Tips for Sending Engaged Traffic to eBay

14 October 2008 10 Comments So Far, Join In!

Direct from eBay - they provide tips for sending engaged traffic! This is all a direct copy/paste from the post…

“Engagement” is how we look at a user’s experience on eBay once directed via an affiliate link. Among other metrics, we look at the time that users spend on eBay, the number of pages that they view, and their bidding and buying activity after coming through an affiliate link. For example, a user who visits eBay and then leaves the site immediately is not “engaged”, whereas a user who comes and browses the site and places a bid or makes a purchase is highly “engaged.”

Some GREAT guidance – or the Same old Stuff? You be the Judge…

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 and remember to always make it clear on the affiliate links that they will be redirected to eBay to shop

Use more targeted creatives and tools. 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, so consider using our banners targeted to specific demographics (e.g. male vs. female) or categories. Also, consider using our Editor Kit and eBay To Go (US only) 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 perform 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.

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 incentivizing visits to eBay or registration with eBay –If you are going to give your users cash back or points, tie those rewards to actual valid purchases on eBay. If you incentivize visits or sign up, a user’s primary motivation is typically not browsing or purchasing from eBay, so their value to us is low.

There is some new tips in here… so lets see what we can do to better improve our conversions.

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About the Author, Mark Hansen

Mark Hansen has written 468 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

10 Comments »

Ironman Collectibles said:

Mark-

This comment is unrelated but I have been reading your posts pretty much daily and trying to do them as I get time. I noticed on your DIY Review site you are giving away an eBook when users sign up. I am planning on doing that on a couple sites I have and was wondering if that has worked out well and what plugin are you using in WP to do so. Is it cost effective?

Thank!

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# 14 October 2008 at 3:00 pm

Mark (author) said:

@ Ironman -

I have had the site active since Thursday, last week… exactly 6 days as of this post. There are already 19 subscribers to the email updates. Granted, some are readers of this blog… but others are not.

I am using aWeber to manage the list and it simply redirects to the download page I have masked on the site.

1 – User signs up
2 – they verify aWeber email
3 – on pageload, they get a welcome email, showing the link to the download.

Mark

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# 14 October 2008 at 3:42 pm

Freddie said:

I really have to get into using ebay in my sites. I have become a site flipper lately and noticed on sitepoint many sites that sell integrate a shopping page into it.

It gives the new buyer one more possible revenue stream and many times pushes them over the edge to purchase.

Thanks for the info and I will keep these ideas in mind. They seem to make sense, but I know how you can leave steps out when you get into the middle of a project.

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# 14 October 2008 at 4:40 pm

Alice said:

Avoid simply incentivizing visits to eBay or registration with eBay –If you are going to give your users cash back or points, tie those rewards to actual valid purchases on eBay.

I’ve never heard of this incentive program. How does it work??

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# 14 October 2008 at 8:04 pm

Rochelle said:

Alice,

There are many websites that will give away prizes, such as iPods or Wiis, if people complete multiple offerings, with eBay being one of them. These people want the prizes and will join eBay and place a bid just to fulfill the requirements, then never use the ID they created (because they probably already have an eBay ID they currently use).

There are other ways to do this but the above method is the one I’m most familiar with.

Rochelle

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# 14 October 2008 at 8:09 pm

JeffLeft said:

What i wonder is why they didn’t give these details PRIOR to all those getting the boot! Or maybe that was just a move to save some $$? Who knows anymore….

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# 15 October 2008 at 9:29 am

Brent S said:

Mark,

As you know I am an avid reader of your blog, but have a hard time wrapping my head around this “engagement” and what I consider inconsistent statements from EPN.

I wrote a post on my blog, about how I think EPN is looking at : http://bansstore.com/2008/10/unified-theory-of-engaged-traffic/

Love to have your thoughts on it.

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# 15 October 2008 at 2:39 pm

Mark (author) said:

@ Alice – You have heard of Auctiva right? They have a sister company called KickitBack (link) that encourages visitors to use a toolbar in their web browser and earn a percentage of kickback on all ebay purchases made while logged in the their toolbar.

@ Rochelle – Welcome back again girl!! Good to see ya!

@ Brent –

I could go on and on about this…. the rules of engagment are shady at best. Your post is very well written and hits the nail right on the head with why we are confused!

Mark

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# 16 October 2008 at 4:56 pm

Rochelle said:

@ Mark,

Good post, as usual.

It’s good to be back (well, almost). Three weeks ago I thought I was done working on the house only to find out I needed to thoroughly clean it in ways I never imaged. Now, I’m finally finished with that. Our home passed the air quality test (we got the results today) showing my cleaning was good = no mold. So, next week the drywall and electrical wiring starts, then I get to paint the entire house. We anticipate being done sometime near Thanksgiving. I SOOOO want to get back to my niche stores, not to mention get caught up on your blog posts, but maybe some time in December I’ll have time for that.

Rochelle

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# 16 October 2008 at 7:16 pm