eBay's Affiliate Program

[digitalpoint]

Has anyone mucked around with eBay's affiliate program? I started mucking around with it a bit, and I thought I was doing decent with it (making a few thousand dollars per month), but then I read that their top affiliate makes $1.3M per month, they have 25 affiliates making $100k+ per month and 100 affiliates making $25k+ per month.

I would like to know how in god's green earth they are able to do that without using tricks that would violate eBay's affiliate terms????

- Shawn

[Such Great Heights]

I have not heard people are making this much money with it, but it sounds like it is worth checking out at least. i'd be happy with a couple thousand a month. :D

any tips for a newbie to the eBay affiliate prgram?

[digitalpoint]

{shrug} I'm a newbie to it too... They have a pretty good info on it though... http://affiliates.ebay.com/ including helpful tools and such.

As far as the stats, those are numbers from eBay (in their recent newsletter).

- Shawn

[Such Great Heights]

{shrug} I'm a newbie to it too... They have a pretty good info on it though... http://affiliates.ebay.com/ including helpful tools and such.

So how long have you been doing it? And you already make a few thousand a month?

I was just thinking that if a retail store was to have an eBay affiliate link on their product pages, or the main catagory pages at least, and said something to the effect of "Couldn't find what you are looking for here at [storename]? Try eBay for that special something." and have that be an affiliate link.

It's like you are helping the customer/visitor, but could this hurt you if they see that right away and actually don't look through your store enough.

Or do a lot of people do this?

[digitalpoint]

I've been doing it since mid-December, so not that long.

eBay has a nice editor kit for affiliates on their website... you can display a box of ebay listings that are based on a keyword you pass to it. Similar to how Google AdSense serves up relevant ads (except with eBay you need to feed it the keywords specifically).

- Shawn

[Such Great Heights]

I've been doing it since mid-December, so not that long.

eBay has a nice editor kit for affiliates on their website... you can display a box of ebay listings that are based on a keyword you pass to it. Similar to how Google AdSense serves up relevant ads (except with eBay you need to feed it the keywords specifically).

- Shawn

I need to start working from home, so I have time to do all this. This driving to work everyday thing, is killing my progress.

I am signing up now, to see how it all works, and see what I can get out of it.

[digitalpoint]

You will want to signup at http://www.cj.com Commission Junction is the company that handles their affiliate program (and hundreds of other companies as well).

- Shawn

[Such Great Heights]

well i signed up and now i'm ready to start messin' around with it.

wish me luck. :)

[GuyFromChicago]

I'm not in the E-bay program yet....but will be soon.

How would you compare it to the Amazon program? Any major pros/cons?

[digitalpoint]

Totally depends on your website users. Two totally different programs. eBay you really need to do volume to make any sort of money...

- Shawn

[s2kinteg916]

a few thousand a month ? wow you must get huge traffic... i manage to make a nickel with close to 1500 uniques a day

[digitalpoint]

digitalpoint.com isn't the only site I own... but it's the largest. digitalpoint.com gets close to 50,000 unique visitors per day. :)

- Shawn

[s2kinteg916]

what kinda conversion ratio's are you getting with the ebay program?

also how many visitors are u sending them daily ?

[digitalpoint]

Conversion is pretty high... All they need to do is register, make a bid or sell something in 30 days.

- Shawn

[s2kinteg916]

are visitors actually clicking on items ? or entering via popup ?

im having a hard time sending them visitors...

what would u recommend converts the best ?

[digitalpoint]

I would imagine pop-ups would be the best converter...

In truth though, unless you get 50,000+ unique visitors per day that see the ads, it's probably not even worth the effort.

- Shawn

[iconv]

Any change of your sharing your approach to the couple of thousand a month - what kind of site are you using to generate this kind of revenue, and how do you position the ebay links - you'd need quite a bit of volume I'd say for this to work, in addition to relevant context delivery?

[csn]

Has anyone mucked around with eBay's affiliate program? I started mucking around with it a bit, and I thought I was doing decent with it (making a few thousand dollars per month),
- Shawn

How exactly are you promoting it?

[digitalpoint]

Can't give away all the secrets. :)

[csn]

Ah, throw us a crumb (or two) :)

[eCommando]

I think sites making $1.3 mil a month are large portal sites who's been there for a long time now. Ebay program keeps paying for the bids of those people you referred to them right?

Just wondering how hard to get new signups since a lot of people already have ebay account.

Their affiliate program that lets you list items seem interesting.

[disgust]

so are you not even willing to say where on your sites they appear? I haven't seen them anywhere.. eh, just curious :)

[digitalpoint]

Sorry... not giving away secrets that give me an advantage. :)

[chachi]

That isn't you in the elevator ebay commercial is it?

