PPC & Ebay Aff Products

[lggmaster]

Is PPC a reliable method of promoting Ebay Aff listings? From the looks of things if someone buys a $25 item with ur aff code u get $1.31, requiring at minimum a 4% conversion rate. Is there a price range threshold here, that people only promote $100+ items of are the $25 items profitable using PPC? I am experienced with PPC and have managed close to $300k in various PPC programs. But, my experience yeilds a 2-4% conversion ration for my clients' sites.

Any info would be appreciated.

[hanji]

I use PPC quite a bit now, and I target higher cost auction items with PPC, lower bid items, I focus with SEO. Also remember that ACRUs will get your $25 too.. and those add up very quickly. I also primarily use YSM vs AdWords.

hanji

[squeezeplaycards]

Another key when using PPC with Ebay is to keep your bids as low as possible. I have a couple of different sites using CJ/Ebay but only one runs PPC. The one that I don't run PPC on is broader in context and I get a lot of sales from lower priced items.

[lggmaster]

thanks alot guys, anyone care to throw in a threshold amount of the bids/buyout that are profitable. seems to me that its very unstable given the facts that you must entice the visitor to not only bid, but, to win the auction also. but ppc has been good to me in the past.

[Goran]

I think you'll profit more by buying a well placed banner on a high traffic website rather than paying 20 cents/click for a good PPC keyword

[bujuk]

I've never tried PPC, but is thinking about it.

Just curious, is it possible to use ebay affiliate with PPC without website. if so, what will be the best approach of doing it.

thanks in advance

[depotgang]

No PPC for me... I do a lot of Social Bookmarking and SEO plus I have a couple hundred sites I link together in my network. This actually generates a lot of traffic from one of my sites to the next.

Every time I do PPC I end up losing money. I need to really learn how to do it better.

[geomark]

I'm not a PPC expert. But it really does seem tough to turn a profit with eBay + PPC if you are paying more than a few cents per click. Maybe to get a new site jump started it might make sense.

[PS Sarah]

lggmaster - I too am very experienced in PPC (I am an sem director at an online ad agency). I have had a lot success with promoting ebay with ppc. I keep the bids very low for my keywords. My assumption is that if my listing is on the 2nd page, then the person who is clicking has already gone through all the other paid listings, and hasnt found what they're looking for, or are looking for a better deal. Also, for the keywords where almost all the results are ebay stores, having some of the last clicks can be beneficial if ebay gives credit to the last click. I'm not 100% sure about this though - does anyone know if the cookie from the last click overrides other cookies?

I have experimented with positioning, and even though there is more volume from being on the first page for competitive terms, there definitely was not incremental sales or signups. Instead, I ended up paying more per click and getting more clicks. So I happily sit on the second page and enjoy higher profit margins.

In my first month promoting ebay, I made $x,xxx. I am working on a network of sites which will foxus primarily on SEO so that next time that $x,xxx will be all profit! :)

I do promote high priced items, but I also promote lower priced items. I think it's important to have a mix in your portfolio. ACRUs really give a boost too!

Good luck!

[lggmaster]

thanks for your info sarah. i just took the leap and have burned through $300 in minimum cost clicks through YSM. some decent results in 1 day though 6 ACRU's and 25 buy it nows, credited to my account, lost $2 altogether. but, there is always the auction winners since i have around 250 auctions that had 2-3 days left on them.

and to answer the cookie question, i received from one of ebay's marketing reps, was that the cookie's do override older ones, but, if the user bidded on an item using your cookie, then that item will be represented by your cookie, even, if they have gone through another affiliates link, rebid on the same item, and won.

im gonna test a BANS site after i burn through $500 and run a comparison test to really see if BANS is worth the effort or not. will post back information after i finished testing. and i do know BANS would be somewhat decent with SEO, but, who knows when google will start penalizing BANS sites for automatic content generation.

