Thursday 27 December 2018

ZeBookFreeC - free, family-friendly eBook Collectibles store

Each eBook in the ZeBookFreeC store is family-friendly and free!

The first library room opened is dedicated to ebook collectibles of the artwork of big media brands. Think Marvel, Harry Potter, Olivia the Pig, Despicable Me, Supergirl and similar. There's also collectibles from well-known independent artists (like Sandra Boynton).

https://niftytoolz.com/npcp/ebooks/ebook-store.html
ebook collectibles of much-loved characters, superheroes and pop culture


If you have a Kindle, then the mobi download is for you. For every other ebook reader, such as iBook on iPad, the Nook reader and so on, you'll want the epub download.

Why collectibles?

The collectibles are designed to allow you to enjoy your favorites as well as to build up collections for posterity. Imagine that, in an online world of nothing but change, here's a way to capture them for the future.

Each features one artwork per page that's helpfully linked to its buy-me page at the official brand / artist merchandise store, in case you want to build a physical collection as well.

The collectibles each either contain the artwork on posters or on postcards (and sometimes wrapped canvas) but the stores allow you to transfer the artwork onto other merchandise, if that's what you want (Olivia the Pig lunchbox anyone?)

If you're a parent with young kids, you can spend some quality time with them, letting them swipe their way on a journey of their much-loved characters, and having a laugh and a giggle together remembering their escapades on the way.




Tuesday 18 December 2018

Find out how to get an eBook "live catalog" of your Zazzle collections


Just added to the Nifty toolbox is a new marketing tool for your Zazzle designs - eBooks from Zazzle Collections! The service is called ZeBookFreeC and is now live!



So how will this benefit you?

  • You'll be able to reach a far wider audience than you reach currently. 
  • With an eBook on your tablet / mobile / Kindle (or other eBook readers) you're never without something to show people, if / when the right time crops up. 
  • ..even when there's no internet service!
  • Easy to upload and sell in Amazon's Kindle program - more on this below

More than that, each design's title is an active link to the repsective product page on Zazzle and, as usual with Nifty tools, all links have a referral id and tracking code in place. Those links aren't really for you, they're for others to use.

Huh??? How does that work?

For others to use the links, you could email them a copy of your eBook, but there's a much,  much better way designed into our eBooks. On the back page there's two convenient ways for them to use.



They can either point their mobile / tablet camera at the QRCode - most Android phones and all recent iPhones will automatically detect it and offer to open the online version of the catalog in your mobile/tablet's browser.

Or they can type in the short bit.ly link directly into their browser's address bar.

Either way, they can now tap the product links and get taken to the respective product page on Zazzle, where they can go on to personalize and buy. So easy for them and when things are made easy for potential customers, more of them turn into actual customers.

A great way to bost your sales. And now they have it in their browser, it's easy for them to pass on to to others. Small steps on the way to big things for you, hopefully :)

This tool requires a few extra steps, so I have to charge for the service. You'll be able to get more details on the eBook tool's page, once it's been released. That's where you'll be able to order your eBook.

What is the point of uploading it for sale on Amazon's Kindle program?

It's all part of a cunning plan....
  • First off, if you price it as low as it can be priced, there are suprisingly many who would actually pay for having it on their Kindle etc. So you might earn a little that way (it all counts).
  • Secondly, you get the chance to design a great cover for your eBook, one you as an artist has full control over. And you can change the default title we gave it, too
  • Thirdly, with that great cover, when you share / pin your eBook from Amazon on social media, you get a great looking post / pin.
  • And more than that, anyone clicking your share / pin gets a chance on Amazon to "look inside" your eBook.
    If they do, the links are active and some visitors will no doubt click / tap and could end up buying.
Every aspect of this Nifty "eBook from Collection" tool has been designed to give you new opportunities, remove obstacles and smooth the way to convert interest into sales. So whether you're thinking about new online opportunites or real world ones, your eBook will meet the needs of both.

So what are you waiting for?


--------------------------------------

⚠️

Be aware, I've checked with the Amazon Kindle review team and got clarity from them on this key point: they only accept eBooks where you are the exclusive copyright owner of the content.

It means you're fine with collections of your own designs but not with those of others.


Wednesday 5 December 2018

Nifty improved - Yaay! Dependence on YQL removed!

✅ You might notice an improvement in using the Nifty Promo Control Panel, especially if using filters.



I'm happy to say that I've been able to remove the use of YQL in the Nifty Promo Control Panels and its tools.