[schlottke]

Im interested in knowing now, ill be searching.. ;)

[misohoni]

I know Digitalpoint isn't going to give you any crumbs - but this is how I'd approach it (If it works I want 10%!):

Place the ebay tool on the homepage/perhaps in a pop up. Make the design of the ad stand out, so that they are tempted to click on it.

If I have a site which requires someone to join, I'd also include the ebay tool on the page - and list the benefits.

I'd also perhaps place the ebay tool in any newsletter type emails that I send out.

Ebay has a dynamic link which you can amend and place on relevant pages (i.e. link to buying Robbie Williams products on a Robbie Williams page).

That's how I'd approach it.

[digitalpoint]

Also, eBay has a relatively new API interface for getting auctions. So if you have stuff that is classified by keywords, you could use the API to format your own ads based on keywords (like items relevant to the content).

That approach of course only would work for certain types of sites.

For those that don't want to get into the programming side, they also have an editor kit to help display listings specific to any keywords.

[misohoni]

...and what about intergrating Paypal also?

Paypal is now giving commissions on people you refer...could make quite a bit of money from this also. (Remember my 10% please)

[messneger]

At Commission Junction, you can sign up for Ebay.com, but also for Ebay.ca and probably even more regional versions of the ultimate auction site. But I don't get it, because what if a Canadian or European visitor clicks your Ebay.com affiliate link and signs up? You get nothing? That would be illogical, since many sellers ship worldwide anyway. Or am I wrong here.

[csn]

eBay's API allows only 50 queries per day. Seems really low. At least that's for the $100 "self-certifying" license, don't know if the other more expensive licenses ($100's to $1000's) allow more (probably).

[younghistorians]

eBay's API allows only 50 queries per day. Seems really low. At least that's for the $100 "self-certifying" license, don't know if the other more expensive licenses ($100's to $1000's) allow more (probably).

Wow that is really low. Are you saying that eBay wants us to pay to make money with them (in terms of licenses)?

On a side note, ive been seeing more and more spyware toolbars and such that are packaging affiliate "links" in their program. For instance, everytime I visit eBay I see my browser going through some type of affiliate link. I've run Ad Aware many times but have found nothing. Maybe this is how some of the top affiliates are doing it?

[SENewbie]

I signed up for Ebay's program about 2 months ago and made $0.25 in a week, and that was with about 50 clicks. I thought it might be a good substitute for some of my lower paying pages on Adsense, but that was not the case.

According to CJ, the CPC is around $2 last I checked (some of the ad formats have CPCs as high as $5) so you'd have to send literally hundreds of thousands of clicks/month to be one those super affiliates. Plus you get extra bonuses for getting a certain number of bids/actions per month.

If you could figure out a good way to integrate EBay into your site, there is the potential to make some good money, but in any case you need a ton of traffic.

[csn]

More on eBay's API licenses:

Individual API License
o For use solely by you or your Company to manage your (or your Company's) activities on www.eBay.com.
o No Annual Membership Fee.
o Free Sandbox (test environment) usage, limited to 5000 API calls per day.
o Permission to Self-Certify a single application for $100 to gain authorization to use the API Production servers outside the non-public test environment ("SANDBOX")*.
o After Self-Certification, free Production usage, limited to 50 API calls per day (AddItem and RelistItem calls excepted from the limit).

Commercial API License
o Permits the sale and distribution of any API applications you develop.
o Annual Membership Fee is applied per your Membership Tier (Basic - $500, Professional - $1000, Enterprise - $5000).
o Free, unlimited Sandbox* usage.
o Standard Certification process required before any applications can gain authorization to use the API Production servers (outside the Sandbox). Certification Fees are applied per your Membership Tier.
o Unlimited Production usage. Usage Fees are applied per your Membership Tier (Basic gets 30,000 free API calls/month, above that, and the other plans are charged $1.25 - 2.90 per 1000 calls).

http://developer.ebay.com/DevProgram (sorry, I don't have enough posts for live links)

[Help Desk]

Well it sounds like DigitalPoint isn't using the API. Too bad there is such a huge price. If it was lower I would create and open source PHP implementation of it. I did the same for Amazon.com web services. Amazon's only limitation is that you one make one call per second and it's free.

50,000 unique visitors per day is a lot!

[Help Desk]

Hell, if people donate the $500 for a year's subscription, I'll write a php app myself and release openly under the GPL.

