Coupon Importer

A WordPress plugin that unifies coupon/deal imports from multiple affiliate networks into WP Coupons and Deals (WPCD), replacing what used to be several separate, single-network importer plugins.

Built for a high-volume Brazilian affiliate coupon platform managing 500+ live pages across multiple advertiser networks.

The problem

Affiliate coupon sites typically pull deals from spreadsheets or CSV feeds exported by each network (AWIN, Rakuten, CJ, Admitad, CityAds, Amazon, etc.). Every network has its own:

• Link format (some need a template with placeholders, some hand you a ready-made tracking link, Amazon just needs a tag appended)
• Publisher/affiliate ID, sometimes overridden per advertiser
• CSV/feed quirks (delimiter, column order, date formats)

Without a unified system, this becomes a pile of one-off scripts and manual link-building, and a small template typo can break affiliate revenue tracking site-wide.

What it does

• Network-level link templates — define once per network (e.g. AWIN's {MID} / {AFFID} / {URL} placeholder format), reuse for every store on that network.
• Per-shop overrides — a single store can override the network's publisher ID or have its own fully custom link template (useful for networks like Admitad where some advertisers hand out a unique cloaked tracking link per store).
• Amazon-specific handling — appends ?tag= automatically, no template needed.
• "Link direct" networks — for feeds where the affiliate link already comes pre-built in the CSV (e.g. Lomadee, Afilio), the importer skips template logic entirely.
• Flexible CSV ingestion — accepts a pasted CSV, an uploaded file, or up to 5 saved Google Sheets URLs (auto-converted to CSV export links). Auto-detects , vs ; delimiter and multiple date formats.
• Safe re-imports — matches existing coupons by code + store taxonomy term, so re-running an import updates existing entries instead of duplicating them. Coupons that were manually edited in wp-admin are flagged and skipped on title overwrite.
• Dry-run preview — see exactly what would be created/updated/ignored, with line-by-line debug output, before committing to the database.
• Migration-aware activation hook — on first activation, migrates shop data from two predecessor plugins (an AWIN-only crawler and a generic CSV importer) into the new unified schema, deduplicating by name.

Structure

coupon-importer/
├── coupon-importer.php       Plugin bootstrap, activation/migration hook
├── admin/
│   ├── menu.php               Registers the 3 admin pages
│   └── pages/
│       ├── sync.php           Settings + import UI (AJAX-driven, with progress bar)
│       ├── shops.php          CRUD for stores (network, MID, publisher ID, aliases, custom link template)
│       └── networks.php       CRUD for affiliate networks (link template, publisher ID, link-direct flag)
├── includes/
│   ├── helpers.php            Link-building logic, shop/network lookups, default network presets
│   ├── processor.php          CSV/feed parsing + WPCD post creation/update
│   └── ajax.php                wp_ajax handlers for preview + sync
└── uninstall.php              Cleans up plugin options on uninstall

Requirements

• WordPress with WP Coupons and Deals (WPCD) active (the plugin writes to its wpcd_coupons post type and wpcd_coupon_vendor taxonomy)
• PHP 7.4+

Notes

This is a real plugin extracted from a production site, shared as a code sample. Default network presets in includes/helpers.php use placeholder publisher IDs (YOUR_AWIN_PUBLISHER_ID, etc.) — replace with your own affiliate account identifiers before use.

License

MIT