The Firebox Affiliate Video Player- more details

One of the unfortunate effects of not having a blog was that we launched our best affiliate tool yet without a blog post about it!

Back in March we launched the Firebox Affiliate Video Player, a brand new tool that allows affiliates to embed our videos into sites, complete with tracking. You can see the original announcement on A4U.

I thought I would take this opportunity to explain a bit more about how the affiliate player works, the code etc.

Here is an example of the player:

Here are a couple of points to note about its function:

• Its flash-based
• Videos are completely hosted by Firebox, not the affiliate network (this is because most networks don't currently have systems that effectively provide videos to affiliates)
• The product information, price and buy button are visible when the player isn't in use. When a video is played, they drop down when the users mouse hovers over the buy button.
• The price and product info is taken from a live Firebox feed, so is always up to date.
• The buy button is coded with the appropriate affiliate network tracking.

Our Affiliate Video coding page is located at www.firebox.com/admin/aff_video. On that page you need to:

• choose the video you want
• choose the appropriate network
• enter your affiliate code
• enter any tracking code you want

Then you simply copy and paste the code, or click preview to see the video. The code will look something like this

<object width="414" height="351"><param name="movie" value="http://videos.firebox.com/flash/firebox_player_ext.swf?product_id=1867&aff_id=512& click_ref=test&external_aff_id=55912"></param>
<param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://videos.firebox.com/flash/firebox_player_ext.swf?product_id=1867&aff_id=512& click_ref=test&external_aff_id=55912" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="414" height="351" flashvars="product_id=1867&aff_id=512&click_ref=test&external_aff_id=55912"></embed></object>

You can actually adapt the size of the video player using the code, provided you keep the aspect ratio the same. You also need to remember to change it in two places in the code, the bits I've highlighted in green.

The aff_id code highlighted in blue isn't actually your affiliate code. Its our internal code for your affiliate network, in this case Affiliate Window. The code for Affiliate Future is aff_id=561.

Your affiliate id is the bit in red, the external_aff_id, in this case 55912 (our test id).

Your click reference is in orange, in this case 'test'. This bit of the code is optional, but will help you to see how many sales you're getting from the video.

Since we launched the player, lots of affiliates have used it and its definately helping to improve conversion rates and sales.

We've also been shortlisted for an A4U award for it, in the  'Best Merchant Innovation' category. I entered us because I feel the player is a truely innovative tool for affiliates, here are a couple of reasons why:

• Although we're not the first merchant to provide video creative, we're the first to treat it differently from other banner-type formats, and offer it as a system to play videos on affiliate sites. Its less a piece of creative and more a video-playing tool that happens to have a 'buy' button encoded in it.
• The way the player functions, with the drop-down menu, is very creative and different.
• We've developed this on our own, independantly of network or agency help.

I hope you all enjoy using the player, and if you have any feedback you can e-mail me.