If you're crazy enough, donate here (http://www.thinkbling.com). I'll know what it's for because nobody ever donates. ;)

[jdflemng]

I've done pretty well on eBay by serving a niche. I used the eBay API to create my site, www.powertothebuyer.com. It is a faster and easier way to search eBay, and offers search results via email. By improving on eBay's search interface and allowing users to find what they're looking for faster, I've had good success. Maybe one day I'll be in that super affiliate tier :)

[IPM101]

Actually, i have had decent luck with the ebay program. i have made $80.40 in the past 6 days. I have a fan site for vida guerra (she's hot!) and it is generated some decent traffic. You can see how i am doing it at vidafever dotcom.

[Brad]

I have an ebay store and i advertise it in adwords with my affiliate link, I make a few dollars on it and get free advertising.

[Mia]

Hell, if people donate the $500 for a year's subscription, I'll write a php app myself and release openly under the GPL.

If you're crazy enough, donate here (http://www.thinkbling.com). I'll know what it's for because nobody ever donates. ;)

No offense, but you might want to concentrate on other things, like finishing some of your other projects that do not work, that and unhacking your hacked forums :)

Not trying to be a jerk mind you, just thought you might want to know that your forum has been hacked.

Believe me, if the "ad sharing" mod you made actually worked, I'd be the first to donate.

Take care!

[Help Desk]

No offense, but you might want to concentrate on other things, like finishing some of your other projects that do not work, that and unhacking your hacked forums :)

Not trying to be a jerk mind you, just thought you might want to know that your forum has been hacked.

Believe me, if the "ad sharing" mod you made actually worked, I'd be the first to donate.

Take care!

Unfortunately, real life is keeping me from fixing anything to do with this hobby right now.

[Mia]

Understood.. I know how you feel. There are some great beginnings in some of the things you have started! You'll get there!

[Help Desk]

Understood.. I know how you feel. There are some great beginnings in some of the things you have started! You'll get there!
I am also trying to get my host to restore from tape. The first step is getting them to admit that they have tape backups. The next step is persuading them to do so.

[Mia]

Yeah, your host should have been on top of the phpbb thing. Our network admin here is on nanog, bugtraq, etc., and knows of a problem or possible problem 99.9999% of the time. We like to perform preventitive maintenance.

Oddly enough I have never seen so many phpbb sites hacked, especially given the fix was quite old. Good luck.

BTW, we do not do tape. It was a PITA. We use rysnc and backup to large file servers that we have on site.

[aspforum]

So, what do most people here prefer? Amazon aws or ebay's api? Does it depend on the site or is one usually better than the other. I've seen a lot more amazon aws sites and very few ebay affiliate sites myself. Can someone post some urls of sites that make more than $1000 a month from either program?

[digitalpoint]

eBay's API costs money, Amazon's is free, that's probably why you see more people using Amazon's.

[digitalpoint]

Been nothing but smooth for me.

[schlottke]

eBay's API is free starting yesterday, is it not?

[chachi]

where does it say that?

[Such Great Heights]

where does it say that?
Got a letter to my CJ account ...

Dear Publisher:

Join the Affiliate API Tier FREE - eBay Removes Sign-Up Fee
Beginning June 1, it will be FREE to join the Affiliate API Tier as part of the eBay Developers Program. The removal of the prior sign-up fee is in direct recognition of the accomplishments of this tier, from which we have seen dramatic success for our affiliates.

There wasn't a link in there though, otherwise I would have posted it for you. :)

[chachi]

Guess I need to check my email filters :) THanks

[chachi]

Ok, well this does not mean you can make unlimited calls to their servers right?

[Such Great Heights]

To be honest, I'm not sure. I'm still confused at the API all together.

I wish I was smarter. :confused:

Doh, nevermind.
I did see at the very end of this page http://developer.ebay.com/programs/affiliates/affiliateapiguide
it says you can make 1.5 million calls per day.

I think that's pretty good. :)

[chachi]

heh, well I know that. It used to be that you had to pay for your calls. I can't find that page anymore. Anyone who uses the API know if the different call plans have changed?

I just noticed this page http://developer.ebay.com/programs/affiliates/terms

[english-test.net]

Hi, could anyone please tell us how to get accepted by eBay? We've tried to sign up through CJ but were declined.
Thanks in advance.

[Mia]

Hi, could anyone please tell us how to get accepted by eBay? We've tried to sign up through CJ but were declined.
Thanks in advance.

Did they give a reason for the decline?

[digitalpoint]

Their program is handled through CJ, so that's how you would need to do it. If you were declined (and you don't know why), I would suggest emailing them.

[english-test.net]

we emailed eBay but got no response. Do you think it makes sense to ask CJ?