The only exception is in two of the widgets, the (live) Product Grid and the Slideshow (which is also 'live'). The term 'live' means that the contents are pulled from Zazzle when a visitor lands on a page using them. The alternative used by the others is a static set of products, set in stone when you first make the widget.

My code was using a service called YQL to do the pulling from Zazzle and a drawback with YQL is that it has a 5 second timeout. I found the timeout was often kicking in when using filters or if Zazzle was being a little slow to respond to "pull requests".

I've now rewritten that part of the code, so YQL isn't being used anymore. It only took 4 days 🤪 to find out how and get it right! I really am a 🙇‍♂️ coding klutz, hehe!

Here's a screenshot of the control panel with settings to filter out products with christmas, chinese or wedding in titles, descriptions or tags, shown, with a search for new years (not in screenshot):




http://www.kdl.to/nifty-slideshows.html?qs=new+years&storeid=&dp=252771842883420464&cg=&ps=50&pg=1&pm=&tc=nnslsh&tcschd=nnschdlr&trm1=christmas&trm2=chinese&trm3=wedding&fttls=1&fdscs=1&ftags=1
click / tap the image to try the filters as shown



-----------------------------

🤓 geeky bit...

The reason the timeout was sometimes kicking in when using filters is that the code:
  • ⏳ does a pull
  • ⏳ removes products matching any of the filters
  • ⏳ repeats the above until the requested page size (of products) is obtained.
and has to complete within 5 seconds.

Of course, more 'pulls' are required if there are lots of products matching any of the filters - and if there's too many pulls, eventually the timeout kicks in.




Tuesday 27 November 2018

Learn how to improve on Pinterest with your very own free personalized action guide

Edited Dec 24th 2020:
WITHDRAWN - Pinterest changed their stats approach
Edited Nov 28th: 
It just keeps getting better! Version 5.1 is out and gives you links that let you get related pins from Pinterest and see related boards. You'll find them in your tailored guidance section and they'll help you mold and massage your boards into better shape.


Find out how to improve on Pinterest with advice personalized to YOU. It's free and there's no registration, nothing to sell, you're welcome! You must have a Pinterest business account for this to work.

The online Nifty Pinterest Tailored Action Guide is now at V5, with a newly added csv export gizmo, so you can easily keep a history of your performance improvements.

This blog post explains how to use it and gives some tips to get the most out of it.


When you first visit, this is what you see. It's filled with generic advice, not yet personalized for you:

http://www.kdl.to/nifty-pinterest-action-guide.html?src=raza
Until you paste from your Pinterst Analytics to personalize the guidance, this is what you see


To get personalized guidance tailored to you

Visit your Pinterest Profile Analytics page and select and copy the whole page (right-click, select all, right-click, copy) and then paste where indicated (the large box, currently displaying instructions and a screenshot of it in action).

Once you paste, you see your equivalent of the following:

after pasting your Pinterest Profile Analytics page into the box



Do you see the "Get tailored guidance" button in the screenshot above? Give it a click and your personalized guidance will appear in a tan color in the paragraphs that follow. Here's the first few of mine:

the first few paras of the tailored Boards guidance I got - note the new buttons at the top



Here's the most part of the tailored guidance for my pins:

the most part of the personalized guidance I got for my pins



Pinning more of the same

If you happen to be a Zazzle artist / affiliate or a Society6 artist / curator, then you'll appreciate the links included in the tailored guidance that bring up matching products you can easily pin.

The words in the board name are used as search terms, so might need some adjusting when you get to the rapid pinning tool page. Here's the results of clicking the link given in one of my pin guidance paragraphs:

the rapid pinning tool, waiting for the search terms to be adjusted to get more results


..as you can see, there's only one result for the search terms used from the pin name. A simple adjustment of those terms will bring up plenty of similar designs to pin. The Society6 link given in the guidance paragraph leads to a similar page using Society6 as the source.



Investigating in more detail

When you clicked the "Get tailored guidance" button, more buttons appeared:

summary Board and Pin buttons



The summary pop-ups let you check things out in more detail and explore your options. Both the summaries work the same way. Here's my Boards one:

what you see when you first click the button



You can see there are various buttons surrounding the table. You can sort by any of the columns by clicking the relevant button at top or bottom of the columns. This answers the types of questions you might have like, which boards...
  • ..have the best click through rates?
  • ..require the least pins in order to get a click?
  • ..gain the most impressions for every pin?

