Now that eBay is not allowing any 3rd party networks to use their networks and forcing everyone through their “partner” network I am curious how those of you using it are doing?
eBay made a drastic change in their payout structure a couple months back entering in a quality score like system. The idea was to reward affiliates who were sending eBay users that were engaging in the site immediately and not just using some gimmick to get them to eBay so they could take advantage of the ridiculously long cookie duration.
The new model pays you per click that you send to eBay and how much you make per click depends on the quality of user you send over time.
This will obviously reward users who have a call to action. The ones who had gimmicks to cookie the planet in hopes they buy something within the next 90 days can no longer spray and pray and I am guessing they are getting hosed.
So how is your site doing?
November 10, 2009 at 11:16 am
My earnings dropped by 80% in the first two weeks of the program. I switched out all of the links on my good sites that were going to eBay and replaced them with Adsense. Earnings went from .08 on eBay to .30 with Adsense.
What is weird is I did keep links on my crappy sites going to eBay. Earnings went from .08 to .42. Funny thing is that for 2 weeks none of those sites made a sale but eBay kept on paying me more. I don’t get it.
November 6, 2009 at 6:05 am
I was doing pretty ok, but I got an email yesterday which now kicked me off the programme for cookie stuffing apparently – dont even know HOW to do that…
There is no communication channel to warn you anymore.
November 5, 2009 at 5:18 am
I’m doing ok, I was bit worried middle of the month. But at the end things turned out better than expected. I’ve heard other people aren’t doing so well though.
November 4, 2009 at 6:16 pm
Well, although my earnings last month were up on the previous month, I haven’t quite reached the peak of previous months. I’m going to rethink my strategies on some of my sites because they obviously don’t meet eBay’s current criteria particularly well.
I just don’t have enthusiasm to do this too often in a lifetime!
M
November 2, 2009 at 5:14 pm
I’m pleasantly surprised, and have been a long time critic of ePN and their changing ways. I saw a huge increase since the move. Like someone said before, it’s time to start polishing up your sites and dropping the non-performing ones, that’s the only way to really win with this new method. Just like anything in affiliate marketing – like it or not, you have to adapt to the system or get run over quickly…
November 2, 2009 at 4:31 pm
It’s crap. The preview reports before it started started off a little slow; had an 0.07 ECP, which went down a bit then finally up to around .12 or so at the end of Sept. Oct 1st rolls around and suddenly my .12 ECP was *ZERO* for the first 5 days of the month! And didn’t get any better than .03. Based on the preview I was going to be making the same, if not slightly more. Actual payout after the start, I ended up with about 1/5th of the winning bid revenue generated. (And I had a bloody ACRU on October 1st to boot, go figure.)
November 2, 2009 at 7:31 am
So far so good. Then again, I’ve only started promoting eBay recently but everything seems fine.
October 31, 2009 at 5:43 pm
When the first estimates of QCP came out, they estimated I would be making double. Now that it has taken effect I am making 1/3.
October 31, 2009 at 8:17 am
I has affected, making less than before
October 30, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Currently I am making a lot less money. I was sending quality traffic and making most of my money from sales when people would buy big ticket industrial products. Very little with ACRUs etc.
That said my EPC was close to $0.50 then and now it is $0.15 on good days and $0.10 on bad. I am sending the same quality traffic, and they are still buying however I am not making even half what I was before.
From this I have stopped paying to get traffic to my sites, and the only traffic I drive now is residual.
October 30, 2009 at 10:32 am
It really all went to hell when Ebay switched to EPN from CJ. Earnings dropped off a cliff.
Now there’s no transparency. I would have made 1.5 x more during their small QCP preview, but now with the system in place, I’m having a weak month.
October 30, 2009 at 2:40 am
I’m not sure what to think. In the beginning of the month, my EPC was around $0.25-$0.34 range. But in the past week, it’s at $0.08. My earnings are up overall. Clicks numbers haven’t changed. But I’m worried that whatever caused the drop in EPC will carry on for the next months and I’ll start seeing less earnings.
October 29, 2009 at 8:10 pm
My earnings are almost exactly the same with the quality click pricing model. Averaging $4500 per month now. EPC varies from about 10 to 16 cents per click. At first I was worried about the change but it looks like things will be ok. I’d be interested to hear if there are other affiliate xml feeds or product APIs that payout higher per click.