[Mia]

we emailed eBay but got no response. Do you think it makes sense to ask CJ?

Yes, because they will respond.

[Shoemoney]

hmm im going to check this ebay affil out

[nikolay]

If you work with australian or european ebay affiliate program and US citizens sign up with them. Do you get paid then? how does this work and what are ebay rules?
All i know that ebay says since you signed up on one of ebay sites you get access to all ebay sites with the same login and password.

[digitalpoint]

If you signup for the eBay AU affiliate program (as an example), you get paid for anyone signing up for a new account at ebay.com.au (regardless of country they are from).

[Blogmaster]

Shawn, you need to be a dedicated content writer ... the type that blogs about anything and everything that might be for sale one ebay. Stories about your grandma's old washing machine etc. A whole site about ebay with 1k related pages will do it :)

[nikolay]

hey everyone, need your help.I live outside US and i don't have the possibility to work with lots of great affiliate programs which are offered for US citizens. But i am also able to make money on the internet though i make couple of times less money than i would make on the US market. I'm really interested in eBay affiliate program but the problem is that CJ doesn't accept webmasters from Ukraine(where i am from).But i have already been working with eBay for about 1 year with the help of my US friend. He added my website to his CJ account and sent me my comissions every month.But now he moved and he is no longer making noney on the internet.So why am i writing all this?I am looking for a partner, who has a possibility to work with CJ and eBay and who will include my website into his account in order i can work with eBay. What will you get for this?You'll be getting part of my total month comissions, about 20-30 percent of total amount what i've earned, but it can be discussed and be more.All you'll have to do is to add my web-site into your account, e-mail me codes with couple of text links at first so i can put them on my web-site and start. And i'll probably need a report for my web-site with number of impressions,clicks,leads,bids and CTR ones or twice a month. So as you see it's nothing difficult and it's really easy to cooperate.Then you'll send me what i've earned with the help of one of the e-money systems like e-gold.com or webmoney.com or others. As you have already understood i am looking for an honest person who won't fool me with stats and money i made(because i won't be able to see it) and who will actually send money to me.My website is english language and i drive US traffic there.But i think that there are lots of honest people here ready to help.Preferably, this should be a person who already works with eBay. PM me who is intersted.

[affiliateintel]

I started promoting ebays affiliate program with adwords, I found i had better results
advertising to countrys like the UK Australia cause just about everyone in the Usa
knows of ebay. I was using just one or two keyword, for the uk i was using the keywords like brtish cars. uk cars etc

[mickyboy73]

Hi,
I'm new to this forum and found it while searching for keywords to use in my Metatags.

I'm not here to shamelessly plug my web site or ebook that I have just released for the UK and USA eBay affiliate programs. Instead I'd like to share my views and knowledge of the program and hear what others think of it, both good and bad.

eBay trades in more than 33 international countries with over 157 registered users worldwide with 75 million based in the USA and 10 million in the UK (where I live).

eBay's affiliate program must be the mother of all affiliate programs as far as size and potential scope for earning an income through promoting other peoples items. Essentially this is what the program is, an affiliate program which works no differently to any other affiliate program.

The only thing that is slightly different is the angle of things. Normally a company offers a product for sale and you sign up to their affiliate program to promote the item for which you get paid a commission for each sale.

Essentially eBay's affiliate program is no different except that with eBay, instead of having one or two items to promote you actually have 55 million items to choose from at any one time as this is the number of auctions running on eBay continuously.

So, the trick of this game and to make some money out of it is to choose the category that you wish to promote, maybe you belong to a forum that deals in antiques for example. With eBay's affiliate tool box you can set your affiliate link to send your targeted visitors from the forum you post in to the top level category, and second level category or even a specific item.

There are easy and simple ways on which to create your affiliate link to take visitors to any category or indeed any specific page on any eBay worldwide site.

To secret to making money out of this is, as always, a targeted audience. No one is going to follow a link that leads them to a product page which is of no interest to them but by offering antique collectors a link directly to a page full of items that are of interest to them or indeed a specific item then you are more likely to get more click throughs. All the visitor needs to do then to earn you money is to either place a bid, use the buy it now option or the bigger money maker, register with eBay before they can bid or buy.

eBay pays varying commissions according to the number of people that join, bid or buy in a one month period. They also pay different amounts according to the country of the affiliate program you are promoting. The UK and USA has some big differences in price structure and volumes.

As you can see, making an income from eBay's affiliate program is not hard or really any different from any other affiliate program except that it's actually easier.