Those are the most important because they're all about effective use of time spent pinning. If you want to see the actual values in addition to what's already shown, click the "show more" button at top right. You'll then see something like:

After clickng the "show more" button at top right



You now see three additional columns, Impressions, Clicks and Saves appearing on the left of the exisiting ones, as well as the totals for each column where totals make sense.
Again, you can sort with the buttons at the top and bottom of the new columns.

Although you might be tempted to be guided by the clicks and saves alone, just remember that they give no indication of pinning efficiency. Focussing your pinning on those boards could be much more inefficient than pinning to a board with a better pins-to-click ratio.


As mentioned before, the Pin summary table is pretty much identical in looks and how you use it, so I won't repeat myself.


When would I use the ignore buttons?

Sometimes you find that a board with a seasonal nature is in the top three, but the date for the event has passed. You're not really interested in that board anymore but you get tailored guidance for it.

The solution is simple, ignore it! When you click the button, everything to do with that board disappears from the action guide, leaving the other boards to vie for the now vacated spot. That way, you'll get tailored guidance for the one that wins (assuming it ends up in the top 3 when sorted by board value).

In my example, the Diwali and Thanksgiving events have now passed, yet there their boards are in the top three and I'm getting unwanted guidance for them. I want to focus on the future, not the past!


Watching your performance improve

You can export the contents of the summary tables with the "Export tables to CSV file" - a CSV file is a standard used by spreadsheets everywhere. Using this option allows you to keep a history so you can watch your performance on Pinterest improve as time goes on.

If you don't want to use a spreadsheet, just copy from the pop-ups instead and paste into your favourite notepad application. I find a spreadsheet easier because of the rows and columns grid you get.

Feedback and questions as comments, please. Thanks!


-----------------------------------------
I hope you agree that it's rare to get such great value out of a free tool! Why not try it for yourself right now?
Enjoy 😎

Friday 16 November 2018

Get your Pinterest personalized action guide - new features in v2.2

Edit: Nov 24 2018, Now at v4 - duplicating for Pins the functionality already present for Boards. 
Now you select the whole page for pasting - right-click, select all, right-click, copy (or <ctrl>a,<ctrl>c - or <cmd>a,<cmd>c on a Mac)

Hot off the press - new version is out. Love ❤️ the new ignore buttons and color-coded table display! Now you can home in on what works much more easily. (see previous post for instructions)

Get yours here

Do you have a board that's seasonal and the event has recently finished? Now you can ignore it and its data.

Why ignore such boards?

...because you want to focus on improving for what's coming, not what's passed!

http://kdl.to/nifty-pinterest-action-guide.html?src=raza
green, blue and orange show the top three rankings, in that order


In this table I chose to ignore two boards - Diwali and Best Boss Day. If you look at the date of the post, you'll see that those two have recently passed by. I note - and I guess it's no surprise given the date - that Thanksgiving has the best click-through-rate (CTR)

- and, yes, I'm already doing more on that board - I'd actually overlooked it and building, testing, using and enhancing this tool drew it to my attention. It works!

Get yours here


Wednesday 14 November 2018

Pinterest Tailored Action Guide - a new tool in the Nifty toolbox


Have you ever looked at your Pinterest Analyics and thought to yourself, "hmmm... it looks all very sophisticated but it's overwhelming 🤪 and doesn't really guide me in what I should do more of"?
Worse, Pinterest's analytics don't take into account how valuable click-throughs on your Zazzle afilliate links are (you know, the ones that include your referral id).

Try it out for your Pinterest Boards

That's fixed with this Tailored Action Guide from the Nifty toolbox. Here's what its output looks like:

http://www.kdl.to/nifty-pinterest-action-guide.html?src=raza
Part of the tailored guide output (tan-coloured) with the summary table pop-up shown

The tailored guidance given is on a tan-coloured background and is based on the performance of various aspects of each board and tells you where to focus your pinning effort.

Summary of steps to get your tailored action guide

  1. Get to your Pinterest account's Analytics -> Profile page (there's a handy link given on the tool page for that)
  2. Copy the section labelled Boards with top Pin impressions 
  3. Paste it into the tool page where indicated
  4. Click the button that appears labelled Get tailored guidance 
  5. Follow the advice given on the underlying page, now updated with your tailored guidance

Here's a screenshot showing the help given in step 3 for selecting and copying for step 2:



...so once you've pasted the selection from Pinterest (step 3) and clicked the button that appears, you'll see your equivalent of the screenshot at the top of this post, with the advice tailored specifically to you!

