The PayPal Button Generator & Manager
Right! I love this, and I think you will too.
If you go to the Item Manager, you'll find that on the right hand side in the "Action" column, as well as "Amend" and "Delete" of items, there's also "Code generator".
The code generator allows you to generate PayPal button codes for your web page with a vital and wonderful difference. Any button created using these codes are completely driven from SmartDD.
What it means is, once you've generated the code and pasted it onto your sales web page, you never have to amend it again.
If the price or title of the item changes, all you have to do is login to SmartDD and amend the item details. Your web page will then automatically update with the new information!
Once you've used this feature, you'll never want to use the PayPal Button Factory ever again.
Let's do a quick comparison.
If you use the PayPal Button Factory, and you want to change the price or title of an existing item, you first have to login to PayPal, find the Button Factory (if you don't have it bookmarked) and key in all the details.
Once the code has been generated, you then have to copy it, open up your web page editor and paste the new lines of code, overwriting the old ones. You also have to remember to change the price and / or title on the web page too.
Then you have to save it, and upload it to your webserver, and then view it just to make sure it all worked okay.
If you use SmartDD, you login and amend the item. Job done, and how cool is that? 
Let's take a look at it and run through the code generation.
Choose one of your items and click on it and you'll be taken to the "Code Generator menu".
First, click on the PayPal Button code generator link, and you'll be taken to this screen:-
Step 1 - Leave the radio button set to Live mode.
The Test mode requires a PayPal "Sandbox" account in order to use it. This will allow you to make payments and test your button code etc. without any money movement taking place.
Click on "What is test mode?" for more details and a link to the PayPal Developer Network.
Step 2 - Select one of the PayPal buttons. When you do, the code in the box in step 3 will change.
Step 3 - Copy and paste the generated code onto your web sales page. Or you can also use the single line of code at the bottom of the page for use in emails or if you want to create a text only link.
***
Now, having an auto updating button is great if you change the price or title, but you'd still have to amend the web page to display the correct price and title. So we had a think about that and came up with the "Price Widget" and "Description Widget" that you can also add to your page.
These will get the correct price and description out of the SmartDD database and display them on your web page wherever you place them. When you amend the database, they change together with the button code!
To make this work, you need to rename your web pages extension to .php. For example, if your page was called "100ways.html", you would need to change it to "100ways.php".
To get the code for the price and description widgets, click on "Price Widget" on the Code Generator menu.
You'll then be taken to the "Generate price widget" panel.
You now have a web page that updates itself whenever you make any changes to SmartDD!
15 Comments »
July 24, 2007
Hans Wozniak :
Is there anyway we can use a custom paypal linker?…instead of using paypal buy now buttons…be able to use custom images and inserting paypal code with our own image.
Frank Haywood :
Hi Hans,
Yes, just replace the URL to the PayPal buttons with your own.
Alternatively, you can just place an image on your web page, and then create a link using the email 1-liner at the bottom of the button code generator page, which is my personal favourite method.
Cheers,
Frank.
August 10, 2007
David :
WOW! What a resource! Talk about making your life easier.
One question though:
I am always concerned with people wanting to view my source file and seeing my Pay Pal code.
Just using Pay Pal, they can be encrypted.
Is this of any relevance with the SmartDD code generator?
August 11, 2007
Frank Haywood :
Hi David,
It doesn't *really* matter. Paul and I talked about this, and in v2 we're hiding the data in the URL by POSTing it in the background, but it's just a cosmetic thing really.
If you think about it, it doesn't matter if all the item detail is sent to PayPal including the return and cancellation addresses and is made visible in the address bar.
Because of the way SmartDD works, if someone edits it, then all they're going to get is a failed order.
This is because the price and currency are compared to the item in the database for a match.
And if they go to the download page without the unique SmartDD order number, they'll just see a page telling them to contact the site admin.
Cheers,
Frank.
September 20, 2007
Lance Chambers :
If a customer buys 5 products do they get 5 separate e-mails or one with combined download instructions?
