What is a datafeed?
A datafeed is a text file containing a merchant’s products, URL’s, product image links, categories, prices and descriptions of the products that an affiliate downloads into a database. What’s in a datafeed may vary from merchant to merchant. Some may supply more information than others.
Depending on the merchant’s programmer, it can be presented in one of many formats. The most common formats are pipe delimited and tab delimited. In order to use a datafeed, you must have access and the ability to create databases on your server. The datafeed will need to be uploaded to your server before you can utilize it and display the products on your site.

Why Use A Data Feed?
The biggest benefit to affiliates is time saved to spend on other projects. Why hand-code 1,000’s of individual product links on your pages when just a few lines of code can produce the same result? Spend the extra time you have to make more sites or work on your keywords for better search engine positions. By using datafeeds you can also enjoy higher conversion rates.

What Does The Data Feed Look Like?
Depending on the merchant, there could be more or less information in the datafeed. The more information in the datafeed, the better so you can make choices on what you want to present on your site and the easier it is to manipulate where you want to show specific products

How Do I Find Data Feeds?
The first place I found product data feeds was at http://www.shareasale.com. They do not hav a wide range of merchants, but I tested the data feed for http://www.footballfanatics.com that contained over 14,000 product links. I found good product coverage for all professional and college football teams. Commission Junction http://www.cj.com is said to have the best merchant data feeds, but their is a $200 program setup fee so I did not test it.