Vendor Merge or Name Change

Determining A Merge of a Vendor or Vendor Name Change

There are a few scenarios a vendor might come to our attention for needing to be merged. We will follow the following set of rules to make our decisions more automated:

If a vendor has a name change on LinkedIn to highlight their acquisition, we will keep the vendor separate, but update the name, as in the following example:
(placeholder- we are looking into ways to receive alerts for this, or to make this a somewhat automated- details will be forthcoming) 

If a vendor has been acquired, and LinkedIn now has a banner redirecting users to the new page, as in the following example, we will use the following to guide our decision:

• if the vendor has an active program with us, we will asks CSM to reach out to the vendor before merging. 

• If there is no active program, we will merge the 2 vendors. 

If we are still unsure , or want to check another source, we can look at how the vendor/products are presented on the AWS MP. 

Merging Vendors Process

Either via our own research, or due to a vendor or sales team member reaching out, Listings would make the determination to merge two vendors. This happens when one of the vendors acquires the other one. 

Once the data we need has been collected, and we feel that a merge is proper, we will merge the two vendors together via the "vendor edit page". 

There is a field called "Merge vendor (and company)" with a place to type in the vendor which is going to be merged in to the other. Note: If Vendor A is being merged into vendor B, go to the vendor edit page for Vendor B and type in vendor A in the merge field. 

Merging a vendor, also merges the companies (as noted in the parenthesis on the vendor edit page). Each vendor is connected to a unique company in our company database. That company data in our database determines certain data points and permissions (regarding lead generation, vendor user domains- for dashboard permissions etc, and more).

After a merge is complete, all data from vendor B will be included in vendor A.

Merging Products Process

Merging two products together is a request that usually comes from the vendor themselves (most often via a sales person, but could come as a direct request as well). There are times in which the listings team will notice a vendor listing a new product (or an old product) and clearly state in the product description that this product is a result of product X and product Y being merged. 

Before starting the process, we should consult with the SEO manager, in order to understand the risks and benefits expected from this move, traffic-wise.

Once the data we need has been collected, and we feel that a merge is proper, we will merge the two products together via the "edit product" page.

There is a field called "Merge Products" with a place to type in the product which is going to be merged into the other. Note: If product X is being merged into product Y, go to the edit product page for product Y and type in product X in the merge field. 

When two products are merged together, all the reviews, alt names, categories, and other data (like comparison page views numbers, products ranking etc. ) will be merged as well. As noted on the edit product page, the following information is not merged, rather it is deleted:
product images
product documents
product white papers
embedded video
vendor urls
extra page stuff
intelligence (vendor) reports
vendor sponsored
admin notes
external links and tracking
product team members
widgets

After a merge is complete, the product overview will pull in the alternate names field and show "product Y was previously known as product X".  It should be shown in the first overview paragraph, or right after that.

Merging SEO Process

1. Everything needs to be checked on the test server before it goes live in production.

2. All pages related to the product page that will merge with another one, should get a 301 redirect to the new page.
   That means:
   The product page
   All comparison pages related to this product
   Pros&cons page
   Alternatives&competitors page

3. All redirects should be from page X to page Y, with no other steps of redirects.

4. The meta-description should stay with the template it already has, but this sentence should be added manually (by an SEO team member) to the beginning of the description :
   [the merged product's name] is a suite of [the name of the old product #1] and [the name of the old product #2].

5. After the merge is complete, the SEO team should submit the old product pages to Google, for it see the redirects and understand the connection between the old products to the new merged one. The same thing with the new merged page.

Merging Vendors- What happens in SalesForce?

1. An automated email from listings with the Accounts that were merged will be sent after 24 hours of the merge request. 

2. A SalesForce Team member will then update relevant Salesforce records (after seeing the email). 

3. Once a month or at least after a delay of 2 weeks (to give error margin) a SalesForce Team member will run Cloudingo process. 

4. After the merge the Salesforce team will run the Churn and Activity Jobs on the Accounts to update the data after the merge. 

5. In case of an error by listings: Notify immediately Salesforce team and open an urgent  ticket on the SF board in Trello. The Salesforce team will then fix data with Ownbackup snapshots.