Click here to try it out for your Pinterest Boards










Monday 5 November 2018

Live-print catalogs of your Society6 stuff with Nifty, each with a QRCode

If you'd love to take a printed live catalog of each of your Society6 collections with you when you're promoting at a real-world event, then you'll be jumping with excitement at this new Nifty tool!

Here's an example of a live-print catalog - note the print button and that QR code (the live part):

http://www.kdl.to/society6-rss/s6-catalog-printer.html?qs=&coid=hightonridley/collection/fun-for-space-mad-kids--adults&rf=hightonridley&ps=240&pg=1&title=Space+Mad+Kids+and+Big+Kids
the print button is at the top left of your live-print catalog webpage



The really cool thing is the QR Code at the top of the page under your title. It removes a HUGE barrier to sales. Imagine, there you are at your stand at the exhibition and someone has been lured in for a closer look...
  • they say they like that tee shirt you've got on display but the size is wrong for them and as you chat, they also ask about other stuff you have with the same design. 
  • you tell them about how they can order it themselves at the right size and you whip out your ring-binder and flip to the right collection
  • they love some of the things they see and definitely want to buy
  • cool! Just get them to point their phone at the QR code and they're taken to the very page you printed (as long as you haven't messed with the collection in the meantime!)
  • they can then tap any of the designs they love, to then be whisked off their feet to that product's page on Society6 - they could bookmark it for later or, hopefully, even buy there and then!
Or maybe you put some out as flyers in local venues - sit and wait for the sales! Here's some more ideas:

  • ✅  Have them at your stall at events / exhibitions
  • ✅  Use them as flyers to leave at hotels, spas, wedding venues, clubs - wherever suits the collections you've made
  • ✅  Mail them out to your target audience
  • ✅  Host a coffee morning for your target audience with a few copies of each catalog - everyone can start personalising and buying right away!
  • ✅  [insert your own great idea here!]

With the Holiday Season almost upon us there's no better time to start!

🎓 It's best to pull from a collection because you then have total control over the product designs you include and their order - and you can get up to 240 products (with any other way, uyou're limited to 42, Society6's standrard page size). There's nothing to stop you pulling by any other Nifty ways you fancy - just reprint your catalog to keep things in sync after any major changes.



Getting your printed catalog

Here's the CPanel where I've set up my collection:

http://www.kdl.to/society6-rss/society6-nifty-cpanel.html?qs=&coid=hightonridley/collection%2Ffun-for-space-mad-kids--adults&rf=hightonridley&ps=240&pg=1&upgttl=Space+Mad+Kids+and+Big+Kids
choosing to use a collection as the source for the Live-print Catalog in Step 1

 Here's where you'll find the button in Step 2 to get to your Live-print Catalog:

http://www.kdl.to/society6-rss/society6-nifty-cpanel.html?qs=&coid=hightonridley/collection%2Ffun-for-space-mad-kids--adults&rf=hightonridley&ps=240&pg=1&upgttl=Space+Mad+Kids+and+Big+Kids&mcslsh=lpc
click to go the right place in Step 2 for opening my example Live-print Catalog


Here's a link to Nifty with all the settings in place to pull from one of my collections Go on, click the link and give it a go, it's really cool! 😎


⚠️ In Firefox (just on a Mac?) when you view a pdf instead of printing to your printer, later pages have fewer products and smaller sizes. Weird 🤪

It works just fine and dandy in Chrome, Safari and Opera 🙂

👁‍🗨 Once again, for the sake of transparency, the links used on the catalog page are on a 50/50 referral split. That means half of them will use your referral id and mine will be on the other half, all chosen at random. Don't worry, any royalty due on sales of your products will always go entirely to you.

If you have a Nifty Subscription, your curator id will always be used, so you get to keep all the cash 🤑

I hope you find this tool useful for helping you make sales in the real world!

Best,
Mark (HightonRidley)



🤓 Notes from Nerdsville

I've not got much control over the exact layout and font size on the printout. The systems used on the computer that is doing the printing seem to be in charge! Headers and footers are in your page setup - nothing to do with Nifty.
I'm on a Mac and printing to a real printer gives me 9 products per page on a 3x3 grid. Same for when I use PDF as the "printer" to use.

Wednesday 31 October 2018

Printing catalogs of your Zazzle stuff with Nifty, each with a QRCode


If you'd love to take a printed live catalog of each of your Zazzle collections with you when you're promoting at a real-world event, then you'll be jumping with excitement at this new Nifty tool!