October 29, 2009 at 7:38 pm
This is the first month of the Quality Click Pricing structure. My EPC is down from $.0.23 to around $0.16, which is a huge difference. Last month when you could “preview” what your Quality Click Pricing earnings would be compared to normal commissioned earning, my EPC was way up. In reality, I’m making half of what I did before. My sites that send traffic to eBay are good quality, organic search engine traffic that should pay well under the QCP, but so far not. It’s a shame that ebay made this change and is now punishing their partners while they sit back and pay out less money for the same amount of work.
October 29, 2009 at 7:27 pm
I think that there new qcp is crap…I have lost a ton of money. The first five days I was averaging around 100 bucks a day, then dropped to 30 a day for the next 5 days, it has been around 5-15 bucks a day the rest of this month….so basically I started the month out at .15 cent clicks, then all of a sudden dropped to .02 cent clicks…I have not touched any epn site I have in months either..traffic is exactly the same..around 3-6 clicks a day….shitty system if you ask me…
October 29, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Ebay is lousy for sellers, compared to Amazon which makes it easy to sell.
I canot wait to get a new account on Amazon and sell the hell out of the place.
it takes hours to list stuff on ebay, forget that.
October 29, 2009 at 9:08 am
Surprisingly I’m making a little more money on my sites. The payment I’m getting per click varies wildly depending on the day, from $.05 to $.18 so far.
October 29, 2009 at 7:38 am
That is a close close poll. I gave up on ebay’s affiliate program long ago
October 29, 2009 at 4:38 am
I thought you are only who is changing things a lot these days but nope you are not alone here …
October 29, 2009 at 12:10 am
Seems like I tried to join their partnership program several months ago but was rejected. I’ll stick w other affiliates like Shopzilla.
October 28, 2009 at 11:11 pm
I have a few keyword domains with eBay ads on them. They never made well even in the very beginning so I can’t tell you exactly how my sites are doing. But I know that I made more money selling my handmade neckties on eBay vs collecting ad revenue. .
October 28, 2009 at 10:36 pm
i’m not an ebay fan at all – Ive just had one bad experience after another
October 28, 2009 at 8:55 pm
Previously I was making very good money with ebay partner network and even though they would sporadically mess with my ACRU value I was doing ok for a site that got around 200-400 visits a day.. based on the preview I was actually due to make more money but as i expected once the transparency disappeared and the program went live my EPC plummeted..
I think ebay overall has taken a severe down turn and they are taking it out on the sellers and the affiliates.. this month alone i saw a piss poor EPC of .03 until one day it finally jumped to .20 cents which allowed me to make an ok return for a site i don’t really do much with..
today i some how managed an EPC of .00 cents and was paid NOTHING for my efforts ironically on a very high click day as well… My site sells vehicles off ebay motors and i think they have really hurt that sector.. usually i need to now sell a car to achieve a few decent days of EPC … I really hope they get their stuff together but i doubt that is whats going to happen..
they have taken away any real way of making a consistent amount of money and i wouldn’t be surprised if most of the sites in the ebay motors section are hurting.. completely fed up with ebay but I am determined to try and solve my way out of this and start making money again.. regardless of eBay’s lack of help and support..
October 28, 2009 at 8:42 pm
so this means people can’t make money from ebay anymore … ?
October 28, 2009 at 8:07 pm
I never got accepted into the partner program. Didn’t get an explanation either.
October 28, 2009 at 6:55 pm
Like so many others, the days of good money with eBay are long gone. Well we just need to move on…
October 28, 2009 at 6:41 pm
the most important things to me is how to attract the visitor to my web,
arrrrgghhhhh
itss sooo difficult
October 28, 2009 at 4:53 pm
The juice is certainly gone from the eBay affiliate program. God, the heady days of monthly 6-figure payouts… *reverie*
October 28, 2009 at 4:42 pm
That is a close close poll.
October 28, 2009 at 4:37 pm
“spray and pray” – I love it.
My earnings are up with the new system. I do targeted sites and I also focus on US customers for the most part.
I’ve been noticing people who rely on organic traffic heavily seem to have been taking a hit (more browsers than buyers maybe)?
hanji
October 28, 2009 at 4:21 pm
I like the system and I hope that it pushes the cookie dealers out in the long run. I didn’t really ever “fool” the system so I am happy with the PPC they have in place right now.