[bujuk]

Thanks for sharing the tips sarah, really interesting. what is your profit to cost ratio ?

one question from me, are you sending the visitor directly to ebay or to your site ? I'm thinking of testing ppc and not sure which landing page to be used.

thanks

lggmaster - I too am very experienced in PPC (I am an sem director at an online ad agency). I have had a lot success with promoting ebay with ppc. I keep the bids very low for my keywords. My assumption is that if my listing is on the 2nd page, then the person who is clicking has already gone through all the other paid listings, and hasnt found what they're looking for, or are looking for a better deal. Also, for the keywords where almost all the results are ebay stores, having some of the last clicks can be beneficial if ebay gives credit to the last click. I'm not 100% sure about this though - does anyone know if the cookie from the last click overrides other cookies?

I have experimented with positioning, and even though there is more volume from being on the first page for competitive terms, there definitely was not incremental sales or signups. Instead, I ended up paying more per click and getting more clicks. So I happily sit on the second page and enjoy higher profit margins.

In my first month promoting ebay, I made $x,xxx. I am working on a network of sites which will foxus primarily on SEO so that next time that $x,xxx will be all profit! :)

I do promote high priced items, but I also promote lower priced items. I think it's important to have a mix in your portfolio. ACRUs really give a boost too!

Good luck!

[geomark]

Iggmaster and PS Sarah, what percentage of your ACRUs convert? I get about 40% and that turn into paid ACRUs, the others never convert. That seems similar to what other posters have said. I would sure be doing a lot better if that conversion ratio was higher.

[PS Sarah]

bujuk - I drive traffic to custom landing sites. I am pretty sure you cannot drive traffic directly to ebay. They do not allow you to use their display URL or trademarks in your ad copy, and your display url needs to reflect the user's actual destination.

I am currently seeing about 165% ROAS. I'm starting to shift to a SEO focus since my sites are starting to get natural traffic. This will certainly help increase that ROAS!

geomark - I am seeing about 44% conversion rate for ACRUs.

[lggmaster]

i send my traffic to a product information page, on one of my associated bans like stores. i burned through $500 worth of ppc, getting $275 back from ACRU's, another $220 something from conversions, with another 80 open auctions. so far a $5 loss, from the venture, but i made that up with PPC ads on my stores.

i will start promoting 12 of my BANS sites for $500 in PPC, and my other 19 custom built affiliate stores with the same amount in PPC, starting tomorrow. will post back results as they come in.

but, so far the best way of promoting ebay items is the tried and true, no website needed version. 34% ACRU conversion, 19% sell conversion for auctions, with no investment besides time...

though a network of really good SEO sites should turn better results than any other

[chixco]

I am promoting ebay through PPC and I am having some success. so far i have ha about 25% ROI. what i do is pick a specific product that is popular. for example if i want to promote laptops, I'll find a particular model that i know is popular and in demand. For example, if i find that the "Acer Aspire AS5100 5100-5455" is pretty popular, i'll take that as my main keyword and work around it. my keywords will be something like:

Acer Aspire AS5100 5100-5455
Acer Aspire AS5100 5100 5455
Acer Aspire AS5100 5100
Acer Aspire AS5100 5455
Acer Aspire AS5100
Acer Aspire 5100-5455
Acer Aspire 5455
Aspire AS5100 5100-5455
Aspire AS5100 5100 5455
Aspire AS5100 5100
Aspire AS5100
AS5100 5100-5455
and so on and so forth. e

ach and every keyword will be either phrase match (enclosed in "") or exact match (enclosed in []) never broad match. you won't believe how low your click costs will be. also in such a case, don't be tempted to bid for "acer aspire" or just "acer" as these will be costly.

people do search for specific terms like that, and this traffic is very targeted, coz if a person searches "Acer Aspire AS5100 5100-5455" then you know that is exactly what he is looking for rather than he if he searches for "laptop", how will you know what laptop he is looking for.

The good thing about ebay is that you can send the visitor to any page you wish, and so what i'd do is send the them to the search results page for "Acer Aspire AS5100" on ebay.

