OK you have asked for a merchant account, and been emailed your log ins, but now what? Don’t panic, forget the words datafeed and content units, I know they strike fear in those who are not technically minded.  Instead think ‘search – tick –  job done’ as this is how easy it is!

Once you log into ECU you’ll have the following box staring at you:

Enter a name for your unit (you can change this later) something like ‘Bestsellers’ will do nicely.

Make sure the Search is highlighted and click on ‘continue’

Here’s the search box you’ll find on the next page:

You’ll find tips for finding the products you want on this page, so assuming all is well, type in the product name of your first item for our unit, use the drop down to select your program and click on ‘search’

Results will appear below.  Find the specific product(s) you want to feature and tick the box next to it.  At the top and bottom of the results is an ‘Add Products to Unit’ button, click on this and you’ll see the product appear in a blue box at the top of the page.  This box shows all the products you have selected (and the means to remove them).

Repeat the searches until you have all the products you need.  We’d suggest 6/7 products to be enough to show the top 5 products on the site, and have spares should 1/2 go out of stock before you have updated the unit.

Once all the products have been selected, click on ‘Customise’ button.  As the affiliates will customise the units for themselves there’s little to concern yourself with here, except we’d suggest:

• Changing the ‘Order By’ to Random
• On the ‘Unit Size’ tab changing the number of rows to 5 (so that 5 random products are shown, leaving the others ‘spare’)

That’s all we would suggest on this page, so click on ‘Save/Update Unit’ and your unit is ready.  Incidently, when you update your unit, as soon as you click on this button, any changes you have made will be instantly updated on your affiliate’s sites.

The last thing to do is to put the unit live on our Managed Unit page:

• Go to ‘My Units’ page
• Tick the box next to the unit
• Scroll to the bottom, and find the ‘Managed Units’ box
• Use Drop down to find merchant name (if it’s not there/you would like something different then type it in the box – this is the name that your units will be filed under on the Managed Units page, it’s important that it is the same for all your units from the same program)
• Next up is the managed unit name – something like Best Sellers / Latest Products / Best Offers would be great.  If you are on multiple networks, then please put which network you have selected products through in brackets.
• In the description field please put in what the affiliates can expect to find – ‘This weeks top selling items at our site, regularly updated.  Please make sure you’re a member of our program before using this unit.’ would be great, you could also put in your contact details if you wish.
• Once you click on ‘Convert to Managed Unit’ your unit will appear on the Managed Unit page, and your work is complete.

These are the basic steps to getting the unit up and running.  There are advanced features available to you, which we will discuss in a later post.

Obviously with every new system, it will take time to get used to, but following the above instructions will help.  If you have any problems, or would like us to set up your first unit, please ask via a support ticket.