March 25, 2008
Well… I’m officially ticked off! OK, not really, but I am wondering why the heck my earnings on CJ have taken such a slide since the announcement that eBay will be taking their affiliate program in-house. From March 1-14th, my daily earnings averaged $91.40 per day…. from the 15th-24th, $13.22 per day! I found it very odd that this occurred at the same time as the announcement… I wonder who else has noticed a dip in their earnings? More importantly, I wonder if it will change when eBay takes it in-house…
I should also point out how I deal with things like this… let’s see:
See… now I feel better… I better go get started on my list on the Niche Store Forum also! :-) If any of you have not visited the forum yet, it is linked above… and should be a great long time, public, resource for all of us to share ideas in a much more easily tracked section.
Mark (GBPackers) Thank you for the suggestion to include a forum!
Mark
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24 Responses to “CJ Earnings have Crashed Since the eBay Announcement!”
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Hey Mark,
Let’s see… from the 15th to present, I’m averaging just over $15 per day….which is actually beating my 2008 daily average of around $12 per day.
I guess I haven’t really seen a dip in my earnings….hmmm.
Eric
Might be a problem. From the 1st thru the 15th I averaged about $45,. Had a few really bad days from the 17th thru 21st but it seems to have come back up again. Normally don’t have that many bad days in a row.
Hi Mark,
I’ve been trying to register for the forum, but can’t get past the agree to terms page. I’m sure I’m missing something obvious, but when I click “I accept” it goes back to the terms page again.
As for sales reported in CJ, I can’t wait for the day I’m getting sales everyday of any size! I have noticed a huge increase in traffic and click-thrus since following this series and upgrading to 3.0, but sales haven’t increased at all, even with adding new sites.
I seem to get a sale or two right after the site goes up, then nothing. I’m sure that is going to change soon. (Positive thinking - thoughts become things).
Sherrin
Well Mark I’m not going to worry just yet. I have only started so my BANS income is very low.
I will just keep following the plan.
Sherrin,
It WILL happen! I remeber when I was just like you thinking, “Man, I’d be nice to be making ANY type of comission”.
I believe it happened for me about a month into BANS…after building my first site I started to see sales. Now, I have around 8 BANS stores up and in March, I’ve made at least one sale every single day except for MAYBE 2 days….and this could be due to CJ’s questionable reporting.
@Mark
What I just wrote to Sherrin got me thinkin…as a relative newbie, I was always wondering what it took to achieve certain levels of success….for instance:
1. $25 per day average: about how many sites do you need….how much daily traffic….other contributing factors…
2. $50 per day average: about how many sites do you need….how much daily traffic….other contributing factors…
…and so on…
As I said before, I’m currently averaging between $12 and $15 per day now, and my eventual goal is $100 per day average….which Mark is very close to.
I just think it would be very helpful to hear from people that are currently achieving these benchmarks to give newer people some REALISTIC expectations.
Eric
Eric - thanks for the encouragement. I started in November and have 6 sites up now. I feel like I should be earning something every day at this point.
I was trying to hold out spending any more money, but decided to go ahead with SubmitEdge to get more backlinks and traffic. I also got WordTracker for a year a few weeks ago. Hopefully the 2 together will jumpstart things for me.
Sounds like you’re doing great! Good questions to Mark.
I would contact both CJ and eBay about this.
Wordtracker was an absolute DIFFERENCE MAKER for me. If I could only choose ONE resource, it’d be Wordtracker…hands down.
Eric
Mark,
My commissions have become non existant as well.
It is very hard not to think that CJ was up to something especially in light of how they handled the Pepperjam Fiasco!
In case anyone didn’t know, CJ gave advertisers who were with CJ and who also advertised with the new Pepperjam network an ultimatum. Drop pepperjam or we will drop you!
I guess this is just another reason not to put all your eggs in the CJ basket.
Chuck
I actually did some testing with ebay and CJ to see why I have never seen an ebay sale but I have had google CTR. Granted, only for a short time (2 weeks) but a friend of mine actually purchased thru my link/affiliate ID and nothing reported as a sale. He was also a new ACRU with ebay. But, CJ does show over 100 click thrus on my ebay links.
If anyone knows some statistics of what to expect as a % of CTR becomes a sale, that would be great.
Thanks…
Eric T.
Eric T,
I’ve heard the same thing about CJ’s reporting many times. I’m interested to see how my sales go when eBay takes over the affiliates. If there’s a big “spike” in sales, I’ll be convinced that CJ has stiffed alot of people….not sure why, though…
Eric
One thing to think about when we switch to eBay’s program, from the wording used at the bottom of the announcement letter, CJ is still going to be doing the reporting. Maybe the stats will be on an ebay site, but it looks like CJ or CJ’s parent company will be the ones keeping the stats. I hope that’s not true, because I’m also suspicious of CJ misreporting sales.
