Learn More About Curate and Automate

Today we’re announcing the full release of new affiliate marketing technologies, Curate and Automate, which empower brands and publishers with increased product optimization and revenue performance. Both technologies offer unique features for publishers, bloggers, and social influencers to quickly find and track the most impactful affiliate content, including searchable product links, custom showcase builders, and automated affiliate link creation.

What are some of the unique features of Curate?

Curate, a product discovery platform, allows publishers to intuitively search for products across all approved brand partners.  The tool makes it easy to create and publish a showcase of multiple products. The products themselves have already been set up with all the necessary commissionable links so when each link is clicked from your site, you are credited for the sale. Curate features include:

• Distribution on Pinterest.  You can quickly add products and your affiliate link to Pinterest.  With your Curate showcases, you can enable your showcase to allow for Pinterest pinning so that your end users on your website can pin products from your showcase to their Pinterest boards, further spreading your product affiliate link.
• Custom Product Images.  You can replace the standard, provided image with your own product image.  Your image is useable in the showcase or pinning to Pinterest.
• Custom Branding.  You can include a banner image, title, sub-title, description, and footer with your showcase, further letting you create content that is wholly engaging to your website visitors.
• Mobile responsive showcases.  Your showcases come mobile responsive.  You don’t need to do anything additional to keep your showcase looking great on mobile devices
• You can customize, in detail, the style of your showcase to better match your website. Showcases will not be confined to a certain ad unit size.
• Search box. Allow your website visitors to search your products within the showcase.
• Dynamic functionality. Products you select can be dynamically added by simply selecting the filters to use. For example, you can search for “Handbags under $200” and save all the search results as a dynamic gallery. Then you can publish the dynamic gallery as a showcase and all the products you filtered through your specified search criteria will appear in the showcase.
• Multiple offers. Compare offers from multiple advertisers and select the offer you want to display.

What are some of the unique features of Automate?

Automate converts standard URLs into trackable affiliate links within publishers’ posts.  It saves publishers time with a simple JavaScript code that automatically applies tracking to any link from the site of an approved merchant.  Automate features include:

• Direct partnerships. With Automate, you can take advantage of your direct relationships with advertisers and you don’t have to go through the manual deep link process.
• Include a U1. If you normally include U1 values with your deep links, you can continue to do this with Automate. Automate allows you to setup any number of scripts, each with a U1 value of your choice. Just install the script with your specified U1 and your automatically created deep links will report the specified U1 value.
• If Automate is not able to affiliate a link, we will not block your other auto-linking scripts from running. Automate will stand down and let the normal process take place. Automate also does not affect previously affiliated links. If your link is already affiliated from RAN or any network, Automate will not affect it.

Getting started is easy!

To get started with Automate, head over to the Portfolio “Automate” page in the Rakuten Affiliate Network Dashboard to grab your unique JavaScript snippet.

To get started with Curate, head over to the Portfolio “Curate – Beta” page in the Rakuten Affiliate Network Dashboard and you’re all set to start customizing your showcase!