Sorry for waffling on but it's a subject close to my heart and of great interest to me. Oh and it's also responsible for a large portion of my income each month ;-)

Regards,
Michael Sherriff

[bloodwrath]

Hi im willing to pay some one to make a php site for my ebay api
im ok with php and have other aff site up and running
but this is way over my head
plz PM me if interested

[ishiiboy]

During the course of the auction it is likely that the bidder will place many bids with the first one being placed through your affiliate link. My fear is that all subsequent bids, including the winning bid, will be placed from within ebay's site--cutting you out of the loop. Is this how things work?

[Blogmaster]

I hope that Google will come out with an affiliate program for it's EBayish service offered in extension to the new payment system.

[onedollar]

I hope that Google will come out with an affiliate program for it's EBayish service offered in extension to the new payment system.
That will be some serious competition to ebay, I guess.

[Blogmaster]

And a true blessing for affiliates if they're doing it right.

[alexzin]

hey everyone, need your help.I live outside US and i don't have the possibility to work with lots of great affiliate programs which are offered for US citizens. But i am also able to make money on the internet though i make couple of times less money than i would make on the US market. I'm really interested in eBay affiliate program but the problem is that CJ doesn't accept webmasters from Ukraine(where i am from).But i have already been working with eBay for about 1 year with the help of my US friend. He added my website to his CJ account and sent me my comissions every month.But now he moved and he is no longer making noney on the internet.So why am i writing all this?I am looking for a partner, who has a possibility to work with CJ and eBay and who will include my website into his account in order i can work with eBay. What will you get for this?You'll be getting part of my total month comissions, about 20-30 percent of total amount what i've earned, but it can be discussed and be more.All you'll have to do is to add my web-site into your account, e-mail me codes with couple of text links at first so i can put them on my web-site and start. And i'll probably need a report for my web-site with number of impressions,clicks,leads,bids and CTR ones or twice a month. So as you see it's nothing difficult and it's really easy to cooperate.Then you'll send me what i've earned with the help of one of the e-money systems like e-gold.com or webmoney.com or others. As you have already understood i am looking for an honest person who won't fool me with stats and money i made(because i won't be able to see it) and who will actually send money to me.My website is english language and i drive US traffic there.But i think that there are lots of honest people here ready to help.Preferably, this should be a person who already works with eBay. PM me who is intersted.


I think it's the illegal for which US citizens help you about that your said.

[DomainMagnate]

digitalpoint.com isn't the only site I own... but it's the largest. digitalpoint.com gets close to 50,000 unique visitors per day. :)

- Shawn

quote of the day :D

[Blogmaster]

That comment is old. How many uniques are it now?

[gurzilla]

Hi im willing to pay some one to make a php site for my ebay api
im ok with php and have other aff site up and running
but this is way over my head
plz PM me if interested

I can supply you with a great script for your eBay affiliate websites.

This script rocks!

[shanka]

payout via check i dont like

[DomainMagnate]

That comment is old. How many uniques are it now?

Probably a few millions, but that's just a wild guess ;)

~MG

[surya]

i am a newbie as well..
but i when i try to signup for an affiliate, they lead me to cj and cj
simply rejects me:(
any suggestion for me as to how to get rid of this??
any other way to join as an ebay affiliate?

[weblomoney]

eBay affiliate programm is worth using only and only if you get tons of traffic or have means to drive that much traffic to your site, otherwise it is just like using those paid survey type sites which will make your couple of bucks here and there but not much.

[msollicito]

Some of you may have notice a post in one of the other threads. We believe we have come up with a great tool to help you make more money from your website using the eBay affiliate program (which is now called the eBay Partner Network - eBay dropped Commission Junction). As a number of people have pointed out, the eBay affiliate/Partner Network program is one of the most generous out there - the problem until now has been how to easily get visitors to click through and bid/purchase eBay listings so that you can earn the money that eBay is offering! Now we have the answer!

eBars are an eBay certified eBay compatible application, a bit like Google Adsense for eBay - they "sniff" your web page and display ads that are relevant to your visitors, context sensitive and time sensitive - all the listings displayed will be current listings that will not expire for at least 30 mins, and the current prices are given below the listings too. Also unlike Google Adsense, the links are to specific listings of a specific product - much more likely to result in a bid/purchase than the Adsense links which tend to be links to a site rather than a specific product.

In a couple of seconds you can see what an eBar would look like in your website - just go to the ebarster website (I cant use urls right now but you can work it out!) and if you like it, you can get an eBar on your website within a couple of minutes - very little html knowledge is required!

Please let me know if you have feedback/questions!

Thanks
Michelle Sollicito
Make your website pay with eBars and eBay

[save]

From what I can see the Ebay Affiliate program has gone to the dogs, only paying for clicks now which is really stupid.