=== Auction Affiliate === Contributors: morehawes Tags: Auction Affiliate, auctionaffiliate.co, eBay, eBay Partner Network, ePN, commission, campaign, custom id, affiliate, affiliates, earn, earnings, promote, partners, traffic, payment, paid, plugin, widget, widgets, embed, integrate, integration, listings, item, items, free, products, ad, ads, adverts, banner, banners, shop, shops, shopping, store, stores, advertise, advertising, on your own site, automatic, automatically, update, category, keywords, seller, user, username, link, links, developer, developers, images, pictures, international, US, UK, Canada, Australia, Belgium, Germany, France, Spain, Austria, Italy, Netherlands, Ireland, ebay.com, ebay.co.uk, ebay.ca, ebay.com.au, ebay.be, ebay.de, ebay.fr, ebay.at, ebay.it, ebay.nl, ebay.ie, ebay.pl, ebay.es Requires at least: 2.8 Tested up to: 4.1 Stable tag: 3.0.4 License: GPLv2 or later License URI: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html Spend less time managing eBay Partner Network ads and let our tools do the work for you == Description == This plugin enables you to embed eBay items on your WordPress site and earn commissions through your eBay Partner Network (ePN) account. If you do not already have a ePN account you must create one in order to use this plugin. The plugin is reliable, super fast, highly customizable and has no up-front fees. Instead of asking users to pay for the service, 15% of links to eBay will use the Auction Affiliate campaign ID (the tracking code which ties in with your ePN account) This means you have a 85% share of revenue generated by the plugin. The plugin has two tools for displaying eBay items on your site: * **Item Lister** - display multiple items at once on your page. The listings have their own "Next" and "Previous" buttons so users can navigate through multiple pages of items. How the items are displayed is very customizable * **Item Banner** - display items as interactive banner ads, available in a range of standard banner sizes The tools can display items by either adding shortcodes (`[auction-affiliate tool="lister"]` or `[auction-affiliate tool="banner"]`) within your content editor, or by adding them as widgets to any widgetized area within your theme. Please refer to the Auction Affiliate WordPress plugin page for full documentation and help. The following options are available: = Keyword query options = This determines which items are pulled from eBay and ensures links to eBay are credited to you. * Item Search Query * ePN Campaign ID = Affiliate options = Choose which eBay site your items are pulled from, which eBay site to link to and whether users are shown geo targeted items (items to for eBay sites which match their location) * Geographical eBay Site * ePN Custom ID * Geographical IP Targeting = Item options = Specify item filters based on listing type, condition and price range. * Search Title and Description * Listing Type * Condition Filter * Items Per Page * Minimum Price * Maximum Price = Display options = How many items to display on your page, in which order and how they are styled. * Theme * Order Items By * Display eBay Logo * Maximum Output Width * Theme Primary Colour * Theme Secondary Colour * Theme Background Colour = Advanced options = Advanced item options such as category and specific seller filters. * Category Include * Category Exclude * Seller ID * Top Rated Sellers Only * Free Shipping Only * Paypal Accepted Only == Installation == Please refer to the Auction Affiliate WordPress plugin page for full documentation and help. = Adding Auction Affiliate to pages / posts = Once the Auction Affiliate plugin has been enabled, a new box will appear on the edit page/post admin screen. This allows you to specify which eBay items to display on your page, through a number of powerful options and filters. Here you also specify your affiliate tracking information and decide how your items should look. Some of these options can be set as defaults on the Admin > Settings > Auction Affiliate page, so you do not have to enter them for every page. You can then add the appropriate shortcode to your content editor where you would like the items to appear. The shortcode for the Item Lister looks like this: ` [auction-affiliate tool="lister"]` Multiple shortcodes can be added to each page (see below for more information) = Multiple shortcodes = As well as specifying where listings should appear on your page, shortcodes can be manually passed options to specify what items appear on the page. This can be useful when you wish to add multiple listings to the same page, or add them to your theme instead of within the content editor. Any options passed through a shortcode override any options specified on that page, as well as any default options set through the Auction Affiliate settings page. Passing options to shortcodes can be achieved like so: ` [auction-affiliate tool="lister" eKeyword="iPad mini case" eSite="0" eCount="4"]` As an example, say you want to display two sets of items – one showing six iPhones and one showing three iPads. If you want all other settings to be the same (i.e. the eBay site, your ePN custom ID, the theme etc) then you can set up the common options in the Auction Affiliate options box and then specifying two different shortcodes like so: ` [auction-affiliate tool="lister" eKeyword="iPhone" eCount="6"] [auction-affiliate tool="lister" eKeyword="iPad" eCount="3"]` Refer to the parameters page for an explanation of each parameter and allowed values. = Adding Auction Affiliate as widgets = You can add the Auction Affiliate Item Lister and Item Banner tools as widgets to any widgetized area in your theme through Admin > Appearance > Widgets and selecting the appropriate tool. = Adding Auction Affiliate within your theme = To add Auction Affiliate items within your theme files, you must use the shortcode format described above and pass it to the WordPress `do_shortcode()` function like so: ` ` = Specifying defaults = Default settings for some Auction Affiliate options can be specified on the Admin > Settings > Auction Affiliate page. If specified, these defaults save you from repeatedly entering the same option each time you add Auction Affiliate to your pages or posts. Defaults can easily be overridden on a page-by-page basis. You are able to specify the following default values: * eBay Site * EPN Campaign ID * EPN Custom ID * Theme * Primary Colour * Secondary Colour * Background Colour == Frequently Asked Questions == Please refer to the Auction Affiliate help page for more information = Do I need to be a eBay Partner Network member? = Yes, in order to use Auction Affiliate you must provide a eBay Partner Network (ePN) campaign ID linked to your account. This ensures clicks of links generated by Auction Affiliate are associated with your ePN account. You can read more information and apply for an account at the official eBay Partner Network website. = Is there an option to cloak roverized affiliate links? = Not at this time. Some affiliates may prefer to cloak roverized links to eBay so links appear to be to the same domain which are then redirected to eBay once clicked. This is a feature I am considering adding but for now all links are roverized and contain the `rel="nofollow"` attribute for SEO purposes. = How can I modify the appearance of Auction Affiliate? = As well as choosing from different themes and choosing a primary/secondary/background colour you can also change the appearance using simple CSS rules. You can change the CSS rules for Auction Affiliate by specifying new rules in your style sheet. As a quick example, to make all of the product titles red and italic you would add this rule to your style sheet : `/* Make the item title link red and italic */ .aa-container .aa-item .aa-title a { color: red; font-style: italic; }` All themes can be adjusted in this way. = How often does Auction Affiliate update? = To reduce server load and to improve page load performance, Auction Affiliate does not update every time it is loaded on your site. Instead it updates every 60 minutes. This means Auction Affiliate will load super fast on your site! = How can I increase the size of item images? = Item images can be increased in size by using CSS to overwrite the dimensions set by Auction Affiliate. To alter these dimensions add the following CSS rule to your stylesheet, changing the values as desired: `/* Increase the size of your item images */ .aa-container .aa-img-wrap { width: 140px !important; height: 140px !important; }` It is recommended that the width and height values are the same so the image does not become distorted. = I have a question / suggestion / bug report = I would like to hear from you - please feel free to get in touch! == Screenshots == 1. Item Lister tool added to a page 2. Item Banner tools added to a page (showing some of the different sizes and colours available) 3. Specify options from within the edit post/page screen and add the shortcode where you would like the items to appear 4. Specify what items to display and provide an ePN campaign ID 5. Affiliate options 6. Item options 7. Display options 8. Advanced options 9. Both the Item Lister and Item Banner tools are available as widgets 10. Specify default options to save you entering them on every page 11. Help popup == Changelog == = 3.0.4 = Fixed minor WordPress admin JavaScript bug which was causing conflicts with some other plugins. = 3.0.3 = Fixed an issue where the feed would fail if the hash (#) character was included in colour options. Thanks to Mares for bringing this to my attention. = 3.0.2 = Fixed some small issues causing PHP notices on environments with low error thresholds. Thanks to Mares for pointing this out to me. = 3.0.1 = Fixed bug where Auction Affiliate items would always output at top of page for some users. Thanks to cjwinternet for pointing this out to me. = 3.0 = This is a major update which focuses on page load performance improvements: * Item Lister requests performed asynchronously using JavaScript as the page loads * Improved page load speed * Item Lister pagination no longer requires the entire page to be re-loaded * Leveraging the browser cache Other improvements: * Plugin codebase dramatically refined and simplified * Small tweaks and bug fixes * WordPress 4.1 support = 2.2 = * Added Item Banner tool to plugin * Added widgets for both Item Lister and Item Banner tools * Improved Help documentation * Small tweaks and bug fixes = 2.1 = * WordPress 4.0 support * Local cache bug fix * Improved feed retrieval using cURL where file_get_contents() is not supported. Thanks Dmitry for pointing this out to me. * Fixed bug where the % symbol in the width option caused an error. Thanks Dmitry for pointing this out to me. * Small user interface improvements * Improved error reporting = 2.0 = Major performance improvements - local feed caching and asset distribution = 1.2 = Fixed bug with special characters in seller IDs. Thanks Jon for pointing this out to me. = 1.1 = Fixed small settings bug = 1.0 = WordPress plugin released. == Upgrade Notice == = 3.0.1 = Bug fix for v3.0 release. Upgrade highly recommended. = 3.0 = This is a major update which focuses on load performance. Upgrade recommended. = 2.0 = Feeds now load much faster, boosting page speed performance. Upgrade recommended. = 2.1 = WordPress 4.0 support, caching bug fix. Upgrade recommended.