Getting Listed On FindersCheapers

FindersCheapers.com is one of the largest CPA (cost per action) price comparison websites in the United States. Merchants who are paying PPC (price per click) fees on the major shopping sites should try listing their products on FindersCheapers where they only pay when a sale is completed. Don't pay for clicks, pay for results!

FindersCheapers adds merchant products to its search engine via 3rd party affiliate networks. The 3rd party affiliate network is also responsible for processing payments (and reversals) made to FindersCheapers. We mention reversals because merchants do not have to pay commissions to FindersCheapers on products that are returned by the customer. Merchants typically process their returned merchandise several times a month and apply these reversals to the FindersCheapers affiliate network account.

The technology that facilitates affiliate marketing has been around for roughly 20 years. It has gone through a technical evolution over time but the basic process remains the same. A FindersCheapers visitor clicks on a special tracking link, this link routes the visitor through the 3rd party affiliate network for logging, then the visitor is passed to the merchant. When the visitor becomes a buyer, anonymous purchasing information is passed back to the affiliate network and FindersCheapers receives a commission.

FindersCheapers currently lists prices for packaged goods targeting the consumer, business and industrial markets. In order for your products to be listed on FindersCheapers.com, you must have an affiliate program with one of the following affiliate networks: CJ Affiliate, LinkShare, ShareASale, Impact Radius, eBay Affiliate Network or AvantLink. You must also submit a regularly updated datafeed file to one of these affiliate networks or provide an API that allows the retrieval of prices based on ISBN number or UPC code.

If your company sells products of limited quantity or products that have highly variable pricing we suggest that you provide prices to FindersCheapers via an API. Used booksellers or sellers of refurbished tools are two examples where API integration is preferable. We can usually integrate a merchant API into our price checks in a couple of hours.

A datafeed file should also contain unique identifiers such as the manufacturer name and manufacturer part number, the UPC code, or the ISBN number. Unique identifiers in your datafeed play an important role in getting your product prices in front of FindersCheapers shoppers. We use unique identifiers to group and rank datafeed entries on our website. Merchants will not see a significant sales boost from FindersCheapers listings unless they provide unique identifiers in their datafeed.

When you join a FindersCheapers supported affiliate network (see requirements section), you will also have the opportunity to increase your online sales through a broad spectrum of online communities. You could, for instance, establish affiliate relationships with bloggers or forum owners in your niche and enlist them in raising awareness of your brand.

When you create an affiliate program you control the commission rate. You have the option of defining commissions at the SKU level for more flexibility. Higher commission rates will garner more exposure for your program. FindersCheapers may choose to exclude merchants whose commission rates are lower than the industry average. Please see the following list for a suggested guide to category level commissions.

It is important to realize that creating an affiliate program is not a "set it and forget it" endeavor. FindersCheapers sees the greatest success from affiliate programs that are pro-actively managed by an affiliate manager. A skilled affiliate manager is needed to review affiliate applications, publish sales information, update coupons and banner ads, ensure affiliate network compliance, review affiliate sales, answer affiliate questions and recruit new affiliates.

If you would like help establishing your affiliate program, Schaaf-PartnerCentric can provide the expertise necessary to ensure a successful launch and ongoing professional program management. If you contact Schaaf-PartnerCentric, be sure to mention that you wish to be listed on FindersCheapers and they can expedite the listing process.

The datafeed file is how merchants upload product information to FindersCheapers.com. The datafeed file is first submitted to an affiliate network and the product links in the feed file are converted to affiliate tracking links. FindersCheapers will download the converted datafeed file from the affiliate networks twice a day.

The key to success with FindersCheapers is to include unique identifiers such as the manufacturer part number and manufacturer name and/or the UPC code. It is also very important to update your datafeed whenever a pricing or inventory change occurs. Frequent datafeed updates are required in order to maintain your online reputation. A stale datafeed can cause a disgruntled website visitor to publicly accuse a merchant of "bait and switch". FindersCheapers will exclude merchants who fail to update their datafeed within a reasonable length of time.

If you need help with datafeed creation, GoDatafeed.com provides a reliable solution for executing a daily export of product data from the major e-commerce platforms, the conversion of this data to the affiliate network input format, and the uploading of this data to the affiliate network.

If you have an affiliate program with a regularly updated datafeed that contains unique identifiers, then you are ready to establish a relationship with FindersCheapers. The first thing you should do is make sure FindersCheapers is not already part of your program by scanning our merchant list. FindersCheapers joins most datafeed programs on our supported affiliate networks (see requirements section) several times a year.

Affiliate networks allow merchants to send program invitations through their network, which is a great way to quickly get an affiliate on board. There is no guarantee that FindersCheapers will see your invitation though, due to the large amount of spam invitations that currently cloud all of our invitation lists. We recommend you send a program invitation to the FindersCheapers.com affiliate account at your chosen network and also e-mail info@finderscheapers.com with the message title "New Datafeed Program Invitation" and a description of your program.

If you have additional questions concerning working with FindersCheapers you may e-mail james@finderscheapers.com.