Right, that'll be why there are thousands of people out there making millions from eBay niche sites! The fact is, people aren't looking for sites, they are looking for solutions, for products. They don't always (or even that often) think "let's go check out eBay" - they just Google and see what comes up. If eBay had the monopoly on everything they sell they wouldn't bother having an affiliate program! P.S. Though I will grant you, for some niches "sign-up" commission is quite low in comparison to sales, suggesting that most people are already members of eBay. But that just proves the point - even though they already members, they still don't type in "eBay" to get there, they Google and surf, and often encounter niche sites far before ebay itself.
hanji, I am also in the second camp. Since the switch over on April 1st, I see lots of clicks, but today was my first sale. A whopping 83 cents!! Last month on CJ, I made over 170.00.
"I am also in the second camp. Since the switch over on April 1st, I see lots of clicks, but today was my first sale. A whopping 83 cents!!" ditto
I hate knowing i have to upgrade knowing it is not working properly. Negative feedback for you ebay, tisk. I did not read anything about this being tested, was their even a beta test using actual affiliates? I am surprised feebay are not making us take our payment through paypal.
I really can't complain. My sales are up since the switchover. Of course to be fair part of that is due to one of my sites which just started being indexed by google and yahoo at the same time as the switchover. I immediately started seeing sales when that happened.
Well hello there guys.. I changed one link yesterday to test out EPN and until now these are my stats: Total 0 21 452.05 94.93 Well i have no impressions but 21 clicks lol.. I can't say i am happy, since the tracking system seems to be kinda buggy (??), the reports are kinda useless and my earnings are a bit lower than normal. I was at 154 euros yesterday on CJ. But i guess i'll have to get used to it
I switched over late but my sales seem to be doing better on CJ. For the $25 new user bonus to register, don't they have to make a bid within 30 days on sign up? So this might explain some earnings as being low, maybe we have to wait for the cookies and junk.
Yes, that could be it. And if we assume there is sometimes as long as a week's delay between click and winning bid then new EPN clicks may only just be coming through... I for one have only really had EPN up and running properly for less than a week.
How can I contact ebaypartnernetwork? I can't find any contact form or email. Problem is that rss in italian have coding problems p.e. Lunedì instead of Lunedì. Thanks
My CJ eBay + EPN earnings have just now caught up to the level they should be (compared to last month). Although, my ACRU's are down somewhat, but it seems the last few days the EPN winning bids are more than usual ... (Hope I didn't just jinx myself for reporting the above ) This is encouraging to me -- so I will keep my adwords bids going.
I'm another one in camp 2... I see clicks and have had a few sales but nothing comparable to what i had on CJ, which admittedly wasn't hellish much but a few hundred a month covers the utilities, just as well it's nearly summer and I can turn the heating off
Okay.. maybe we should try to find what's similar between us.. and what's different between the people not having problems. As for me, the majority of my links are type=2 or type=4, I'm also using geo-targetting. type=2 is ItemID and type=4 is custom URL link types. I do have editor kits, but only a few, and according to my tool/creative report, they don't get hit very much. I do use API and RSS, but I manually make the rover links from them (and now I'm glad I did, since there were issues with both not generating correct toolid, etc). Other people in camp 2.. what are you using? Other people that are not noticing any differences between ePN/CJ commissions.. what tools/types are you using? I have a feeling, it's really up to us to figure out the problem... or how to get around the problem, if we want to get back on track. hanji
@ hanji: I use pretty much the same method as you (type=2) - manually creating a rover link using an auction id# pulled from the API or RSS feed. I use this method for 90% of my links. Looks like we're in the same boat - similar technique, similar problems.
Hmmm. Are you using geotargeting? I'm thinking about changing one of my 'old-earners' to use straight US. All of my sites are using type=2 with geotargetting. hanji
Also.. how are you handling customid? Are you populating it with client input data, item information or hardcoded values? hanji
No geotargeting, I'm using straight up US, AU and UK "Item ID" urls (tool id = 10001) I use hardcoded customids on a few sites, but most of the time I populate customid with php - which I guess is the same as hardcoding, since I specify the customid myself (no fancy characters or underscores). e.g. 'rover.ebay.com/blabla/blabla&customid='.$mycustomid.'&blabla';
Interesting. I compared geo with no-geo handling in the link generator based on itemID.. and the rover links are exactly the same. hanji
One things that particularly worries me and could be an explanation for the reduced commissions is that eBay is only paying out commissions when the sale occurs in the same category as the click-through. Hence the reporting of the click category #. I have not had a chance to test this, but any thoughts?
My site that uses mostly rss feeds does not have a single sale with EPN yet. One of my other sites I use editor kits and link generator to specific pages relating to the topic of my page. My few sales have come from the editor kit. On Ebay/CJ the flexible destination tool rocked for me followed by RSS. I am still earning more on Ebay/CJ this month than EPN. Color me worried.
There are several discussions going on over at the eBay Partner Network Forum. I do not see an official response from an eBay team member though. Hopefully this is resolved soon. I would hate to see the eBay affiliate program go down the drain....