Here's an example of a live-print catalog - note the print button and (the live part) that QR code:

the print button is at the top left of your catalog






The really cool thing is the QR Code at the top of the page under your title. It removes a HUGE barrier to sales. Imagine, there you are at your stand at the exhibition and someone has been lured in for a closer look...
  • they say they like that tee shirt but the monogram's not theirs and also ask about other stuff you have with the same design. 
  • you tell them about how they can personalize it and you whip out your ring-binder and flip to the right collection
  • they love some of the things they see and definitely want to buy
  • cool! Just get them to point their phone at the QR code and they're taken to the very page you printed (as long as you haven't messed with the collection in the meantime!)
  • they can then tap any of the designs they love, to then be whisked off their feet to that design's product page on Zazzle - they could bookmark it for later or maybe even personalize your template with their details and buy there and then!
Or maybe you put some out as flyers in local venues - sit and wait for the sales! There's more ideas in this Zazzle forum post.

🎓 It's best to pull from a collection because you then have total control over the product designs you include and their order. There's nothing to stop you pulling by department or any other Nifty ways you fancy - just reprint your catalog to keep things in sync after any major changes.



Getting your printed catalog

Here's where to find the button to open the catalog printer in Nifty Step 2:

http://www.kdl.to/nifty-slideshows.html?mcslsh=pgshr&storeid=collections/119541015727703798&ps=240&upgttl=My+Catalog+Title
get access to the catalog grid printer tool in the Share a product grid page section of the Nifty Promo Control Panel


Here's a link to Nifty with all the settings in place to pull from one of my collections Go on, click the link and give it a go, it's really cool! 😎


⚠️ In Firefox (just on a Mac?) when you view a pdf instead of printing to your printer, later pages have fewer products and smaller sizes. Weird 🤪

It works just fine and dandy in Chrome, Safari and Opera 🙂

👁‍🗨 Once again, for the sake of transparency, the links used on the catalog page are on a 50/50 referral split. That means half of them will use your referral id and mine will be on the other half, all chosen at random. Don't worry, any royalty due on sales of your products will always go entirely to you.

If you have a Nifty Subscription, your referral id will always be used, so you get to keep all the cash 🤑

I hope you find this tool useful for helping you make sales in the real world!

Best,
Mark (HightonRidley)



🤓 Notes from Nerdsville

I've not got much control over the exact layout and font size on the printout. The systems used on the computer that is doing the printing seem to be in charge! Headers and footers are in your page setup - nothing to do with Nifty.
I'm on a Mac and printing to a real printer gives me 9 products per page on a 3x3 grid. Same for when I use PDF as the "printer" to use.

Tuesday 30 October 2018

Automated Pinning - making a nIFTTTy Scheduler applet on IFTTT

Let the nIFTTTy Scheduler take the strain and pin up to 1000 products for you, spread over the days, weeks and months to come.

Pins made this way look great. Here's what one looks like in the list of your pins:

a Pin as it appears in the list of your Pins

 ...and below is the Pin itself. It's a Rich Pin, meaning that the prices are up-to-the-minute (nearly), and so will change if they change on Zazzle. Same for the title and description you see. The hashtags come from the IFTTT applet, as you'll see below. Cool, huh? 😎


the Pin itself

The link to the product includes the tracking code you set up (see later) and your referral id. If you have a Nifty subscription, pins will always use your referral id. If not, half the Pins will use yours and half mine (what's called a 50/50 referral split). If it's your product, you will always get any royalty due.

Summary

  1. Set up the products you want pinned
  2. Choose to make a nIFTTTy Scheduler
  3. Set up your schedule details
  4. Copy what you're given to paste into a new IFTTT applet
  5. Set up the applet
  6. Wait for your first Pin!

Step by step

So, on with the step-by-step guide to make your own nIFTTTy Scheduler applet.

👉🏽 First, as usual when your doing any kind of promoting with Nifty, you set up things in Step 1 of the Nifty Promo Control Panel to get the products you want to work with:

First set up the products to work with - here it's working on my store

👉🏽 Next, in Step 2, you choose and set up the tracking code to use for the nIFTTTy Scheduler before opening it:

Click the "show/hide" button and set up the tracking code before opening the scheduler


👉🏽 Click the button to open the scheduler and set up your schedule. Here's an example schedule:

Set up your schedule and click the button "Copy for pasting in IFTTT"

Now it's just a case of clicking the button to copy your feed url for IFTTT.

