TameBay » Affiliates

eBay Partner Network close accounts using shortened URLs

Chris Dawson — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 11:07:55 +0000

If you’re using the eBay Partner Network (ePN) affiliate program to make money don’t use URL shortening services such as is.gd or tinyurl. If you do they’ll kick you off the program.

My friend Barry just found this out to his cost and received an email terminating his account and reversing 100% of outstanding commissions. Apparently it’s a breech of the ePN as the user is redirected to an eBay page without their consent. Barry has also been told he’s not allowed to rejoin the ePN affiliate program in the future.

This does open up the question of users who put links onto sites such as twitter and other locations where the full URL needs to be displayed. As an example an ePN link to high value eBay for Charity auctions would be http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/710-53481-19255-0/1?campid=5335837209&customid=&toolid=10001&mpre=http%3A%2F2Fshop.ebay.co.
uk%2Fitems%2F__W0QQLHQ5fCharityZ1QQLHQ5fNOBZ1Q2eQ2eQQLHQ5fPrefLocZ
0QQQ5ftrkparmsZ66Q253A2Q257C65Q253A2Q257C39Q253A1QQ_LH_NOBZ1QQ
_mPrRngCbxZ1QQ_sopZ3QQ_trksidZp3286Q2ec0Q2em14%3F_trksid%3Dp3286.c
0.m1, which is extremely unwieldy. This could be shortened to just 18 characters using a URL shortening service to http://is.gd/5NT4X. That’s a link to the same eBay for Charity page (without the affiliate code so doesn’t break the agreement).

If you’re an ePN partner don’t use URL shortening services on your own website, and if you want to place a link on services such as Twitter make sure they’re not affiliate links. That shouldn’t be a problem if you’re manually posting, but if you use feed services that automatically shorten URLs you’ll be breaking the ePN agreement and risk your affiliate account being closed.

eBay affiliate program goes cost-per-click

Sue Bailey — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 12:01:10 +0000

eBay’s affiliate program, the eBay Partner Network, announces major changes today. Affiliates will no longer be paid by action (when buyers buy something, or when a new eBayer signs up for an account), but will instead be paid when links to eBay are clicked: in the jargon of the affiliate industry, they’re switching from a CPA model to CPC. To be known as Quality Click Pricing, this new payment model will, say eBay, better reward affiliates who send high-quality traffic to eBay, while those who send lower-quality traffic will see a decline in pay.

The exact details of the new pricing structure are very obscure. eBay say that

The price paid per click will still depend on the short-term and long-term revenue of the traffic that the publisher drives to eBay, but will now also take into account the incremental value of that traffic to eBay, i.e., whether a sale happened as a direct result of the publisher’s actions. The greater the incremental revenue and the higher the expected lifetime value of the customers an affiliate sends, the higher the EPC and total earnings the affiliate will receive. Earnings Per Click (EPC) will be set daily for the previous day’s traffic.

A preview report to compare the new system with affiliates’ existing payouts will be available from the last week in August.

I spoke to eBay affiliate Eddie St Clare from Auctiontrax, who told me: “Going CPC makes sense for many ePN users. Though it’s nice to be able to meet ePN requirements and send ‘quality traffic’ with ‘engaged users’ to eBay – that traffic actually has to make a purchase for the ePN member to benefit. Ultimately, an affiliate has very little control over traffic behaviour once on an eBay page, so it’s good to now be rewarded for just sending quality traffic, which is not necessarily dependant on making a purchase at first visit.”

The change itself isn’t particularly surprising: eBay have been making drastic changes to their affiliates’ program since bringing it in-house last year, culling many affiliates whom they said were not sending quality traffic to the site. Those ex-affiliates countered that if they were only being paid by action, what did the quality of the traffic matter? Now we know.

The new program is effective for all new affiliates from 1st September, and for existing affiliates from 1st October.

I’ll be talking to someone from the eBay Partner Network later in the week, so if you have questions you’d like answered, please post them in the comments.

Updated: FAQs document (pdf) here has some more detailed information.

An interview with EPN’s Will Martin-Gill

Sue Bailey — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:24:11 +0000

Murray Newlands interviews Will Martin-Gill, eBay’s Director of Internet Marketing, about the eBay Partner Network affiliate program. Will talks about advances in comparison shopping sites, a new widget which (as Murray says) sounds a lot like Google Adsense, and recent rule changes for EPN. Worth a listen.

