Saturday 19 May 2018

nIFTTTy Zazzle Pid Scheduler - new free Zazzle promotional tool

Now you can schedule your automatic shares from a list of Zazzle product ids
(Post updated October 21st 2018)

Why would I want...

...to do that when I can already use the other nIFTTTy scheduler to share from collections?

Well, creating collections takes time, and cluttering things up with collections used just for affiliate promoting may not be what you want, so this is an amazing alternative. And if you use the NiftyZPids bookmarklet to compile your pids, it's one that takes only seconds.

There's a handy comparison table at the end, so you can quickly see what's what.

Here's a screenshot of the new nIFTTTy Pid Scheduler




So what's this NiftyZPids bookmarklet all about?

It makes collecting Zazzle product ids for your schedule as easy as click and copy. You:
  • visit any search results page on Zazzle
  • click the NiftyZPids bookmarklet - behind the scenes it grabs the pid from each product in the search results and opens a new tab/window to present the list of pids
  • in the new tab/window that opens, select and copy the list of pid
  • zoom round to the nIFTTTy Pid Scheduler and paste them in!


How do I get it?

Simple. Visit the nIFTTTy Pid Scheduler page and, towards the bottom, drag the NiftyZPids link you see to your bookmarks toolbar (Firefox) / bookmarks bar (Chrome) and that's it done!

You only need to do it once, unless a new version is released.

A typical affiliating promotion session

Goal: pin 60 items per day on various themed Pinterest boards you have (they must be yours)
Method: Make 5 IFTTT applets, each with 12 scheduled pins per day

Any Zazzle search results page
⬇︎
click / tap the NiftyZPids bookmarklet
 ⬇︎
copy the list of product ids
⬇︎
paste into the scheduler and set your schedule
⬇︎
make a new RSS Feed-based applet in IFTTT
⬇︎


  1. Decide on the theme and / or product type that what you want to promote
  2. Do a search on Zazzle to get them displayed
  3. Click the NiftyZPids bookmarklet and copy the comma separated list of pids from the new tab/window that opens
  4. Switch to the nIFTTTy Pid Scheduler window and paste them in
  5. Set up your schedule, use all 12 time slots and every day
  6. Click the "make feed url for IFTTT" button and copy the text that appears
  7. Make a new IFTTT applet, using "RSS Feed" as the IF This part
  8. Choose your social media channel for the Then That part and finish off your applet
Time taken - 4(?) minutes, less as you get familiar and into the swing of things.

Repeat so you end up with a total of 5 IFTTT applets. Goal achieved, total time 20 minutes to set up 12*5 pins per day.

As Zazzle search results pages give a default of 60 products, your applets will run out after 5 days.

Here's a tip: If you want 7 day's worth so you can get into a weekly routine, instead of scheduling 12 per day, do 8 and make 7 applets in total (7 X 8 = 56 per day).

Advanced tip: If you want a total of 120 pids (the maximum), look in the address bar when you're on the Zazzle search results page. If it includes a "?" in it, add &ps=120 to the end. If it hasn't already got a "?", add ?ps=120 to the end. Doing this will cause Zazzle to display 120 products, so you'll end up with 120 pids. If you schedule 9 per day, you can get into a fortnightly routine instead.

...and another tip: At the top of the export page, you'll see the web address of the search page you used on Zazzle to get your pids. Copy and paste that as part of the name you give your applet. That way, when this one runs out, you can easily return to the same search and move to the second page of results:


When you do, edit the name to show the search results page number you used so you can keep track of where you got to.

Note. We're only letting you have a total of 10 active (i.e. switched on) applets using the nIFTTTy schedulers at any one time. This is whether you use the feed-based one, the pid-based one or both. This limit is to keep the strain on our servers to something manageable so we hope you understand.

Watch a video tutorial of all the above steps - summary complete by 1m 30s for the impatient!



Comparison of Pid-based & feed-based Zazzle nIFTTTy schedulers



Pid-based Feed-based
Maximum number of products 120 product pids are ok but no more - the limit is the character length of the feed url that IFTTT accepts
I've had to use compression to allow for 120 but that's very close to the limit.
240 if pulling from a collection, 1000 otherwise
Flexibility Compile product id lists by hand or use NiftyZPids bookmarklet on ANY Zazzle search results page for automatic compilation Point, click, type using the Nifty Promo control panel - search term, department, category, search term, page size, page number, sort order, sort direction
Ability to exclude certain products Yes, so you can say goodbye to those "Your name here" products, if that's what you want Yes, when you use the filters
Free version Uses your referral id half the time, ours for the other half Uses your referral id half the time, ours for the other half
Subscription (covers both schedulers) Always uses your referral id Always uses your referral id
Promo code support Future upgrade Yes
Deleted products handling If a product is deleted between you compiling the pid list and it coming up for promotion, you'll end up with nothing for that time slot, so iFTTT will have nothing to share / post / pin.
Once shared / posted / pinned, though, there's not much can be done. At least Zazzle are handling deleted products better now.
Whenever the applet runs, it pulls afresh and so prevents sharing of deleted products.
Once shared / posted / pinned, though, there's not much can be done. At least Zazzle are handling deleted products better now.
Starting Go directly to Nifty Pid Scheduler Setup and launch done in Nifty Promo Control Panel
Save settings Yes Yes

Which one will you use most often?



Comments/questions welcome - either here, on the NiftyToolz, Tips and Support Facebook group or the announcement in the Zazzle forum.