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How Grepsr Transformed Merchant Data Extraction for an Affiliate Network Aggregator

Overview

Imagine a bustling market square where dozens of shopkeepers rely on local guides to bring customers to their stalls. Each time a guide successfully leads a shopper to a store, the shopkeeper gives them a small reward. 

The better the guide understands where to find interested buyers, the more valuable they become to the marketplace.

 

That’s the essence of affiliate marketing. It’s a digital marketing ecosystem where publishers (affiliates) promote products or services on behalf of merchants, earning a commission for every sale or lead they generate. 

So affiliate networks act as the bridge that organizes deals, tracks performance, and ensures that both sides benefit from every successful referral.

 

This is the story of when a leading affiliate network aggregator approached Grepsr to automate the collection of merchant, product, and deal data from multiple public affiliate networks.

The goal was simple – streamline how affiliate intelligence is gathered and refreshed each month. Then ensure that their partners always have up-to-date offers and product information without the burden of manual data collection.

 

Affiliate network Data Extraction
Key Highlights
  • A leading affiliate network aggregator platform partnered with Grepsr to automate monthly extraction of merchant, product, and deal data from 13 public affiliate networks.
  • Grepsr developed a modular, AI-assisted crawler framework to handle dynamic content, varied formats, and frequent layout updates.
  • The system achieved 98% accuracy and cut manual validation time by 90%, ensuring consistent delivery of over 100,000 records each month.
  • Persistent follow-ups and transparent communication helped rebuild client engagement, resulting in additional projects and a long-term partnership.

Challenges

First, the leading affiliate marketing platform came to us with a simple project, extracting merchant data from affiliate networks at scale because in-house or manual data extraction is inefficient and unreliable. However, the crux of the matter was extracting data while tackling the robust security restrictions and anti-bot mechanisms that the websites deployed.

Although the data sources were publicly accessible, each affiliate network used its own structure, terminology, and update schedule, making it difficult to maintain consistency across the feeds. Merchant profiles, discount codes, and product listings appeared in different formats. Additionally, some networks refreshed their data several times a day, while others did so weekly.

On top of it, several sites generated content dynamically – meaning loading deals through JavaScript and embedding product links behind short-lived tokens. This required specialized crawling logic to ensure the crawlers captured the full dataset without missing time-sensitive offers. Even minor layout changes could disrupt extraction and introduce mismatches across datasets.

Beyond the technical hurdles, the project also faced an engagement issue. After the initial phase, the client’s internal priorities shifted, causing delays in approvals and feedback. Communication gaps made it difficult to validate outputs and plan iterations. Maintaining momentum on a recurring project without consistent client participation became a challenge in itself.

The team at Grepsr were extremely accommodating to our needs and developed a bespoke report based on data that was relevant to our business. They were quick to respond, communicated throughout the process and delivered our purchase quickly. We are very happy with the service and would recommend it.

Charlotte L. Marketing, Media & Communication

13

public affiliate networks into a single data pipeline

100 K +

merchant and deal records extracted

98 %

data accuracy achieved

3 X

reduction in manual QA time by using CrawlGuard

Solutions

First, Grepsr designed a modular extraction framework capable of adapting to different data structures, update frequencies, and content formats across the 13 different affiliate networks. We built each site’s crawler as an independent module, fine-tuned to capture its unique combination of merchant details, promo codes, and deal metadata. This ensured resilience and easy maintenance as site layouts evolved.

Then, we processed dynamic sites using headless browser automation enabling complete capture of asynchronous content and embedded deal links. We even integrated Grepsr’s internal AI-driven QA solution – CrawlGuard to automatically detect layout changes, repair broken selectors, and validate data accuracy before delivery. 

Next, we added a standardization layer downstream to normalize the extracted data into a unified schema, regardless of source format. This allowed the client’s affiliate feed to merge new deals seamlessly each month without manual reconciliation.

On the engagement side, the Customer Success team implemented a structured communication cadence, including shared dashboards, periodic status updates, and proactive reminders for validation cycles. These consistent follow-ups kept the client aligned on project progress and restored their confidence in the data pipeline.

As a result, the client re-engaged and expanded their collaboration with Grepsr, adding more sources and establishing a long-term data partnership.

Stop wasting time collecting data manually and exhausting your internal team. Automate your merchant data extraction with Grepsr for accuracy, scalability, and growth!

Solutions

Similar challenges faced across the industry:

Lack of technical know-how to automate routine data extractions

Businesses need fresh data to gather the best insights. To that end, one or two data extractions a day does not suffice. They need a system that can easily schedule crawl runs at specific intervals, as well as on demand.

Lack of resources - time, money and manpower - for data sourcing at scale

Data extraction is extremely tedious and highly error-prone. Most businesses lack the infrastructure to perform high volumes of data sourcing, and at a quality that yields the best results.

Overcoming data source restrictions

Most websites place limits on how many requests can be made in a set time period, and regularly block bots from accessing their content.

PROCESS

Getting started with Grepsr

Start with Grepsr in a few easy steps. Leave the data sourcing heavy lifting to us, so you can focus on innovation and growth.

1

Initial project consultation

First, we'll discuss the specifics of your web data needs and the KPIs you would like to have in order to ensure successful project execution.

2

Instrument web crawlers

We'll then set up automated extractions specific to your use-case, and send you a sample dataset before moving on to a full-scale crawl.

3

Begin data collection

Once you've approved the sample data, we will start scaling and performing the full run, and deliver the data in the agreed timeframe.

4

Hassle-free maintenance

Our team will ensure that all subsequent runs are running well, and that your data is delivered as scheduled with the least disruption.

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