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Steve Hartman Says Farewell to eBay Partner Network

Happy New Year everyone!

Steve Hartman, the Global Manager of the eBay Partner Network has announced he is leaving eBay and moving to a new opportunity on the east coast. On the Partner Network Forum, he wrote:

First, I’d like to start by thanking the eBay Partner Network affiliates for a great 2009. It’s been an exciting year and we’ve seen a lot of great integrations with the Daily Deal contest and adoption of tools like custom banner, along with a lot of folks taking advantage of the opportunities with Quality Click Pricing and optimizing their affiliate businesses. And I know that there’s a lot more innovation to come next year and beyond.

To that point, I’m actually saying farewell to eBay Partner Network and am moving on to a new opportunity on the East Coast starting in the New Year. I’m extremely proud to have been part of the eBay Partner Network team, and moving forward, I know that eBay Partner Network will continue to be in great hands with Will Martin-Gill (of will1111@ebay.com fame) taking over my role, and the rest of the team continuing the great work they’ve been doing.

Taking his place will be Will Martin Gill, who has worked under the leadership of Steve for quite a while, and the transition from USA Affiliate Program Manager, to the Global position, should be smooth and seamless.

Good luck with your new venture Steve – but please don’t spread the QCP model across the country! :-)

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About the Author, Mark Hansen

has written 573 article(s) at the Niche Store Builder site.

I have been doing my part to "Build the Internet" since 1994, when I built my first website! Since then, I have built hundreds of niche websites for myself and many others, focused on design, applications, ecommerce, search optimization and internet marketing. 

Latest Readers Who Commented on This Article

  • JaxRolo
  • billf
  • lovejoy
  • fr0gman
  • Don Bistrow

6 Comments »

  • Ottidid said:

    Wow, I hope that turns into good news for those of us that still use epn, and maybe they will get their heads back on straight….

    Reply – Quote
    # 2 January 2010 at 9:47 pm
  • JaxRolo said:

    Hopefully it is good news for the rest of us. Maybe we will see some better changes!

    Reply – Quote
    # 2 January 2010 at 10:28 pm
  • billf said:

    Good riddance Steve. Maybe he’s off to the east coast to run the Madoff fund :-) He couldn’t possibly screw that up anymore than it already is!

    Reply – Quote
    # 2 January 2010 at 11:58 pm
  • lovejoy said:

    There is a time in a man’s life when he has to say “Shoot, I’ve screwed up BIG TIME with my non-sense of an affiliate program and the hammer is about to fall on somebody’s head. Let me run now while I have time.” But I bet the wife he got fired. Ebay has lost a ton of affiliates because of this guy. Now what’shisname is left holding the bag. I hope this new guy changes course and get back the program to reality! Back to CJ!

    Reply – Quote
    # 5 January 2010 at 12:21 pm
  • fr0gman said:

    @lovejoy –

    I pointed out Steve Hartman’s ineptitude waaay back in 2008 and nobody was interested in listening.

    I find it extremely humorous that this guy has gone from running what would/could and should have been the largest affiliate marketing program in the world to marketing mini-storage units. If Hartman was doing such a wiz-bang job at eBay why did he move out of the ecommerce arena and into brick and mortar? Because he is worthless when it comes to anything to do with the internet.

    Obviously the U-Store-It CEO does not use Google or this guy would never have been hired.

    Reply – Quote
    # 12 January 2010 at 11:00 am
  • Don Bistrow said:

    I’m a little late to this dance but for an update, the EPN program is useless if they pay zero for one-day clicks of 150-175-200.

    I have am a CPA/MBA and have a lot of statistical analysis experience. Spending some time with downloaded transaction reports nothing tells me how they conclude that no value is placed on one visitor to another. They only really examine bids and purchases not the fact that you did your work and sent them traffic.

    I understand ACRU and the whole process of Ebay and how that works, I was a Power Seller there for 6 years.

    When making links and banners I worked very hard and was careful to ensure the links and banners would take the visitor to a tight niche of products related to what the page on my web site was about. It’s all antique glass and pottery so my category was 870 – pottery and glass.

    My EPC went from 13-cents to zero in 1/2 a month for May 2010. I was off the program since Dec 2009 and restarted it. The initial results was very good and promising.

    The site delivering to Ebay has a Google PR of 6 and receives over 10,000 unique visits on average per month. That average has been consistent since 2004.

    My point is this: If you’re going to work as hard as I did, making links and banners for several hundred pages that contain original and informative content, the piece of real estate working for Ebay is worth more than zero.

    I’m afraid Ebay doesn’t think so.

    I thought slave labor was over. “There is no free lunch” is something Ebay doesn’t believe when they’re the one at the buffet.

    Thanks for reading and good luck to you.

    Reply – Quote
    # 18 May 2010 at 6:48 pm