The ebay RSS feed does not seem to be tracking either clicks or referral commissions. I've contacted eBay and am awaiting their response but thought I'd see if anyone else is having the same problem or whether it is specific to my account. Thanks in advance
You should be able to see your CJ PID in the (massive) url when you rollover an item. If you can't, then there's a problem. What parser are you using to display the rss?
I'm not an Ebay affiliate, but try to stay up on affiliate RSS stuff. Here's a couple warnings I've posted at other forums about EBAY RSS datafeeds. The auction heading does not contain your affiliate link, it's just a plain link,without your ID so if anyone clicks the title instead of the body links, it wont track. Now eBay is aware and working on a fix. http://forums.ebay.com/db1/thread.jspa?threadID=1000362383&tstart=0&mod=1160415477750 I found an article on DIGG that I wanted to share heretoo. I'm not sure if everything he says is accurate, but think it's worth looking at. He warns about ways that you could lose money using eBay RSS feeds. He cautions that some methods could cause your links not to track and makes some good points that should be checked. KNOW YOUR RSS: RSS affiliates are not getting paid http://knowyourrss.blogspot.com/2006/10/rss-affiliates-are-not-getting-paid.html I'm not even an Ebay affiliate, just like to share relevant news when I happen to see it. Hope this helps!
There are other issues too. I use Feedburner as referenced in the post but did not use the track clicks option which the author claimed was part of the issue. I've verified that my ID is in every published link. On one site I know for a fact that a visitor came through my site and placed not one, but two items up for bid. Payment is not the issue that concerns me as it appears we get stiffed by eBay for listing fees - or am I wrong? What concerns me is that the click through was not recorded in my stats. It is a small niche site and there were zero clicks on that day. Pretty good bad data. So it raises the question about clicks that should earn revenue. I do know this about the visitor: Mac + Safari. I wonder if that is part of this one issue?
Thanks to all for your responses. The RSS is actually back up and working now so the problem has obviously been resolved. didadel - is it the RSS that is still not tracking for you?
Tracking is delayed anywhere between 4 and 24 hours. Tracking of clicks is often closer to "real time" than tracking of commissions. If I was you I'd consider contacting CJ through your account to notify them of the problem.
It varies by advertiser. Within each advertiser's detail page, there's a "Batch Process Transactions" field. If it's not batched, it's usually reported at the next hourly/half-hourly update. From CJ's help section: Batch processing means an advertiser sends groups of transactions to Commission Junction at regularly scheduled intervals (i.e., once a week or once a month, etc.). Transactions that occur with an advertiser using batch processing may not immediately appear in your transaction reports until Commission Junction processes them (after we receive them). BTW, Hello Linda . A few years since I'd said hi. I see you guys are doing wonderful work on revenews. Tuan
Yep RSS is finaly working again. Hate to think of the commissions we missed. How long was it out for - a couple of weeks? This screw up (and all the other Rover problems) from eBay is just another reminder why we all should diversify our income.
I know. I've asked eBay but they've not been forthcoming with an answer as to where all our affiliate commissions have gone! As you said, at least we're all back up and running.