Awin Global Integration

A product feed is the backbone of an Awin partnership. It gives content, comparison, voucher, and cashback publishers the structured product data — price, image, description, availability — they need to feature your catalogue without manually building a link to every individual product. Awin's own documentation is direct about the stakes: an outdated feed causes "incorrect product information" and "incorrect Google Shopping (CSS) listings" to spread across partner sites, while a well-maintained, optimized feed can increase sales by up to 15%. A working feed is also mandatory, not optional, for certain relationships — Awin requires a product feed to work with content sites, comparison platforms, and Google Shopping CSS partners at all.

Awin ties every commission-eligible product to your feed through a two-ID system. The identifier you submit (product_id in Awin's standard format, or id in its Google-format feed) is treated as the unique key when Awin imports each record. Awin then assigns its own Awin product ID to that record, and this Awin-generated ID — not your original SKU — is what gets embedded in the affiliate deep links publishers use to promote the item. If two rows in your feed share the same identifier, Awin keeps only the first occurrence and ignores every row after it, so a duplicate ID silently drops a product from the feed rather than raising a visible error.

Awin ingests product data through its Product Service in one of two structures. The first is Awin's own standard format, delivered as tab- or pipe-delimited CSV/TXT (UTF-8 with BOM) or XML — this is what Awin's content, voucher, cashback, and comparison publishers read. The second is an "Enhanced" Google-format feed, built to the same field structure as Google Merchant Center's product data specification, used for Google Shopping CSS and price-comparison partners. Awin explicitly does not process every Merchant Center field: management-only fields such as cost_of_goods_sold, ads_redirect, custom_label_0 through custom_label_4, promotion_id, external_seller_id, excluded_destination, included_destination, shopping_ads, excluded_country, pause, shipping_label, transit_time_label, and tax_category are ignored on import.

Feeds can be delivered over HTTP(S), (S)FTP, or manual upload. The hosting server must respond within Awin's ten-minute fetch timeout, each advertiser programme can host up to 10 feeds, and a single feed can contain up to 1 million products.

The table below lists the core fields from Awin's Enhanced (Google-format) product data specification, which mirrors Google Merchant Center's spec. Awin's own standard advertiser feed uses different generic names for the same concepts — for example product_id, product_name, and deep_link cover the same data as id, title, and link below — but required/optional status and the underlying data are consistent across both formats.

1. In Feedance, build a feed profile that maps your catalogue fields to Awin's required attributes: your SKU/ID to id (or product_id for the standard format), name to title/product_name, and your canonical product page to link/deep_link — submit the plain, non-trackable product URL, since Awin layers its own affiliate tracking on top of it once the feed is processed.
2. Choose the output format your Awin programme is configured for: pipe- or tab-delimited CSV/TXT in UTF-8 with a BOM, or XML; use the Google-format (Enhanced) layout instead if this feed will also serve Google Shopping CSS partners through Awin.
3. Deduplicate on your identifier field before export. Awin silently drops every row after the first one with a repeated product_id/id, so a duplicate disappears from the feed rather than throwing a visible error.
4. Host the generated file on an HTTPS URL that responds within Awin's 10-minute fetch timeout (or hand it off via (S)FTP), then register that URL in Awin's platform under Toolbox > Links & Tools > My Product Feeds.
5. Set an automatic fetch schedule — daily at minimum, with up to four pulls a day available — then check the Feed Health indicator after the first fetch to confirm Awin ingested the file without critical errors.

Awin polls automatically-hosted feeds daily by default, and if you set the fetch frequency to Daily you can schedule up to four pulls within a 24-hour window. Awin's own guidance is to automate an update at least every 24 hours, because conversion rates drop when the price a publisher shows from your feed doesn't match the live price on your site. During high-volume periods — Q4 from Black Friday through Christmas, plus regional peaks like Singles Day in APAC or Boxing Day in the UK — Awin recommends moving to twice-daily fetches. If your catalogue rarely changes, or you can't host a feed for automatic retrieval, Awin also accepts manual uploads, but a manually uploaded feed stays static until you upload again.

Awin's Feed Health screen (Toolbox > Links & Tools > My Product Feeds) rates every feed green, amber, or red. Green means the feed has no errors; amber means the feed is still usable despite issues; red means the feed has critical issues and is not usable, in which case Awin keeps serving the last healthy version to publishers until you fix and republish.

1. Automate at least a daily fetch, and move to twice-daily during Q4 and other peak shopping moments, since Awin explicitly ties feed freshness to conversion rate.
2. Keep product_id/id values permanently stable — Awin's affiliate deep links are built on the Awin product ID assigned from this field, so changing it breaks any links publishers have already created for that product.
3. Map every category to Awin's Category Tree rather than relying on automatic matching, so publishers who browse or filter by category can actually surface your products.
4. Submit the plain product and image URLs — not pre-tracked affiliate links — in link and image_link; Awin's own tracking layer is added on top, and a pre-tracked URL will double-wrap or break attribution.
5. Use sale_price rather than overwriting price directly for promotions, so the feed carries both the standard and promotional price for the discount window.

What format does Awin require for a product feed?
Awin accepts tab- or pipe-delimited CSV/TXT (UTF-8 with BOM) or XML in its own standard format, or an Enhanced/Google-format feed that mirrors Google Merchant Center's spec for Google Shopping CSS partners.

How many products or feeds can I submit?
Each Awin advertiser programme can host up to 10 feeds, and each feed can contain up to 1 million products.

How often does Awin update my feed?
Awin polls automatically-hosted feeds daily by default, with up to four fetches a day available. Awin recommends at least one update every 24 hours, and twice daily during Q4 and major shopping peaks.

What happens if I have duplicate product IDs in my feed?
Awin uses product_id (or id) as the unique identifier on import. If the same ID appears more than once, only the first occurrence is kept — later rows with that ID are silently ignored.

Can I submit an affiliate link as the product URL in my feed?
No. The link/deep_link field should be the plain, non-trackable product URL; Awin generates the tracked affiliate link on top of it once the feed is processed and an Awin product ID is assigned.

What does the Feed Health status mean in Awin's platform?
Green means the feed has no errors, amber means the feed is usable but has issues such as duplicate IDs or missing required fields, and red means the feed has critical errors — invalid URLs, bad XML, incomplete mapping — and isn't usable; Awin keeps serving the last healthy version to publishers until you fix and republish.

Can I upload my feed manually instead of hosting it for automatic retrieval?
Yes. Awin supports manual upload for feeds that rarely change or can't be hosted for automatic fetch, but the feed then stays static until the next manual upload.