👉🏽 Next, log in to your IFTTT account, get to the "My Applets" tab and click the "New Applet" button:

getting ready to create your nIFTTTy Scheduler applet
 

👉🏽 ...and you'll see this:

the first step in creating the applet - choosing the "if" part

🎓 Before continuing, a quick explanation is in order.  IFTTT is put together as
  • if a service you choose meets a condition you select
  • then another service you choose will carry out an action you set up

👉🏽 The first step is to choose the service for the "if" part. You'll be choosing the RSS Feed service, so click the "+this":

handily, the RSS Feed service you want is at the top of the list of services


👉🏽 Click the RSS Feed icon and you'll then choose the condition; a trigger in this case:

available "trigger" choices for the "if +this" part


👉🏽 You want to pin whenever a "New feed item" appears in the nIFTTTy Scheduler rss feed, so click that choice.


🎓 The nIFTTTy Scheduler rss feed only ever has one Zazzle product in it and only when one of your scheduled timeslots is active. Remember, timeslots stay active for 30 minutes starting from their set time.


👉🏽 On clicking it, you'll see the following, where you paste in the RSS feed url you copied from the nIFTTTy Scheduler just now.



👉🏽 Here it is with the feed url pasted in from my example above:

paste the feed url given to you by the nIFTTTy Scheduler


👉🏽 Click the "Create trigger" button and you'll move to the next step, choosing the service to carry out the action you want:

getting ready to choose the service for the action part of your applet


👉🏽 ...so go ahead and click "+that":

choosing pinterest as the service to perform the action you want


👉🏽 Start typing "pinterest" and the list of services will be filtered as you type. Click the "Pinterest" one


🎓 This blog post is all about Pinterest but you could choose Twitter, Facebook or others. The exact steps in setting up the action vary by service.


👉🏽 Ok, so you've clicked "Pinterest" and now you choose the only available action, "Add Pin to board":




👉🏽 When you click it, you set things up for it:

setting up the action - the defaults given are near-perfect


👉🏽 Fill in your board name, being ultra careful to get the spelling and capitalisation right. Next, add hashtags to the "Add a description" field, being careful not overwrite what's already there:

hashtags are added in the IFTTT applet's description field


👉🏽 Add your hashtags to the description field - note that the "ingredient" graphic changes while you're typing into the field. When you click away from it, it'll change back to the graphic.

Almost there.... Click the "Create action" button and you get to name your shiny new applet:


default name / applet description - change to something more sensible


👉🏽 The default name / applet description isn't very helpful, so change it to something more meaningful to make it easy to recognise later. Here's a more helpful description I tend to use, one which includes a summary of what's being pinned and the name of the board:







  That's it, you're done! Click the "Finish" button and then just wait for the next timeslot in your schedule to become active. When it does, within half an hour you should see your first Pin appearing 😎

Sunday 28 October 2018

Zazzle has fixed their RSS feed mechanism for pulling from the marketplace

This is such good news with the Holiday season almost upon us!

The really good news is that it means all the tools available via the Nifty Promo Control Panel also now work again with the marketplace. And that includes the normal nIFTTTy scheduler!

http://www.kdl.to/nifty-slideshows.html
Promotion tools available in Nifty - now all work with the marketplace again 🙂


No need any more to use the stand-alone tool I created as a workaround, the nIFTTTy Pid Scheduler.
😎



Sunday 21 October 2018

6 step Pinterest recipe for Zazzle referrals - guaranteed

Updated October 30th 2018

Proven by Zazzlers as revealed in the NiftyToolZ, Tips and Support Facebook group.

Each of the following steps is described below in more detail:
  1. Get a Pinterest business account if you haven't already got one
  2. Use a tracking code with date pinned included in it on all Zazzle pins
  3. Pin 50 Zazzle product designs per day minimum, using hashtags
  4. Spread over a week, repin at least 30 from your Pinterest home feed /  search
  5. Spread over a week, follow around 10-20 boards / people
  6. Give it 3 months and you should be seeing referrals starting to become regular


Ok, now to explain each of those 6 steps in more detail...

1. Get a Pinterest Business Account

Pinterest will view affiliate links very dimly if you don't have a business account. They may even delete your account if you pin too many without one.

2. Use a tracking code with date pinned included

Every pinned Zazzle product design absolutely has to have a tracking code. Make sure it has the date pinned as part of the code. This is essential so you know where your successes come from and how long ago it was pinned so you can react accordingly.

When you choose a tracking code, make sure it's unique to the theme/style/board you're working with. (If you use either of the nIFTTTy schedulers, see below, the date pinned is added to your tracking code automatically.)

