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What Do You Guys Think Of Ebay's Affiliate Program

by Mike Williams
16 replies
I was trying to figure out how it works and I got all ADD. Do they pay you a nice percentage of the sale when someone buys a high ticked item there or are you just getting a percentage of the ebay fees.

I was a bit confused about that.
#affiliate #ebay #guys #program
  • Profile picture of the author Kelly Verge
    You get 50% of the eBay fees.

    You also get paid when someone signs up for an eBay account - +/- $25 per new account, depending on an algorithm.
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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Williams
      Originally Posted by Kelly Verge View Post

      You get 50% of the eBay fees.

      You also get paid when someone signs up for an eBay account - +/- $25 per new account, depending on an algorithm.
      So if someone buys something for 1,000 you get...five bucks...not $500?
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      • Profile picture of the author dmderoeck
        Mike,

        You get "approx" 50% of the winning revenue earned and is tiered.

        You also get ACRU of $25 for each new account that applies to eBay under your affiliate link.

        It's a good program. Although there are some caveats. You need to build good content sites or Google will de-index you and you also need to build a lot of sites to stay profitable (unless you strike it big on a couple). Bottom line, it's a lot of work but your payoff is fairly consistent.

        BTW, I would recommend using phpBay Pro instead of BANs. There are others but I haven't tried them. phpBay Pro seems more "Google friendly"... plus it is built on Wordpress which I prefer.
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        • Profile picture of the author camforbes
          Originally Posted by dmderoeck View Post

          Mike,

          You get "approx" 50% of the winning revenue earned and is tiered.

          You also get ACRU of $25 for each new account that applies to eBay under your affiliate link.

          It's a good program. Although there are some caveats. You need to build good content sites or Google will de-index you and you also need to build a lot of sites to stay profitable (unless you strike it big on a couple). Bottom line, it's a lot of work but your payoff is fairly consistent.

          BTW, I would recommend using phpBay Pro instead of BANs. There are others but I haven't tried them. phpBay Pro seems more "Google friendly"... plus it is built on Wordpress which I prefer.
          Let me also throw my hat in the ring (see my sig).

          BANs/phpBay... both good products, but people have been flocking to Minute Sites because it includes 5 ways to make money on each site - eBay Partner Network, Amazon Associates, AdSense, Affiliate/Clickbank ads, and Article Marketing (post whatever content you want, with whatever links you want).

          Everything is fed by integrated RSS feeds that update around the clock and actually "become" part of your site.

          Sorry if I hijacked the thread, I just wanted to share one other (awesome) way you can earn a passive income through eBay's affiliate program.

          All the best,
          Cam
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  • Profile picture of the author sarahjones
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  • Profile picture of the author Kelly Verge
    I make most of my living with eBay's affiliate program using a couple of different models.

    They had a glitch in ACRU (signup) tracking for a couple of days, but have worked it out and will pay an adjustment.

    I'm trying to move into more traditional areas of IM due to the seasonality of my current business model.
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  • Profile picture of the author bgmacaw
    I've been using it a lot over the past 6 months or so and results have been great. I've got several posts on my blog (1st link in my sig) about how to use it and get the best results.

    They've had off and on issues with tracking but they've generally made good on these problems. There have been other issues that some people have encountered that you might want to look into but they only have affected a small number of users.
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  • Profile picture of the author Michael Taylor
    Actually, they recently changed the ACRU payout. It's now between $1 and $50, depending upon the quality of the new customer.

    That changed in October, if I remember right.
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    • Profile picture of the author bwj292
      That changed in October, if I remember right.
      It certainly did, I am quite heavily into the eBay affiliate program, although its had problems since the EPN coming in, in all it has bought me a good income.

      The ACRUS are now based on quality of traffic you send to eBay and they give you a quality rating of something between 0 & 5, 5 being the highest quality and 0.......well pretty obvious. Its okay if your sending what they consider good quality traffic but then to me its a eBay cop out to stop them having to pay $25.00 each time to every affiliate. Although that wasn't how they put it of course
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      • Profile picture of the author Jason Moffatt
        I set up the Ebay Partner Network on a couple sites this week and haven't had much luck with it yet. Since the first of the year I've had...

        4887 Impressions
        34 Clicks
        No money!

        Hopefully it improves.
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    • Profile picture of the author nichewebstrategies
      I've been using eBay's affiliate program for quite a while and I have had pretty good results.

      I've used PPC on and off over the past year but I had my best results ever over this past holiday selling season.

      I promoted one niche site with Google and Yahoo PPC and made over $2500 in profits over a 2 week period. Pretty good for just one niche. It just happens to be one where there are hungry buyers due to the fact they discontinue products after a few years.

      A lot of people bash eBay, and rightly so in some cases, but I think they do an OK job. Jeeesh, just look at the issues Clickbank has been having and the number of threads on their tracking problems.

      Oh, and the ACRU changes have helped me out SOOOO much! I was getting $25 a signup, now I just reached $40 per sign up.
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      • Profile picture of the author famous2313
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        • Profile picture of the author bwj292
          Originally Posted by famous2313 View Post

          ebay has a great affiliate program but if you don't

          take action to send traffic to them. They might

          drop you.
          They do drop you, very quickly, the ACRU structure isn't too bad to be honest. If you send them traffic then you do well out of it but i still think they are saving a lot of money with this new way.
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          • Profile picture of the author telesale1606
            Good program made $250 so fAR
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            • Profile picture of the author ExRat
              Hi,

              EPN rocks.