How do you get them to click on your ad?
The targeted searcher will probably have an idea of how much it costs to buy an "Acer Aspire AS5100". Since ebay is an auction place, the auctions usually start at a much lower price than the retail price of the item. Lets say the retail price is $659.99. on ebay, there will be several items still in auction from $0.01 to $679.99 and some BIN. I decide on a realistic price, in this case i'd go for something like $489.95 (just pick something believable or else people will think its to good to believe and not click your ad or you will get less conversions if they do click it). I then write an ad something like:

Acer Aspire AS5100 from $489.95
Get the Acer Aspire AS5100 blah blah.
blah blah blah
www.mydomain.com/acer-aspire-as5100

The keywords will not get massive amounts of searches, but they will get searches, especially if it is a popular product. your clickers will be very targeted because 1. you have mentioned the exact product they are looking for 2. because the price is in the ad, they know you are selling something and so if they click it, then they are considering buying it.

Once they get to the ebay search results for the keyword at hand, they will see prices are even lower than what you had in your ad. Bargain. many will already be part of ebay, they will sign in and begin to bid, or search for similar items round ebay. those who are not part of ebay may sign up and begin to bid, others may leave because they don't trust shopping on ebay.

If the people you sent to ebay win the auction, you get a percentage of the ebay fees. if they were a new sign up, you get the ACRU. other people tend to start browsing around ebay to see what bargains they may find and buy those. you get commission.

If you do this across many products, you make a fair bit.

1.always make sure you test first. I started with 1 product and then kept adding more 1 by 1. i only move on to adding another when i make a little profit on the previous. coz if not, i have to change it.

2. Make sure that there is a huge supply of the product on ebay an that sellers restock the item. if you send 1000 people to ebay and there are only 9 of the products, it doesn't make sense. The only good thing is that with this pin point targeting, the traffic is a bit slower.

3. Be sure not to send the visitors straight to the rover link. redirect them through your domain, otherwise you won't get your commissions.

you get some strange cases like, i sent some clicks to some electronic appliance on ebay, but this woman ended up buying 7 bottles of perfume lol. not complaining. thats a good this about ebay, something for everyone. the other thing as well is that you have to e a bit patient to see results coz auctions take a while to end. Every now and again I see random commissions and ACRUs popping in for random products at random times, because some people i send there just decide to buy something else days after you referred them.

Luckily i have found some products which get a rily good amount of traffic and do well, but i cant reveal that, now can i?

Hope this helps with ebay and PPC !!

[bujuk]

bujuk - I drive traffic to custom landing sites. I am pretty sure you cannot drive traffic directly to ebay. They do not allow you to use their display URL or trademarks in your ad copy, and your display url needs to reflect the user's actual destination.


That is my understanding. thanks for the clarification. I'm just confuse when someone said (from his ebook) he is doing that with amazon.com affiliate and we should be able to do that with cj. I'm not sure if it is ok with amazon, I dont promote amazon.

chixco, thanks for sharing your approach. really appreciate for the info.

[bujuk]

... redirect them through your domain, otherwise you won't get your commissions.
..

chixco, I cannot find anything on "redirect" issue in ebay TOC. I presume this is acceptable practice ?

[ewex]

but, so far the best way of promoting ebay items is the tried and true, no website needed version. 34% ACRU conversion, 19% sell conversion for auctions, with no investment besides time...

What do you mean by no website needed version? Sending visitors directly to ebay? Why would that be no investment but time? It depends how you are getting traffic there.

[ewex]

chixco, I cannot find anything on "redirect" issue in ebay TOC. I presume this is acceptable practice ?

Ebay says you can't send directly to ebay, so I doubt they would allow you to just redirect through your own domain to their site without a separate landing page.

[geomark]

Ebay says you can't send directly to ebay, so I doubt they would allow you to just redirect through your own domain to their site without a separate landing page.

But isn't that what chixco is doing?

[ewex]

But isn't that what chixco is doing?

That's precisely my point. CJ will eventually figure it out and probably ban him or take the money back.

[bujuk]

I found this posting in ebay affiliate forum. its from ebay staff.
"Redirects from search engines are not against eBay Terms & Conditions - but they are against Google conditions and may result in your website being removed from their index."

here is the forum

http://forums.ebay.com/db1/thread.jspa?messageID=200998107&forumID=118&x#200998107

[lggmaster]

What do you mean by no website needed version? Sending visitors directly to ebay? Why would that be no investment but time? It depends how you are getting traffic there.

no website needed as in different methods of sending the user straight to the site, using tinyurl or direct link. i'm afraid i cannot go into too much details on how there is no investment costs other than time, and the ways i promote each item that i am currently promote. anyone who has been on this forum or the internet for that matter has an idea of what methods (legal) i am talking about.

other than that i am showing a lot of success with one of my custom made ebay stores, with traffic from none other than stumbleupon. 1/5/08 i received 390 visitors from stumbleupon, of that, i received 2200 page views, and over 300 clicks out to ebay. 4 ACRU's, no sales but i cant complain. i am definitely leaning towards ebay store sites, with, SEO or at least getting them into stumbleupon, at the rate im getting people from there.