3. Pin 50 per day minimum - every day - and use hashtags

Yup, at least 50. Every day. With relevant hash tags.

You say "Hmmm.... that's a tall order, it'll take me at least an hour a day, likely more, and I can't afford that time away from creating. And I'll lose track of where I got to as time goes on."

I say to that, use a tool that automates the whole process, hashtags and all. Once set up, it'll run and run until there are no more product designs left to pin. (With the nIFTTTy scheduler pinning from a store at the rate of 10 per day, it'll run unattended for 100 days.)

Pin to boards themed by design style or by event / bank holiday. And go niche. You know, things like gothic weddings, first responder business cards, trucker gifts and so on. Make sure your niches are related to what interests you and it'll make your interactions on Pinterest both easier and more attractive to others.

4. Repin at least 30 spread over the week

If you don't interact on Pinterest other than to pin a lot of affiliate links, there's a good chance your account will be seen as spammy - and that can get you shut down.

To interact, choose from your home feed on Pinterest or do a search for pins related to your chosen niches and then pin what you like to the right board.

Crafts and maker projects are always good especially when kids are on vacation from school or for times like Halloween, Christmas, Diwali, Hanukkah and so on.

5. Follow 10-20 boards / people spread over the week

Another form of interaction you need to do is to follow others - either the person or some of their boards. You don't have to do this each day but try to spread it around during the week and / or at the weekend.

The important thing is to demonstrate by your actions that you're a human and not just a bot.

6. Give it 3 months

The way that it works on Pinterest is that people repin things that appeal to them for whatever reasons work for them. One of those reasons is that it's something they might buy for themselves or as a gift for others - not there and then but 'when the time comes'. You know, much like you might be browsing a store and think "Oh, so-and-so would like that".

From the massed experience of people in the NiftyToolZ, Tips and Support Facebook group, this tends to be around 3 months on average. We know this because of the pinning date included in the tracking code.

Note that you do need to have a lot of pins for the averages to work out for you. The 50 per day, every day, should get you there.


Summary

  • Pin lots every day, sticking to some form of niche themes and their boards
  • Demonstrate you're human by interacting with other people, their boards and pins on at least two or maybe three days a week
  • Give it time

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About Nifty and how it helps both with automated and manual pinning

The Nifty tools have been designed by a Zazzler for Zazzlers and that means they're crafted to deal with all of Zazzle's idiosyncracies.

Automated Pinning

The nIFTTTy Scheduler works in conjunction with IFTTT (If This Then That) to work its magic. For a complete, step-by-step tutorial on making your own nIFTTTy Scheduler Applet, see this blog post


Manual Pinning

The Nifty Promo Control Panel provides a tool for pinning individual products - you set up the collection or store / category / search you want and then in Step 2, you choose individual product sharing.

getting at the individual product sharer for Pinterest (and other social media)

Here's what the Pinning tool looks like in use:


http://www.kdl.to/product-sharer.html?storeid=hightonridley&qs=&st=popularity&sd=desc&ps=15&pg=1&dp=&cg=&at=238582202591969585&bg=ffffff&pm=&trm1=&trm2=&trm3=&fttls=&fdscs=&ftags=&udf=&tc=nnip&uprn=1
click the image to try for yourself

Just flick through the designs, Pinning as you go. Easy!


Find out which Nifty Tools are right for you on this blog page: https://razamazazzle.blogspot.com/p/which-tool-is-right-for-you.html



Wednesday 17 October 2018

Bugfix on Society6 Nifty CPanel and its promo tools

Someone reported that they couldn't get the Society6 Nifty CPanel to work with their store's name nor with a collection they made.

http://www.kdl.to/society6-rss/society6-nifty-cpanel.html


It was a weird one that took a bit of digging. It turns out that when an artist's name is longer than a certain number of characters, that's when the bug surfaces. Once I'd found that out, the fix was easy.

My thanks to the person who reported the problem 💐


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🤓

The page from Society6 I'm turning into an RSS feed treats long artist names slightly differently than short ones. If an artist's name is too long, the page uses a shortened version and adds a horizontal elipsis character. And that was the problem.

You see, the horizintal elipses (a "..." character) is represented by the html entity &hellip; And that's an illegal character in some places in an RSS feed. And that was breaking the feed so that it wasn't producing anything.

Luckily its equivalent, &#8230; is ok so I swapped it wherever it appeared and now it's ok.

