Finally Accepted to Ebay Partner Network

Congrats.

After being with them for more than two years, here are a few things that have been 100% consistently the case for me.

0.13 per click seems to be a default setting of sorts. Perhaps that number is related to some secret "quality" score for my sites, but there is definitely a default amount for me. It was 0.14 at the beginning of the CPC switch - but then it went to 0.13. I've basically been at 0.13 per click whether I sell 30 items in a month or 3. My site that uses EPN is in the 1 to 200 visitors per day range.

The only time this has ever changed is if i start getting too many clicks. More than 60 in a day, and all of a sudden i'm fluctuating on a day to day basis - it's also always lower than 0.13 in this case unless there were some very big sale on one of those days.

It's as though a certain number of clicks in a (day/week who knows) triggers something

One time I got way more than 0.13 per click, more than 0.30. That lasted for a few days after selling a car. Sweet. However, it almost immediately dropped me down to 0.01 per click after that, as though to compensate for the lots of money made those days. From this I believe that to get a higher CPC and keep it up you have to consistently be making sales at the dollar amount of whatever secret formula it is to keep them up there. Which makes sense.

It appears that though it is CPC, the CPC starts adjusting itself when your monthly amount reaches a certain point so that what you make doesn't become crazy dis-proportionate to how much money you've made ebay.

One thing very important: if you have a site that really attracts a lot of clicks but not tons of buys.. think cars.. people just love to click to see what's going on in those car auctions - but it's very bad for you. Every time i activated that site, my clicks went way up, but the overall EPC tanked.

My EPC has never been different for different sites. If I turned on said car site, it tanked ALL sites down to 0.01. I believe that this only changes if you have a certain total number of clicks from individual sites.


Basically you want to keep things so that you aren't getting tons of clicks for clicks sake, the ratio of buys to clicks.. the better that is, the better for you. If you start trying to boost clicks thinking "sweet, 0.13 for every click, let's get more clicks" that has always backfired for me big time.

For this reason - and this is the only time I started making money with EPN, auctions are the very last thing on my page. All my content is there and the auctions are there as an afterthought, there is no call to action about them at all.

I never made a single sale until I did what I just described. February had near daily sales.

Oh, also, it seems to be about 10-13 days. If you go that long without a sale, you are at 0.00 for every click. Get one sale and I'm back to where I was.. fortunately this barely happens to me anymore.

Hopefully this helps.

For the particular site I use it for, EPN is best - it's quite niche and #1 for many keywords, but the products just don't cost a lot of money- sometimes it leads into higher priced items in the niche but it would equate to peanuts on amazon commission at my current rate with it. I do way better getting paid per click. My placement means I don't get tons of clicks but ratio of buys to clicks is good and that has this site make a good piece of income every month that I use to pay all hosting/service/subscription type fees that it just wouldn't generate if it were straight sales commission from amazon.

The first time I applied, I honestly didn't put much effort into it for the same reason that you mentioned above, I was so used to being effortlessly accepted into affiliate networks that I didn't think it was a big deal. lol

The second time I was thinking, "Darn it, I want in." lol So I wrote them a novel on my marketing tactics and why they should accept me. :p

This time I was thinking, "Mer, what the hell, I'll try it again." Better effort than the first time, much less effort than the second time.

It's kind of funny. Yesterday when i got accepted I was thinking about how much I would bank with it. Today I'm thinking more on the realistic side of things. We'll see how it does though. Perhaps I'll report back in a week and let you guys know if I've made anything. I currently have EPN running on about 10 websites.

You aren't kidding about their earnings model being vague. I don't even think I was able to find a number on the entire site. In fact, let me cut and paste so that I can give people who haven't gotten into the EPN a more precise visual of what to expect.

"
Advertiser: eBay US
Participating Sites and Content: eBay - New & used electronics, cars, apparel, collectibles, sporting goods & more at low prices
Payment Structure:

• Qualifying Transactions:
  • Click: A deliberate and voluntary click by an end user on a Link that directs him to Participating Sites and Content.
• Compensation:
  • Quality Click Pricing:
    eBay Partner Network will pay for each qualifying click sent to this program. The price paid will depend on the traffic's quality - the more incremental revenue the traffic generates for eBay, the higher the amount paid per click. The quality of the traffic will be assessed using a number of different factors, including revenue from sales and the long term value of new users, as today, but also eBay advertising and PayPal revenue, and user engagement. Essentially, the more incremental revenue your traffic generates for eBay, the more you'll be paid per click.
    Just as in the prior CPA system, there is no limit to the total amount you can earn under Quality Click Pricing. On average across eBay Partner Network, publishers make between $0.06 and $0.21 per click sent to eBay. Note that this varies among programs based on the economics of each program. Publishers sending high quality, targeted traffic can make much more. We have hundreds of publishers earning more than $0.40 per click. However, results will vary by business model as well as how targeted you are in driving traffic to your own site and then sending that traffic to eBay.
  
  Quality Click Pricing
  
  With Quality Click Pricing, we pay publishers for clicks sent to eBay sites. The amount paid per click (EPC) on a daily basis depends on the traffic’s quality. The quality of the traffic is assessed using a number of different factors, including revenue from sales and the long term value of new users, but also eBay advertising and PayPal revenue and other user behaviour factors. Essentially, the more incremental revenue your traffic generates for eBay, the more you’ll be paid per click.
  Key Benefits:
  
  
  1. As the payout will be more closely aligned with traffic quality, we will pay more to good publishers per click, regardless of the size of the publisher.
  2. Simplifies the commission structure
  3. Publishers are rewarded for multiple sources of value, such as revenue from advertising on eBay pages and PayPal transactions
  4. The EPC is visible the very next day (Mountain Standard Time) and is more stable on a day-to-day basis.
  
  EPC Amount Posted
  
  
  After you deliver traffic to eBay, we assess the quality of those clicks and then post an EPC amount. Here’s more info about the EPC:
  
  • The EPC (earnings per click) amount will be posted the day after you clicks were delivered to eBay. Please note that eBay Partner Network works on Mountain Standard Time, GMT -7 hours.
  • Once posted, the EPC amount for a particular day will not change.
  • In the summary reports, the EPC Rate is displayed at a Program level (e.g. eBay US or eBay FR) and also at a Campaign level.
  • You can view the aggregate network and program level EPC on the publisher dashboard. More details, including the campaign level EPC Amounts, are available in the Reports tab.
  • EPCs will vary from publisher to publisher, depending on the quality of their traffic; and from program to program, due to different market conditions.
  • The EPC can be 0 if your traffic drives no revenue.
  • The EPC is available at Campaign level to allow you to optimize.
  • If you drive only a small number of clicks a day to eBay, you will receivea default EPC amount, which is equivalent to the EPC amount of all small publishers pooled together. If you believe your traffic is worth more than the default amount, then send more traffic of the same quality to eBay to see if your EPC increases"

Definitely a bit sketchy concerning finding out how much you can earn. That was pulled from several different parts of the site, btw.