              Like anything it's not perfect.

              Hi PaulM,

              Sounds like a new more innovative way of
              cheating affiliates out of commission to me
              That's what my cynical mind thought at first, but it's not. It's almost impossible to actually understand their algo on quality score, regardless of what they have said about it. But it does appear to reward ACRUs that go on to make more purchases, or decent priced purchases.

              PROs -

              Highly lucrative

              Hands free

              Broad variety of everyday popular niches

              Good tracking (yes I really said that)

              CONs -

              Being accepted into the program can be a lottery

              Google aren't particularly 'keen' on the sites, unless they're overloaded with content and video

              Lots of scumware and Ebay approved loyaltyware (EG onecause) BUT recently they announced that they were dropping these types of affiliates to the lowest ACRU level (allegedly)

              Ebay style communication problems - no phone contact and 48 hour email replies, even in an account hacking emergency.

              Worst con -
              They have adopted an adsense style hidden algo/quality score system, and even worse, an overnight 'you have been expired' punishment that is so difficult to decipher, no-one feels safe. Consequently, earning from EPN solely can never be classed as a real business, because it's continuation is totally in the lap of the Gods.

              Hi Mike,

              So if someone buys something for 1,000 you get...five bucks...not $500?
              Obviously (although you'd likely get much more than $5 for a $1000 purchase). But bear in mind that if it's a featured listing, for example, you get half of that too. Unless you've tried it, you'd probably be shocked at how many ACRUs you can get on a daily basis. Lots of people open new ebay accounts every day - and I mean lots.

              Hi Jmo,

              4887 Impressions
              34 Clicks
              No money!
              That's a particularly low click through rate. I presume you're not using it on a page dedicated to the product, IE you have other stuff/ads on it?

              Do you have ebay listings or just sign-up banners? (Listings don't cause impressions on their own so you must at least have one banner I presume? - I'm not 100%, but I think that if you have two banners on the same page, that will count for two impressions, therefore that could be another reason.)

              HTH

              PS bgmacaw - I didn't realise you were who you are until I clicked through your link. We've bumped into each other commenting at Splork's place and I've seen you around Griz's blog too.
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  • Profile picture of the author ExRat
    Hi PaulM,

    No worries, as I said, it's exactly what I thought at the time - probably due to the typical experience we have dealing with large business/organisations. One miniscule percentage tweak for them, means many extra noughts at payday.

    I've considered it quite a lot, and there are two subjects that I have begun to understand a little better, when it comes to dealing with a huge entity, (for example EPN) making changes that look at first glance, like an attempt to 'skim' off their underlings, or to mislead or hide things from them.

    1) What they say - when they address all of their affiliates as one, on a policy issue for example, they have to be conservative. They have to leave no room for people to find loopholes.

    So a savvy person will read between the lines and be able to draw their own 'lines in the sand', based on what they are being told plus a little extra leeway. Often, if they were to follow the advice/guidelines to the letter, they would fail.

    2) What they do - once enough people are in the system that try to defraud it, to the extent that the decent honest people are starting to get tempted to push the boundaries themselves, these large entities will swing the axe publically and create a climate of fear.

    This is what they have done by expiring people in one fell swoop, and when pressed to be clear about the boundaries that affiliates should not cross, they appear to deliberately leave things a little hazy. This causes a buzz amongst affiliates discussing it, which cements it in their sub-conscious that they need to generally behave.

    And they also appear to be using the 'secret algo' system that leaves people wondering what the hell to do for the best, so again they discuss it between themselves which causes general caution and good behaviour and attempts to please the paymasters (to get paid on a higher tier.)

    There are also some things that they (EPN) are best doing publically, and others which are best done behind the scenes. It is my opinion that rather than using the new quality score to 'skim' or 'throttle', they are using it wisely to eliminate and downgrade people who defraud the system with false ACRUs - which is the main reason for this long ramble.
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    Roger Davis
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    • Profile picture of the author potentmix
      I've been an EPN partner for over a year. In that time, I've made thousands of dollars. In my long experience operating as an affiliate, I believe there isn't a program currently in affect that converts like EPN.

      I appreciate everything that's been said so far. You just have to take the good with the bad if you're going to play at the EPN crap table.

      In my case, I had reached the $40 ACRU level when my account got hacked about a month ago. Believe me when I say that I had taken all the normal precautions to prevent hacking. IMO, there's a security hole in EPN, and in an email to me they all but said so - ie. they're taking measures to strengthen security. I now have a little over $3,000 that's gone off in limbo. They closed my account and told me that my funds had been placed on "hold" and will not be distributed to my new account until they have "investigated". Despite my repeated and detailed inquiries with customer service, I've been met with a stone wall. I know nothing other than what they said in the initial email. All responses have been manufactured ambiguities.

      As has been mentioned, eBay is arrogant and indifferent, often even hostile, toward affiliates, not to mention everybody else. I immediately switched all my sites over to Pepperjam where I had taken the precaution of getting approved by EPN after they went in-house. Fortunately, my earnings are continuing on that platform.

      I know of another eBay affiliate who's account was just hacked and $6,100 has been frozen. His specialty is internet security. It appears that whoever is doing the hacking knows which accounts have significant balances, and the invasions take place just before payout. This suggests there is someone who has a means of identifying plump accounts for the taking.

      Will we ever see our money? Who knows? Again, EPN is just a crap shoot. You can make good money, but hold on to your hat.
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