Don't miss a single post about Developing your Niche Store or Website! Subscribe today and start Making Money!
August 22, 2008
Steve, the moderator (pink) that has been addressing the affiliate issues on the ePN, replied to this post again this afternoon with more information on the recent cuts, and how to avoid them in the future. Ihave highlighted several sections of interest to BANS owners.
What does “engagement” mean?
Among other metrics, we measure the time that users spend on eBay after they come through an affiliate link, the number of pages that they view, and their buying activity after coming through the affiliate link. Hopefully this helps to further clarify what we mean. I know that we don’t provide reporting on all of these metrics, but we’re looking at ways that we can improve that visibility so that you can optimize your campaigns for them.
Can affiliates affect engagement and conversion?
Definitely. The metrics show that there is a wide distribution of these metrics between affiliates. To illustrate the point with an extreme example, a site that helps potential buyers find and research stereo receivers and then points them to great deals on eBay will probably drive more engaged buyers with better conversion rates than an eBay banner on a ringtone site.
How can affiliates improve engagement from their sites?
Many of you are already using these techniques and others, but for those who may not be, here are some tips to improve engagement.
• Maximize the amount of unique content to your site. Create commerce-oriented content for your site that engages the user in the shopping experience. Conversely, avoid putting eBay affiliate ads on pages that have little to do with shopping – e.g. ringtone sites, non-commerce oriented social network sites, e-mail services, etc. Also, sites that do little other than offer links to redirect to eBay generally don’t perform well. Engage people with content on your site, and make it clear to them on the affiliate links that they will be redirected to eBay to shop.
• Use more targeted creatives. If all you have is a simple text link to eBay or a static eBay banner ad on your site, consider using one of our flash creatives. Use what you know about your users and your content: consider using banners targeted to specific demographics (e.g. male vs. female) or categories – which are also available on eBay Partner Network. Also consider using our Editor Kit and eBay To Go widgets, which can be customized to show specific eBay listings for a given category or keyword right on your page.
• Integrate eBay links within your content. Sites that find a way to work eBay advertising into the content, rather than just as a simple ad at a top, side, or bottom of a page, tend to do better
• Optimize your landing pages. Use what you know about your users to help them find what they want on eBay. If your site is about tennis rackets, avoid landing your users on the eBay homepage, and instead send them to a search results page on eBay for targeted tennis queries.
(Note from Mark: This is a very undesirable practice according to Google)• Use our geotargeting functionality. Sending a visitor on your site who is from the UK to ebay.co.uk (our British site) rather than ebay.com (our US site), will significantly improve conversion rates and engagement. You can select this option when you’re generating eBay links in the “tools” tab.
• Avoid simply incenting visits to eBay or registration with eBay – their primary motivation is typically not interest in eBay or in purchasing from eBay. If you are going to give your users cash back or points, tie those rewards to actual valid purchases on eBay.
How can affiliates test & improve their performance?
• Set up specific campaigns to test out any new sites, links, content, etc., and ideally, test these approaches at smaller volumes in comparison to your overall traffic. This way you will be able to evaluate the performance of each new campaign separately, ramp up the ones that perform the best, and prune the ones that don’t perform.
• Leverage the custom ID reports to further segment your testing. In an upcoming release targeted for September, additional category reporting will be made available that will help you see the categories that your users are converting in (at campaign, tool, and program levels) which should help you further target your content and affiliate links.
Does this all sound too familiar?
Mark
7 Responses to “More Guidance & Definitions from eBay”
Got something to say?
Posting tweet...
I listened to the eBay Town Hall, it was mainly geared towards eBay sellers. For the most part, the sellers are excited about the new changes, or at least satisfied. If the sellers are satisfied, then as affiliates we should be as well, we help both the sellers and eBay move products. The smoke should be clearing up for awhile.
What does Pink mean?
Sean, with all due respect, all sellers are not satisfied, and the smoke is certainly not clearing up for a while with regard to affiliates. Not even close. I don’t know much about these town hall meetings, but I would imagine that Ebay controls who gets to have their say.
Thanks for staying on top of this. The situation has certainly given all of us content for our blogs.
3 things that stand out to me in the epn manual: ”
-No low performing new active registered users.
-Create ways to keep driving your users back to eBay for additional purchases.
-Spend more time optimizing the best sites and drop links to eBay user registration from low quality sites. ”
For those of us left. IMO we need to tread softly. I have archived many epn sites until the can be reworked. I just hope they are not part of the metric. I’m afraid to ask!
I also think that 99% of us always intended to build content rich long term sites that eBay would like, but trying isnt good enough any more.
I for one need a break from this strees.
Good Luck All
BG
@ Sean -
I listened to the call also… there is no doubt the calls were screened! LOL Well.. all except that last guy who started getting into the platinum seller novel.
The only part that I thought I may hear the affiliates mentioned was when they talked about the advertising for the rest of the year, but it did not come up.
“Pinks” are the forum moderators. You can always identify an eBay employee because the header of their posts are “Pink”
Mark
This kid is not operating in the real world. Most visitors referred through our sites are already registered with eBay, and, therefore bring some level of engagement. They may well have purchased previously. Now, we’re supposed to pick them up and be responsible for an already established buying pattern? Sounds like he’s listened to some sort of Warton B School thesis and is now attempting to apply it to “improve” the second largest affiliate program in the world.
When upper management gets wind of how far removed EPN will become from operating as a profit center, they may well can him. He’s singlehandedly destroyed affiliate morale than anything I’ve ever seen short of shutting down a program.
Having read the article above regards “engagement” I am still at a loss. I can see exactly what he is saying. But I cannot see how we can be responsible after directing quality targetted visitors from our focussed BANS sites for their buying behaviour. I have a Suzuki GSXR motorcycle site which is totally focussed on one manufacturer i.e Suzuki and the GSXR model range so it is totally focussed to Ebay and targetted with plenty of targetted content. Interested parties will see the motorcycle they are interested in on my BANS site and click through to the Ebay listing from there they will buy or search for other bikes available, how can I be responsible for there behaviour. They make the rules as they go along reminds me of Big Brother
@ David -
I completely understand where you are coming from, ePN is making rules without definition, as they go.
I read on the forum of one affiliate who sent 25,000 visitors a day, resulting in 75-100 sales every day… in the auto category. His account was cut off as well.
There is no rhyme or reason behind all of this and it will take quite a move on eBays part to reverse this.
Mark