Take Advantage of Last Minute Offers - New Links UI Beta

Last month we released the second in a series of improvements to our links interface for publishers.  I've been keeping quiet about it until now because we weren't happy with the performance of the feature out of the gate.  We've recently tuned it up a bit and while it's still not as fast as I want it, it is a lot more usable now and I'd like to get some fresh eyes on it.

If you haven't tried it already, login to ConnectCommerce and take a look at Get Links > newest links (you have to be logged in to use the link).  The page will display all of the links that have been added to the network in the past seven days, from all advertisers in the network.  As of the time of this post, there are 500+ links in there and many are limited time offers meant for those last minute shoppers.  I also think this feature will be very useful as you start to refresh your links after the holidays.  This page will have all of the post-holiday creative in one place so you don't have to visit each advertiser's link library individually.

You can choose from a set of filters to narrow the list down to the offers that are most relevant to your site.  You limit the view to text or banners and filter each list by expiration date, promo type and size.  You can also select the "links you created" filter to see only the links you created (BYOLs, a.k.a. Build Your Own Links) in the past week. 

My favorite view of the data so far is to look at links expiring the next seven days.  Since the UI already restricts the set of links to those added in the past seven days, using this filter narrows the list to those links that are live for a week or less which are usually the best deals.  There are more than 250 links using this set of filters and many include great shipping/percent/dollar off promotions.

Give it a try and let us know what you think.  We have a long list of enhancements we want to make already but we're always looking for good feedback that will both add to and refine the priority of the list.

Thanks, and have a great finale to your holiday season.

Larry Adams
Affiliate Product Manager

Comments

[Glenn]

It would be nice to have an option to create a link to a specific product. Then we could write about a product and link the user directly to the catalog page on the advertiser site...
thank you.

[Larry Adams]

Thanks for the suggestion, Glenn. We do have these capabilities elsewhere in the application and will be adding them to this area too.

I'll do a follow up post describing the ways you can create product specific links through the interface. If you want to try for yourself, navigate to 'Get Links > By Advertiser' and choose 'Build Your Own Link' from the action drop down for one of your advertisers.

-larry