Easy Ebay RSS Affiliate Feeds - A Step By Step Tutorial

Examples of ways you can use the highly defined searches on ebay, including your affiliate id within the link - all these examples are shown at the bottom of the page.
On Squidoo
New Size 10 Ladies Ugg Footwear in the USA available on a Buy-It-Now, listed in order of most recently added to ebay.

Canon Digital Zoom Lens in the USA on Ebay, ordered in cheapest first

JCB Equipment within 500miles of Washington DC, nearest first

Cannondale Bikes complete bikes, no components, accessories or parts. Try this with a simple ebay module!

On Niche Websites -
Bristol Car Auctions is a small site where I'm playing with using Ebay RSS Feeds and Widgets to provide listings of locally available cars on ebay. Still very much a playground and will be adding more to this in the near future

Firstly you will need an account with the Ebay Partner Network. Previously you could use Commission Junction or Mediaplex these programs closed at the end of April 2008. (closure postponed until 31st May!)
The program application was quite simple and I had signed up and been approved within 5 minutes of logging in via the above link!
If you do not wish to sign up, youcan still use your squidoo details to have squidoo collect the commission and share it with you! See below the tutorial for details on how to get the info required.

The Campaign ID is the number you will require for the further stages of this tutorial and this can be found under the 'campaign' tab after logging in to the ebay partner network. You can create other campaigns here, which would be useful for tracking sales/commission from other websites.
Ebay also now allow you to create unique identifiers so you can track sales from each feed you create! These are called Custom ID's.
I use the Campaign ID to identify each site I publish ads on, and the Custom ID to identify each ad. More about this further down.

Additional Instructions for finding where to add your affiliate, or campaign id, have been added as Step 3a
This is due to ebays recent changes to the standard advanced search feature, meaning you will usually have to access this from the eBay Partner Network

The next step is simply going to ebay and selecting 'Advanced Search' where you fill out a fairly generic search to begin with.
From the ebay advanced search page you then have a large selection of refinements where you can select, location, number of bids, buy it nows, etc. It is important to actually use a search term, as users have reported invalid feeds, and feeds without affiliate information when no term is given.
Have a play with this to discover what can be achieved, if you are too restrictive no results will show.
Including your Campaign ID & Custom ID is part of this process and must be done here.

The Custom IDis a unique tracking identifier, often called a SID(sales id) by other affiliate networks. This will provide tracking info for each rss feed you create, without the need to go and create a separate 'campaign' for each feed. Users of the squidoo ebay module will note that their custom id is that of the lens url after the squidoo.com/
One advantage of using your own affiliate account with ebay is that you can give each RSS module a different custom id, so you can track which ones are being clicked via ePN reporting.

Further instructions are also given below on using squidoo's affiliate info so that squidoo will collect earnings for you.

You can then select pretty precise search parameters, whether you want the results showing JCB Equipment within 500miles of Washington DC or Cannondale Bicycles

Recently ebay have changed the default advanced page, to make it 'easier' to use. Additional features are now not shown and are selected from a table on the left. Unfortunately none of these tables have an option for adding affiliate tracking info.
You have to look for the tiny link on the page which says - opt-out

This option will only appear AFTER making a search!
The only way to get to the rss feed now is using links from the epn dashboard to the old style advanced search having already opted out.
As far as I know any other way to access the old advanced searchis impossible.
Now you have to go through the long winded process of going to the eBay Partner Network page, signing in, selecting tools, widgets, before finally having to select which country. This then takes you to the page that you would have been familiar with before this change and you may then follow the instructions above.
Though if you want a short-cut, I have provided links to the relevant pages below

Ebay Geographic Advanced Search Page Links

Ebay US Advanced Search
Ebay UK Advanced Search
Ebay Australia Advanced Search
Ebay Canada Advanced Search

The above links have the squidoo affiliate id of this page included.

Remember! - You have to opt out of ebay's default search

This bit is where you can really have fun tweaking and customising your search results.

The first search results page can provide rather a lot of results, though it is simple to refine these by selecting further search options from the yellow box on the left In the example here, the search term was 'Diesel', then I selected Menswear, then Jeans, and finally you can select size, style, new, pre-worn as shown from the options on the left here.

These options can be fantastic for searching within ebay categories that have details of items specifics, have a play and see how easy it is!

It has been reported that although getting the search results from a particular seller will provide results on the ebay search page and what can seem to be a valid RSS feed, if a search term isn't specified the feed will show no results.

Also, it is worth noting that having started the advanced search, by clicking on the specifics in the left panel your campaign and custom id are preserved in the RSS feed. Though I'd always encourage you to check this yourself, instructions on doing this are below

The next stage is to grab the rss feed and paste it into your RSS module. Easy?

Pretty much, all you need do is find the RSS button on the search results page. You will find this as a little orange button, labelled RSS, this appears in the Tools bar near the bottom of the page.

Simply right click this button and select 'copy link location' (careful you do not select copy image location!)

You are now ready to add this RSS feed to the RSS module.

You can add more RSS modules by selecting the add modules, selecting 'Add Unique Content', then select page 2 to find the rss module at the top of the available modules.

The choices available in this module are fairly self explanatory. You will need to select the number of results to show, 5 is a good number per module, the more modules you use the longer it will take to load the page, so if it is the only module on your lens 10-15 is ok, though 5 modules with this much content will slow down the page and the feeds may time out giving no results.

For the feed to display correctly you will need to allow html, and display everything available. Setting the refresh rate is entirely personal, though if you have selected the results to show items ending soon you will need to set the refresh at it's highest rate. If selecting newly listed items, a 12hour or daily refresh rate is adequate.

