The Affiliate Product Optimizer (APO) intelligently selects products from the Commission Junction Affiliate Network Product Catalog and displays them to your user. Any purchases made by your users is money straight into your Commission Junction account and into your pocket.  By listening to the user's interactions with your website the APO builds up a unique profile for each user, what we call the user's "echo".  The APO then uses that echo to present highly relevant product to each user in what we call the "APO Zone".  The more relevant the product, the more likely the user will click-through and purchase... which equals more money in your pocket!

There are 3 simple steps to get our APO Zone up and running:

1. Sign up with Commission Junction, if needed, to get your Publisher ID and Developer Key
2. Sign up with EchoCurrent to configure your APO zone
3. Embed a generated HTML snippet in your website or use one of our blog/CMS plugins

1) Sign up with Commission Junction

NOTE:  If you are registered as a publisher with Commission Junction and already have a Publisher ID and Developer Key, you may skip this step.

As stated on their website, Commission Junction "is a global leader in the online advertising channels of affiliate marketing and managed search."  With quite a large product catalog available to its publishers, there is sure to be great, highly relevant products available to be shown to your individual users.

Signing up as a publisher will grant you access to this vast product catalog.  Once signed up, you will be given a Publisher ID from Commission Junction.  This can be found in the CJ Account Manager under Account tab -> Website Settings.  PID is normally 7 digits in length.  If you have multiple websites please select the website/pid that you will be using with EchoCurrent.  Future plans will enable you to have multiple website/pid listed in your EchoCurrent account.

It is very important that you setup a relationship with at least one Merchant in the CJ Account Manager, or else your zone will be empty.

Once you have a Publisher ID, you will need to get a Developer Key to gain access to Commission Junction's web service API.  The Developer Key is a long string, usually at least 260 characters in length and may contain a forward-slash ('/') character in the key.  Please note when copying the Developer key from a web browser the '/' character may interfere with the copy process. It is recommended that you copy your Developer Key from the email that CJ will send you when entering your key on EchoCurrent.

Once you have these two keys (Publisher ID & Developer Key), simply go to the Network Affiliate Manager and enter them.  Before you save your Developer Key on EchoCurrent, please press the "Validate Keys" button to ensure that the entered Developer Key will function. If a Developer Key is not complete (e.g., too short because of a mistake in the copying process) you will see the following message when you try to validate the key. A valid Developer Key will return a message of "Keys are valid".

2) Sign up with EchoCurrent 

Next, you can sign up for a user account with EchoCurrent.  Filling out our simple Registration Form is all you need to do.  Once you have an account, the APO community and suite of functionality is opened up to you including discussion boards, APO Zone tools, Click-Through and Performance Reports, and more.

Once logged in, click on the "Edit Affiliate Network" link in the thumbnail to save your Commission Junction Publisher ID and Developer Key.

3) Put an APO Zone onto your website

There are a few different, but equally simple ways to get an APO Zone onto your website.

1. Zone Generator Tool
   Pick your zone style, tailor the colors to match the look of your site, click a button, copy & paste into your website, and start earning money!
2. WordPress 2.7 Plugin
   Install the plugin into your WordPress application.  In the standard WordPress widget configuration tool, enter your EchoCurrent ID, tailor the colors to match the look of your site, and start earning money!
3. Joomla 1.5 Plugin
   Install the plugin into your Joomla application.  In the standard Joomal module configuration tool, enter your EchoCurrent ID, tailor the colors to match the look of your site, and start earning money!

Watch your zone's performance

Problems?

We do not anticipate that you'll have any problems with these steps.  But if you run into some difficulty or confusion, please visit our Discussion Forum and FAQs page, or Contact Us.