FWIW, I started in mid November with my first store. I’m up to 11 stores now, although 6 were built this month. I’ve neglected adding content and am only now starting to go back and write articles, but for the first time I’m getting sales almost everyday, averaging $5 a day for March.
Read as much as you can on this site the BANS forums, and Rochelle’s site, and try to let it sink and apply it all to your stores. It works, just hang in there. If my stores never get better, I’m still on a pace to make an extra $150 a month, but I know they’ll keep improving, and I’ll keep adding stores. Maybe by the end of the year I’ll have 50 stores or more and be doing significantly better numbers.
Be patient and read as much as you can. Don’t be afraid to ask if you don’t understand something, there are a ton of very friendly BANS people who will help you.
ARG is all I can say about CJ.
I’m with you Mark. I’m going to be ready guns blaring April 1. My list is around 270 1/2 things to do.
I so hear you, I was averaging about $15 a day now I’m down to around $9 somedays it’s lower, but I do get a commission every day which is still something to smile about. I really don’t trust CJ, my dad signed up for ebay and bought something through one of my sites and that ACRU has never made it to my reporting, how do I know he signed up and bought something from my link? I was there at his house walking him through the sign up (he’s 70 years old and likes to collect stuff). Cannot wait for the move!
Michelle D,
See, it’s stories like that I’ve read numerous times….it’s just ridiculous to think how much money we MAY have made and never received.
I really hope eBay takes control over the WHOLE affiliate program…I’m not sure what the benefit would be to still allowing CJ to have a hand in things if eBay is willing to run the program in-house.
…fingers crossed!
Just within this past week I’ve had two signups but no commissions for them. The thing that makes me wonder is I also saw sales from the same stores as the signups and the people were brand new, yet no $25 for me. I find it hard to believe that I registered two signups and had a few sales from brand new users all from the same store in the same week but there was no connection between them…
Rochelle
On the rare occasion when I do get a sale, I always go and check to see if the person has made any other purchases after my initial one. There have been times when the person actually won the bid but it never showed up as a sale for me.
I agree, if eBay is taking the affiliate program in-house, why would they continue to outsource the tracking … especially with the same company?! Maybe it’s only temporary and they felt they needed to get a handle on one aspect before tackling the other.
I also have my fingers crossed.
But on a positive note, has anybody else noticed an increase in payout due to eBay’s increased fee structure? I’ve been seeing 4% on a regular basis now whereas before it was usually around 2%. Now if I could just get more sales …
I’ve got a budy wanting to sign up for BANS and now i’m thinking to tell him to wait till after the 1st.. This is kinda scary to do all this work and not even know if you’re getting paid !!!!
@ Jeff
I wouldn’t let the ebay affiliate, CJ fiasco slow me down at all… The system works great and in general, even when reporting seems skewed, it always manages to catch up.
Thats my experience with it anyway…
On the other hand - I am not installing any new stores until the changeover on April 1st. I have been using my time revisiting old sites, cataloging needed changes etc.
Mark
Jeff,
I read in another forum that eBay has stopped accepting new affiliates until after the switch-over anyway so your buddy probably couldn’t sign up anyway. If he’s interested, have him start reading here and doing some research so that he’s ready to go after the 1st.
Cindy
I too had a buddy who wanted to bid on one of my items. He called me and I talked him through going to my website and signing up thru ebay and bidding on the auction. I never saw any $25 sign up commission either. He did not win the auction but if I understood correctly, even if they do not win the auction, we would still get the commission as long as they placed a bid on an auction within the 7 day period. I could have misunderstood though. I did check with him and he said he received a confirmation email from ebay and he also got an email from ebay that he did not win the auction, so i know the sign up and bid were correctly placed.
I sure am glad I wasnt alone on noticing these recent shortcomings!
In the longrun though, nothing we can do to change it… so, off to work on something else until it is sorted out!
Scott - AWESOME niche! The possibilities are endless… and it is a very competitive market!
Mark
I noticed the low sales too but just put it down to a few Bad Hair Days. I hope things get better and not worse when eBay takes over. The thing that gladdens my heart the most is that Bans does work and the community is really helpful and wholesome.
alright…now I’m starting to notice the significant slow-down everyone else is. Like Mark said, nothing we can do about it besides 1) Get to work on other things….2) Hope that eBay tracks things a bit more efficiently!