Overview
If you’re a developer, a tech enthusiast, or an early adopter in general, you’ve probably heard a lot of buzz about MCPs. But what exactly are MCPs? And more importantly, why is Sovrn publishing a blog post about them?
Let’s answer the second question first.
Sovrn is excited to introduce a cutting-edge new beta offering: our first-to-market Commerce MCP beta. With this innovation, Sovrn customers can connect all 12 of Sovrn’s Commerce APIs — covering everything from link monetization and merchant discovery to reporting and analytics — into a single, unified toolset.
We’ll dig into why that’s important — and how you can try it out — a little later. But first, let’s get back to that initial question.
What is an MCP?
An MCP (Model Context Protocol) is a centralized system that connects multiple systems, APIs, or data sources into a single, unified interface. Instead of integrating and managing each system separately, this brand-new technology acts as a “hub” that standardizes how different technologies and data sets communicate with one another.
An MCP is primarily a “technology-to-technology protocol”—so it’s built to integrate with LLM products like ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot, rather than direct end-user interaction. In short, the MCP is the connective layer that simplifies how developers build, scale, and maintain commerce experiences across the entire tech ecosystem.
The practical applications for MCPs are extensive. For example, an MCP could connect an AI system to Microsoft Outlook, enabling it to automatically compose, send, and respond to customer emails through Outlook’s APIs, without the user ever needing to log in to the Outlook interface.
Supercharge your affiliate workflows with Sovrn’s new Commerce MCP
Traditionally, critical publisher tasks like creating links, getting data insights, or generating product recommendations required a series of complex steps that might include:
- Identifying the right API
- Integrating that API into your affiliate platform
- Ingesting and storing relevant data
- Analyzing and parsing that data to extract your desired output
But Sovrn’s innovative Commerce MCP empowers users to automate the affiliate stack like never before. Rather than building a system to accomplish multi-step tasks, you can simply enter natural language prompts. By accessing and connecting to the appropriate Sovrn Commerce APIs, the server will automatically take the appropriate actions.
For example, say you wanted to optimize revenue for your top-performing content. Historically, you would need to build custom automation to:
- Find the links that earned the most money in the specific time period
- Identify alternative retailers for each product
- Get the current commission rate for each of those retailers
- Replace existing links with those paying higher commission
Instead, using our Commerce MCP, you can simply enter a prompt like “Replace affiliate links to maximize revenue” with the specific parameters for time frame, etc.
Additional use cases include:
- Building price comparison guides
- Publishing seasonal shopping guides
- Writing comprehensive product round-up articles
- Creating timely deal alert content
- Generating performance reports
- Getting recommendations to maximize conversions
- Converting non-monetized links to affiliate links
- And much more
Simple parameter entries let you customize the output to meet your unique requirements — from product categories, audience details, and date ranges to specific content styles and themes.
4 key benefits of Sovrn’s Commerce MCP
Sovrn’s new Commerce MCP delivers a breakthrough level of connectivity and efficiency to commerce monetization. Here are four specific benefits to leveraging this cutting-edge technology in your affiliate stack:
- Turns commerce data into actionable workflows. The server bridges the gap between raw affiliate data and real, usable intelligence. Rather than juggling APIs, dashboards, and spreadsheets, creators can generate dynamic, data-driven content in one connected workflow. Beyond simple infrastructure, this is automation with purpose — bringing clarity and efficiency to commerce operations.
- Built for affiliate intelligence, not just access. This isn’t just another integration layer; it’s a reasoning-ready interface for affiliate commerce. The server understands monetization context, not just data retrieval. Unlike generic APIs, the server offers domain-specific intelligence that’s fine-tuned for affiliate performance metrics like EPC, conversion rate, and commissions.
- Modular workflows mirror real use cases. Each built-in tool mirrors real-world publisher and merchant workflows: compare prices, create affiliate links, analyze conversions, and optimize content. Teams can mix, match, and extend these modules to fit their exact business logic. In other words, the system fits into your existing processes rather than forcing new ones.
- Empowers builders to automate the tech stack. From developers prototyping custom dashboards to affiliate teams automating daily reports, the Commerce MCP enables anyone to turn affiliate commerce data into living, adaptable workflows. With unmatched levels of creativity and innovation, Sovrn is delivering a complete toolkit for the next generation of commerce automation.
Start building with the Sovrn Commerce MCP
Sovrn is one of the first providers in the publisher and creator technology space to develop and offer an MCP. For publishers, creators, and their developers, this means easier integration, faster setup, and a more consistent, reliable flow of data across all Commerce tools.
The Commerce MCP is currently in an open beta phase, so you can review this developer documentation for more information on capabilities and how to get started. At the moment, the best way to test Sovrn’s Commerce MCP is to plug it directly into your own environment, such as Cursor or another compatible tool. In the future, we’ll support direct integrations with ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and other LLMs.
If you’re a current Sovrn Commerce customer, feel free to reach out with questions. Our support team is here to help you meet your business goals. Not earning with Sovrn Commerce yet? Sign up now! Once you complete the approval process, you can start earning right away.