You can also add your RSS feed to websites and blogs. Blogs like Blogger have a module you can add that is simple and you can just stick the URL of the feed to this module. If you wish to display it differently on your blog, or your webiste you will have to use a Widget and have access to editing the HTML and a basic understanding of it's use and implementation. Widgets allow a lot more customisation and can be displayed in more places, there are some examples of popular RSS Widgets below.

It may seem that the RSS link code you copy from the ebay search results is huge and makes little sense, which may make you think that it's not easy to check your affiliate code is there, especially after a few refinements of the search.

The RSS Link you add to your module will look something like this -

http://rss.api.ebay.com/ws/rssapi?FeedName=
SearchResults&siteId=3&language=en-GB&output=RSS20&catref=
C5&sacqy=&sacur=0&saslt=2&from=R6&saobfmts=exsif&dfsp=1&
afepn=5335817097&sacqyop=ge&saslc=0&floc=1&sabfmts=
0&ga10244=10425&saprclo=&saprchi=&saaff=afepn&ftrv=1&ftrt=
&fcl=3&frpp=50&customid=sq1&nojspr=y&
satitle=nikken&afmp=&sacat=-1&saslop=1&fss=0

In bold you will see my Campaign ID & Custom ID, so if you make a note of these and then check they are present in the rss feed you create, you can be sure it will appear in your links to ebay.

Also, once you have published the feed, you can check again for it's presence, by right clicking on the link, select 'copy link' and pasting into notepad. These links are much shorter and easier to check, the campaign ID and custom ID will appear like this.

http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/710-53481-19255-0/1?
campid=5335817097&customid=sq1&toolid=10005&mpre=
http%3A%2F%2Fcgi.ebay.co.uk%2FNIKKEN-5AX-2MT-105-
Twin-spindle-CNC-TILTING-TABLE_W0QQitem
Z380009771227QQcmdZViewItem
QQssPageNameZRSS%3AB%3ASRCH%3AGB%3A101

*both these links have been broken by line breaks to allow for easier analysis

If you haven't yet changed over all your previous links from Commission Junction, you will start to see 'Invalid Click Reports'. These are found on your CJ home page, on the right hand column in the same box as pending advertisers, quick tasks, todays tasks, as shown below. Just click through this link for a list of all URL's sending invalid traffic to ebay, then go to the pages listed and update the links!

Feedburner is a feed management service that allows the user to easily manage a number of RSS feeds from one location and provides statistics for users.
It is also a good method of ensuring that your feed is valid and will show if it is not a valid feed. This invalidity may be caused by you not inputting a custom id.
I'd highly recommend taking the few extra steps required to publish your feed via feedburner.
You don't need to complicate this process by using any of the advanced options available so I won't cover these here I'll just list why you should consider this extra step.
Wouldn't it be great to be able to edit all your RSS feeds this way? No more having to edit each lens and each module that you have placed a feed in. Quick stats for your feeds in one place.
You can name the feed with something relevant to the lens and or module you will be using it in. This will make it easy to see reports on this and for adapting or editing the feed at a later date.

Hopefully it isn't, though if you have any suggestions to improve these instructions please include them in the suggestions module.

The hardest part is using the advanced search on ebay, if you start on the advanced search page and select a search term and category, you only need to remember to click on the 'Affiliate Tracking Information' show button and to select your affliate and add your publisher id, PID(Mediaplex rotation id). On subsequent pages on the same seacrh by refining the options available, location, condition, etc your tracking id will remain in the rss feed.

If this is still too much for you to take in you can use a very simple Ebay RSS tool made by Captain Squid, though customisation of results is limited and 2 out of every 5 links will have the captains publisher id instead of yours, though this said it is a simple intro to using RSS ebay feeds.

If you liked this lens and having found it useful would like to do more than just give a few stars, why not-

Vote for it on Lensroll.com

Digg It!

There are many reasons a squidoo lensmaster may want to use the 'official' squidoo affiliate code. Two that spring to mind are - you want squidoo to benefit as well, after all it is their site, and the staff need paying, plus they also donate a percentage of income to good causes! And,you may wish to donate your lens profits to charity via squidoo. There's also the well known effect of earned commission = lensrank boost!

Well, if you are a generous squid this bit will show you how to include squidoo id's so that any ebay sales will show up on your lens stats and be paid via squidoo.

It is really quite simple, all you have to do is find the squidoo campaign id and find out what the custom id associated to your lens. The squidoo campaign id I found was - 5335806952 & the custom id for this lens is ebay-RSS-feeds . Usually the same as your squidoo url! Now you may wish to check these for your lens yourself as I would not want to be responsible for you not getting your earnings!

Simply create an ebay module, get it to display an auction, then right click to copy the Link Location, then paste into notepad or any text editor. I have highlighted the codes below and also broken the link to make it a little tidier on the page.

http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1
?campid=5335806952&toolid=10001&customid=ebay-RSS-feeds&mpre=
http%3A%2F%2Fcgi.ebay.com%2Fws%2FeBayISAPI.dll%3FViewItem%26
item%3D150260608433%26ih%3D005%26category%3D378%26ss
PageName%3DWDVW%26rd%3D1

Please Note You cannot actually add the squidoo campaign id when creating links via the ePN tools, though you can when creating rss feeds using the advanced search. If you wish to create a direct link to a url using ePN tools, create a link with the custom id for your squidoo page, and any campaign id, and simply cut and paste the squidoo campaign id into the provided link in the relevant place.
If anyone can find an example where 5335806952 isn't the squidoo campaign id, please let me know!

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