Publishers and their feeds

Explains: D-JL-07, D-PUB-01, D-PUB-02, D-PUB-03, D-019-01, D-JL-02, D-JL-09, D-DIST-18, specs/014-publisher-feed#req-001, specs/014-publisher-feed#req-002, specs/014-publisher-feed#req-003, specs/014-publisher-feed#req-004, specs/014-publisher-feed#req-005, specs/014-publisher-feed#req-007, specs/014-publisher-feed#req-008, specs/019-feed-workers-and-distribution-clock#req-001, specs/019-feed-workers-and-distribution-clock#req-003

A publisher is a partner you send jobs to: a job board, an aggregator, a network. You add a publisher once for your whole shop and any customer's campaign can then go to it (specs/014 REQ-001). A publisher does not sign in to ClickFactor today; it reads the feed you give it.

The feed URL

Each publisher gets one feed URL carrying every job it may receive, each job priced at what the publisher earns per click (specs/014 REQ-004). Copy it from the publisher's row and give it to them. The URL never changes, however often the feed is rebuilt, and it cannot be edited or reissued; anyone who has it can read the feed, so share it only with that publisher (specs/014 REQ-001, REQ-007).

The feed is XML. Each job carries its title, location, employer, description, the publisher's price and its own link, and the feed names your shop and the publisher at the top (specs/014 REQ-004).

Which jobs a publisher receives

A publisher receives a campaign's jobs while the campaign is active and ticked for that publisher (specs/014 REQ-002), from every customer in your shop, in one feed (specs/014 REQ-003), except jobs whose customer or feed has redirection stopped (D-DIST-18). A job two of your campaigns send to the same publisher appears once, under the campaign that pays the publisher more (specs/014 REQ-005). A job no campaign can price is left out, and the row's Jobs in feed says how many were skipped.

Each job's link is the publisher's own: one link per publisher, campaign and job (D-JL-07, D-019-01). When a job leaves a publisher's feed, clicks on its link are still billed and paid for 24 hours, with the two exceptions When a job goes away names (D-JL-02, D-JL-09).

When the feed is rebuilt

A change that alters what a publisher should receive asks for a new build of its feed at once, and the new feed is published soon after, usually within minutes (specs/019 REQ-001). Each feed is also rebuilt on a schedule, every hour unless you choose a longer interval, up to every 24 hours (specs/019 REQ-003). Generate on the row asks for a build now. A build that fails leaves the last good feed in place.

Editing a publisher

Edit changes the publisher's name and website; when either changes, a rebuild is asked for so the feed's header says the new ones. A website, when you give one, must be an http or https address (specs/014 REQ-007).

A publisher's status

Nothing deletes a publisher. Each edit, pause, resume, archive and unarchive of a publisher is listed in your shop's Activity, with what it replaced (specs/014 REQ-008).

active

Each build gives the publisher the jobs it may receive, as described under Which jobs a publisher receives.

paused

Pause stops sending this publisher jobs without breaking anything on its side: its feed URL keeps answering with a valid feed, never an error, and from the next build that feed holds no jobs (D-PUB-01). The publisher stays on your list marked Paused, and a campaign's list of publishers marks it Paused too. Its links start their 24 hours of billed and paid clicks when that empty feed is published (specs/014 REQ-008).

Resume makes it active again and asks for a rebuild of its feed straight away, with nothing else to press. The links that build lists again earn as usual; a link's 24 hours that ran out while the publisher was paused are not given back (D-PUB-02).

archived

Archive retires the publisher: its feed URL stops answering and every link it carried starts its 24 hours. An archived publisher cannot be edited or paused (specs/014 REQ-007, REQ-008), and it is hidden from the list unless you tick Show archived (specs/014 REQ-001).

Unarchive brings it back with the same feed URL, in the status it held when it was archived: paused if it was paused, active otherwise. Only Resume makes a paused publisher active (D-PUB-03). Its URL answers again once a fresh build lands, which happens without anyone pressing Generate.