The fact that some can earn double is nice to see. It’s motivation to get my ass in gear and polish up the sites I have offering ebay items.
October 28, 2009 at 4:04 pm
It is still chugging along. I have never depended too much on it. Although I have tried to gain better traffic with the new stats. Otherwise still the same.
October 28, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Are my sites doing better? Yes, with QCP my EPC doubled (most of the sites are not designed for US customers, I don’t know if this has anything to do with the increase).
However, on the internal forums most of the people complain about their drop in revenue.
We could definitely use more transparency in their algo!
October 28, 2009 at 3:03 pm
you left off a choice on your poll. Have you been dropped by eBay?
before you could see what your customers bought to illicit the payout.
October 28, 2009 at 2:44 pm
We’ve been working with QCP since the beta in May and I did an interview on their blog here:
http://www.ebaypartnernetworkblog.com/en/hints-and-tips/partner-testimonial-%E2%80%93-redfly-marketing/
We’re up almost 25% now over CPA and that’s WITH the weak dollar. When you have enough data you can see exactly what eBay want.
We’re pulling in over 100k (USD) a month spread out over just six leaf categories.
I really REALLY believe that the guys at EPN had affiliates best interests at heart with this move. They can now aford to pay a lot more to affiliates who drive more quality leads.
Let’s face it, with CPA, it was always just a matter of getting the cookie dropped. Around Christmas, you were practically guaranteed someone with your cookie would buy something on eBay. In most cases, that wasn’t a direct result of YOUR efforts. Now eBay are rewarding affiliates that actually add value rather than insert themselves into the clickstream. The free ride is over and rightly so. I’m glad the spammier affiliates cannot hide behind other networks any longer.
October 29, 2009 at 7:43 pm
I drive quality leads but haven’t been rewarded as of yet. If I could figure out exactly what eBay wants, I’d be happy to configure my sites and model to adjust, but it’s a guessing game as far as I’m concerned. If Amazon’s pay structure wasn’t so weak, I’d switch everything over to their partner network.
October 28, 2009 at 2:21 pm
The new eBay Partner Network = Luvinit, luvinit, luvinit! But why do you ask, Jeremy? Is Auction Ads planning a comeback?
October 28, 2009 at 2:20 pm
It’s the least transparent and least easy to understand payout structure, but seems the highest paying of all previous eBay affiliate alternatives. So apparently every eBay partner has their price. Important though that they do not want domain cloaking or simple forwarding and are according to the current rules asking that all users know in advance what they are clicking on so you have to have the link on a webpage. Fortunately there are plenty of Quick Free Website pages available for you to create a quick free site with eBay links on them:)
October 28, 2009 at 1:00 pm
I’d love to see more businesses adapt a model like this.
October 28, 2009 at 12:35 pm
I gotta say I am very happy with the new change myself. I will earn double with ePN this month!
October 28, 2009 at 11:37 am
They love to kick people out, but in all honesty if I was them I would kick people out all the time. And laugh.
We are making about 30% more, but I know thats not the case across the board. BTW the new model is “send us your traffic, and sometime tomorrow we will let you know how much it’s all worth per click,” pretty arbitrary and not really affiliate marketing anymore.
October 28, 2009 at 11:02 am
i gave up on ebay’s affiliate program long ago. i couldn’t stand all the changes they were making a now it just seems to be getting worse!
October 28, 2009 at 10:27 am
That’s a great move for them but not a great move for third parties. They did a move for those sellers and drive as much sell as possible in a very short time and create this atmosphere of continuous customers.
I guess they wanted to kick out some people anyway……
October 28, 2009 at 10:23 am
I’m not a big fan of non-transparent payouts a la Adsense and now Ebay. Without transparency you do not have enough information to properly tune your affiliate links for optimal performance.
The preview period was not much of a preview as my actual revenue when QCP started blew away the preview period, so there was little value in that warm-up period.
Ebay is now tinkering again with insertion and final value fees for sellers after upending the affiliates. Ebay should quit tinkering with all the knobs and levers and focus on building a site that increasingly draws in new sellers and buyers – the number of people engaging in their site will drive the revenue they seek, not the nickel and dime smoke and mirrors fee and payment changes.