I also understand that there is a peice of software out there that develops PayPal encrypted code so someone has the algorithm to generate these things.
I downloaded it about a year ago and don't know where it is or what it's called but it did have the letters PLR in the title - hope that helps someone.
Frank Haywood :
Hi Lance,
The multiple products issue is being addressed in the next version due out in a few weeks time. Currently, if someone buys 5 items then they have to pay for them separately, or the delivery fails.
In version 2 you'll be able to link multiple products to a saleable item, then sell the single saleable item. The download pages will be templated on a per item basis, with multiple secure links to the different products.
SmartDD will also be able to handle multiple purchases from eBay which are paid for with one PayPal transaction. It will parse through each item in the transaction data sent by PayPal, and generate a default email with links to the individual download pages.
As these pages are all templated, you can make a different additional offer on each one as well as provide the customer downloads.
As for PayPal encrypted code, we're confident we don't need to use it. It would just be overkill. None of the detail will be visible to anyone in the new version as it will all be POSTed in the background to PayPal.
And if someone did manage to hack it, they *still* have to pay for the items otherwise there's no delivery.
Cheers,
Frank.
November 1, 2007
Donna :
Additional note to Lance: The product PLG Pro that you are mentioning evidently doesn't generate exactly the same level of secure links as actually visiting PayPal and using theirs.
I found that little factoid out the hard way when a hacker wrote me one day and told me my exact download page for a product I was selling, and said that the code I used (which I knew I'd generated with PLG Pro) was "really easy to crack… it took us about two minutes"…
So, anyway, I quit using it (I had originally thought it was outstanding not to have to log in to PP and get timed out, etc… but that is still the best option if you don't have SmartDD!)
Hope that helps,
Donna
November 19, 2007
Dale Calder :
Hi Frank,
The instructions regarding button creation seem quite straight forward.
We are wondering if the Paypal button created through Smart DD can be put on one's eBay auction site if one is using neither Seller manager nor Seller Manager Pro.
We will almost certainly be subscribing to one of these (not sure which yet), but may do a couple of dummy manual test runs between ourselves. We would like to think that on sale a payment link is there to be clicked on.
Can you let us know the situation with this please?
Many Thanks
Dale Calder
Frank Haywood :
Hi Dale,
I'm afraid you can't put payment buttons on your eBay listing pages as that would be bypassing the eBay system and would result in your account being closed by them.
Neither would you want to.
As long as you've set up SmartDD with a saleable item that EXACTLY matches your eBay title, when your customer buys using the normal eBay process, SmartDD will handle it. That's what it was designed to do.
http://www.smartdd.com/help/digital-delivery/digital-delivery-the-long-version-part-3/
Cheers,
Frank.
November 29, 2007
Academic Success Publishing :
I was wondering how I can generate an "add to cart" button in Smart DD for multiple item purchases.
The buttons that your code generator currently produces are only for "Buy Now" buttons, it seems.
Many thanks
TJ
Frank Haywood :
Hi TJ,
The soon to be released version 2 of SmartDD will have a built in shopping cart, and will also be able to handle multiple purchases through eBay paid for with a single transaction.
And yes, the code generator buttons are for use with a single item purchase.
Watch this space…
Cheers,
Frank.
January 1, 2008
Charles Burleigh :
Frank,
Is it possible to have a different thank you page for each item you are delivering? For example, I just set up a page to sell 6-PLR products, after the sale the buyer is taken to this page: http://www.stayhomedads.com/smartdd/thankyou.php
I would rather take them to a different page, maybe with more upsell items on it, or just my blog page. I saw in the PayPal details page where I can change it, but that is for all my items.
Is there a way to change the thank you page for each item?
Thanks,
Charles
Frank Haywood :
Hi Charles,
Yes v2 will do that for you. We're very close to release now, just some additional documentation and an upgrader to build and it will be out, say another week or so.
Cheers,
Frank.
January 19, 2008
Kevin Koch :
wow… the wait is killing me.
Frank Haywood :
Hi Kevin,
Yep, it's killing me too.
-Frank Haywood.