Changes to eBay affiliates’ program

Sue Bailey — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 17:20:40 +0000

The eBay Partner Network (a.k.a. the affiliates’ program) has announced some changes to their terms of service effective from 1st August for existing affiliates. Minimum payouts have increased from 5 units of your currency to 25 (so £25, $25, €25 etc., depending on what you’re paid in). URLs which mask the source of traffic (including some URL shortening services) may no longer be used. And what will perhaps have the biggest effect: affiliates may no longer link from sites they do not own. Affiliate links direct to eBay from third-party sites – including MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Squidoo, WordPress.com and Blogspot – will no longer be permitted.

If you’re linking from a third party site to eBay, the only way to do that now is to have your own site as a middle stage between – say – Twitter and eBay. It’s a clunky way to do it, and it’s going to lose a lot of your traffic. People with free-hosted blogs (and those who are on WordPress.com ought to be aware they’ve been breaking WP’s ToS for a while now!) need to move to self-hosted versions: it’s a pretty easy job to do, but give me a shout if you need assistance (or WordPress hosting or customisation ).

New accounts will also have to verify the domain listed on their account; while this isn’t yet being required for existing affiliates, I would bet that it will be in the future, so anyone deriving a significant income from this program might like to get themselves verified sooner rather than later. They also might like to consider whether such a precarious business model – these sweeping changes have been introduced with ten days’ notice – is really a good idea.

If you need clarification on the new policies, eBay has set up a thread for that, though it must be said, at the moment, there are more questions than answers.

R.O.EYE to support eBay affiliates in the UK

Chris Dawson — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:51:55 +0000

eBay have appointed R.O.EYE, a specialist affiliate marketing agency, to support the eBay Partner Network (EPN).

EPN was launched by eBay on April 1st, after many years of running an external affiliate scheme managed by Commission Junction. The affiliate scheme pays publishers (website owners) for sending customers to eBay with rewards paid based on new accounts open and activity on eBay such as purchases.

R.O.EYE aim to support the existing EPN team acting in a supporting role for existing publishers to bring more publishers on board, especially within the UK.

They’re available to contact through the R.O.EYE website, or by emailing Chris Worthy at R.O.EYE. If you have a website or application that can send traffic to eBay, they can assist you in making money from the users who click through your site to eBay.

New price structure for US eBay affiliates

Sue Bailey — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 18:01:30 +0000

eBay are changing the way that payments are made to US affiliates who introduce new buyers. Currently, ACRUs are compensated at a fixed fee, which increases the more new members you introduce: it’s currently $25 per member if you bring in fewer than 49 people a month, up to $35 if you bring in 30,000 or more.

For new affiliates from 1st August and for everyone from 1st November, this will change:

Each publisher will be placed in a quality tier at the end of each month based on that month’s and historical traffic. The tiers will range from $0 to $50, and the higher the expected lifetime value of the customers a publisher sends, the higher the tier the publisher will receive.

(Emphasis mine.) New affiliates will be placed in the lowest, $0 tier to start with, “while the system calculates an appropriate tier”. What a great way to pull people into the program.

Existing affiliates will, in September, get access to a new report that tells them the quality of the traffic they have been sending eBay, so that they can see if they’re getting a pay cut or not. Forgive me for being cynical, but I don’t see anyone coming out of this any better off, except eBay.

But I am extremely impressed that eBay think they are able to predict a customer’s lifetime worth to them so early on in the relationship. Perhaps they would like to pick my lottery numbers this week?

eBay Partner Network partners with Pepperjam

Sue Bailey — Fri, 30 May 2008 09:19:25 +0000

The eBay Partner Network, eBay’s in-house affliate scheme, is to partner with affiliate network Pepperjam to bring EPN to more affiliate marketers. The move comes just months after eBay left Commission Junction, which won’t do the acrimonious relationship between the two networks any good.

Via Affiliate Tip.

eBay affiliates’ deadline extended

Sue Bailey — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 09:33:57 +0000

The eBay Partner Network has given affiliates an extra month to move their links from Commission Junction to the new network. CJ links will now cease to be valid on 31st May. This applies to Half.com and all eBay countries except Belgium, Netherlands, Hong Kong, and Singapore, which will still switch on 30th April.

eBay say that more than two-thirds of traffic has already moved to the new system. However, switching earlier rather than later should benefit affiliates, because clicks on the CJ system during May which convert into purchases or registrations in June will *not* be paid out. Dull though it is, don’t put off changing your links til the end of next month!