Part Two – PAD Files

This is the second part of a series of blog posts about making the affiliate sales channel bring revenue to software vendors. In the first post I focused on the importance of the affiliates information page and how it helps you recruit affiliates. In this post, I will talk about another important component of the affiliate sales channel optimization process: PAD Files.

PAD Files – what are they good for?

Short for Portable Application Description, PAD files are special XML format files that contain information about a software product, from software vendor contact data to product description and price.

The main plus point of PAD files as a standard in the software industry is they offer a more simple way for webmasters to automate product listings, without having to manually edit every minor change the software vendor makes to the product price or description. This works best especially when dealing with download portals which aggregate lots of software titles.