Monday 15 October 2018

Zazzlers: Enhanced nIFTTTy Pid Scheduler - now save your settings

I got a request to allow the current settings in the nIFTTTy Pid Scheduler to be saved, so have now added that feature. It was something I meant to do but never got round to and the request was the kick I needed to get it done!


saving your settings

To use it, either drag the link to your toolbar or right-click it and choose the option to bookmark it. If you change any of the current settings, the stuff 'under the bonnet' of that link will update ready for you to save / bookmark again.

The only setting it doesn't save is the list of pids (if you've entered any), as that makes no sense.

⚠️ Changing any current settings won't update the bookmarklet on your toolbar, if you 'saved' that way, nor will it update the bookmark, if that's how you did it. You'll have to re-drag/re-bookmark to save your new settings.

Enjoy!
😎

Friday 12 October 2018

Zazzlers: Introducing the Royalty Page Totalizer bookmarklet


Sometimes the simple tools are the most used and I think this one might be one of those.

So many times I've wanted to quickly add up the royalty amounts on a page in my Royalty History Report and it's a bit of a pain. Good mental arithemtic exercise, I know, but not every time, please!

So I've built the Nifty RHP Totalizer bookmarklet (RHP = Royalty History Page). It totals the amounts in the final column of the page - that column's currency is always the same and is the currency you've set in your account.

results of clicking the bookmarklet on one of my RHP pages
(Now at v1.1 to fix a recurring decimal digit issue that cropped up sometimes)

To get the bookmarklet, drag this link to your toolbar: Nifty RHP Totalizer and that's it done!
Here's a video showing you that - you may want to view it at full screen





To use the bookmarklet, just get to any page in your Royalty History Report and cick it. It really is that simple.

Installs fine in Firefox (and others) but in Chrome (just on Mac, ok on PC) you have to jump through hoops. More info about installing a bookmarklet in Chrome here: https://help.crossbrowsertesting.com/live-testing/getting-started/installing-the-bookmarklet (opens in a new window)

After a while, you'll wonder how you did without it!
😎

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👮🏼‍ Your Data Privacy

Rest assured, as this is something I take really seriously.

Your data can can only be seen by you. I can't track what you're up to. Anyone who knows about such stuff can check the code in behind the bookmarklet to confirm that nothing sneaky is going on.

Wednesday 10 October 2018

New Nifty tool - identfies your sellers not in the Zazzle Marketplace

The new tool is the Marketplace Availability Today Checker Report and is a bookmarklet.
Tool updated to v1.2 - see the new double-check screenshot towards the end

To get it, all you do is drag this Nifty Match Report link to your toolbar. When you've done that your toolbar should look something like this:


That's all there is to installing it. So simple 😎

To use it, first get to your Royalty by Product report in your Zazzle account. Start off with the default of 25 items showing. Here's a random page from mine:

Getting ready to click your new bookmarklet

Next, click your new bookmarklet. I did and after a few seconds, I got this:

Report generated when you click your new bookmarklet

You can see the last 6 items don't have images - these are missing from the Zazzle marketplace. The reason in this case is because I deleted them. If you look carefully, you can see each of them says [product deleted].

So, if there's no image it means the product failed to be pulled when requested from Zazzle's RSS feed mechanism, possibly because it's not present in the marketplace

Possible reasons for not being present in the marketplace:
  • Only G-rated designs can be shown due to the way Zazzle's RSS feed works
  • Marked as deleted - you did this either accidently(!) or on purpose - or something weird is going on
  • Not marked as deleted but still missing?
    • If there are lots like this, try reducing the Royalty by Product Report page size to show fewer items and then regenerate the report
    • Still missing? Click its link (opens in a new tab/window) to get to its product page
    • If that product type (sku) is no longer available (what I'd call "discontinued") you'll see a message to that effect
    • If clicking the link results in a different error page, you've definitely got a problem with it because it's not shown as deleted, it's not discontinued but it's still gone missing
    • Opened ok? See the image below for how to double check as a last resort
Products that haven't been deleted but have no image get a double-check link
If it's not a deleted product, you can double check it wasn't a pulling glitch by clicking the link you'll see.
Got questions? Issues? Want me to check something for you? Get help in the NiftyToolZ, Tips and Support Facebook group
Enjoy!



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👮🏼‍ Your Data Privacy

Rest assured, as this is something I take really seriously.

Your data can can only be seen by you. I can't track what you're up to. Anyone who knows about such stuff can check the code in behind the bookmarklet to confirm that nothing sneaky is going on.