[SFOD_D223]

3. Be sure not to send the visitors straight to the rover link. redirect them through your domain, otherwise you won't get your commissions.

What is the "rover" link?

[lggmaster]

What is the "rover" link?

"rover" is the ebay subdomain that their affiliate links cross through to register the CJ pid to the user that visits ebay.

[bujuk]

...every keyword will be either phrase match (enclosed in "") or exact match (enclosed in []) never broad match. you won't believe how low your click costs will be...

Just curious, what is the difference between phrase match "" and exact match [] in term of the effectiveness ?

[chixco]

Just curious, what is the difference between phrase match "" and exact match [] in term of the effectiveness ?

lets say say you are focusing on the keyword: blue red widget

if you use exact match [], your ad will only appear if the words are in that exact order. if the searcher mixed up the words and typed in blue widget red, then your ad would not show. however, with phrase match "" then your ad will appear for all the different arrangements of word in the keywords, but, all the words have to be present. for example, if someone just typed in blue red or blue widget, your ads would not show and thats what you are trying to achieve.

[bujuk]

chixco, thanks for the clarification. I'll do a ppc test for amazon affiliate. I dont want to play around with ebay since the TOC is still not clear. just dont want to risk my ebay account.

[geomark]

no website needed as in different methods of sending the user straight to the site, using tinyurl or direct link. i'm afraid i cannot go into too much details on how there is no investment costs other than time, and the ways i promote each item that i am currently promote. anyone who has been on this forum or the internet for that matter has an idea of what methods (legal) i am talking about.

other than that i am showing a lot of success with one of my custom made ebay stores, with traffic from none other than stumbleupon. 1/5/08 i received 390 visitors from stumbleupon, of that, i received 2200 page views, and over 300 clicks out to ebay. 4 ACRU's, no sales but i cant complain. i am definitely leaning towards ebay store sites, with, SEO or at least getting them into stumbleupon, at the rate im getting people from there.

Good stuff. Have you done anything with Squidoo? I know they got Google slapped but are they a good potential source of traffic for ebay stores?

[lggmaster]

ive had little luck with traffic from squidoo, so, i just just dont bother with them anymore.

[CallMeDPit]

I found this posting in ebay affiliate forum. its from ebay staff.
"Redirects from search engines are not against eBay Terms & Conditions - but they are against Google conditions and may result in your website being removed from their index."

here is the forum

http://forums.ebay.com/db1/thread.jspa?messageID=200998107&forumID=118&x#200998107

FYI - note that message is from 2005. I'm curious as to what the deal is now?

[bujuk]

I found the latest update few days back. the answer is "no" we are not allowed to send the visitor directly to ebay. updated on June 1, 2007. read here for details :

http://forums.ebay.com/db1/thread.jspa?threadID=1000495149&tstart=0&mod=1179400135263

"2. Terms and Conditions Update for Paid Search Campaigns

eBay’s US Affiliate Compensation Section 1.0 will be updated on June 1st as follows:

a. Search Engines. You will not be compensated for paid search traffic purchased from Google.com, Yahoo.com, MSN.com, nor from any of their content networks, such as Google AdSense, Yahoo! Publisher Network, and MSN ContentAds, if it is linked directly to the eBay.com, eBay Express, or eBay Store domains (not “Commission Earning Activity”). The change in policy is limited to the eBay.com US program, and to the three search engines stated above. Linking to a non eBay domain is allowed."

[wguttrid]

.

3. Be sure not to send the visitors straight to the rover link. redirect them through your domain, otherwise you won't get your commissions.


I curious what is met by this point? Not sure what this means as I thought you want to send them through the rover link with your PID?