links as well, such as source name (source) or affiliate sub ID (aff_sub). When a user submits the form, the data is sent to MultiOffers tracking servers, tracking that submission as a click and redirects the user to the offer URL of the landing page. 

By default, conversion URLs do not redirect anywhere after a conversion. Instead, they load a page with the conversion result.  However, you can set a redirect parameter that redirects the user to a different location when a conversion is tracked. This way users are directed to a specified page after MultiOffers tracks the conversion.

Learn more about implementing POST requests here:


Time Zone Reporting

The Stats Report, Conversion Report, and Conversion Status Report can now change time zones on-the-fly.  Under the “Options” header of the report, the user can select which time zone they’d like and the report will provide data using the hour offset of the network’s time zone with the user’s selected time zone. 

Custom time zones in reports mostly benefits affiliates that track their own traffic in a different time zone than the network does. This makes it easy for you and your affiliates to compare stats from your MultiOffers network and other third-party systems that use different time zone settings.

Affiliate Transparency Settings

Affiliate programs may choose to share additional information with affiliates, including the actual sale amount recorded for a conversion as well as the gross vs. unique clicks provided by an affiliate.  This is an optional setting under Affiliate Settings in Customize Application.

Custom Media Domain

Creative files and media can now be placed on a custom domain name.  Similar to other domain white-labeling in MultiOffers, a unique domain name can be used for hosting creative files. Since we host creative files on the CDN provided by Edgecast.com, it is a manual setup process. If you’re interested in having a custom media domain, contact your account manager for more information.