ShoeMoney eBay AuctionAds Launch

Can you use negative keywords?

 

Hello,

Seems like a few of you are new to the eBay affiliate program and are expecting AdSense-like results. Here is a bit I've learned.

The eBay program is all about high volume. With AdSense you look at CTR, so impressions vs. clicks. With eBay, you have two other things to consider: bid through rate (BTR), and auction win rate (AWR). I just made those acronyms up.

Once a user clicks your ad, she also needs to bid. The good news is that once your cookie is laid down ANY bids the user makes are potentially your sales (unless your cookie is overwritten by another eBay cookie, e.g., a fellow AuctionAder). BTR are usually pretty high, especially if you get a regular eBay user. One bidder can bid on multiple auctions, so the BTR rates could be well over 100%. (Note: Some of the smaller international eBay programs are still paying out per bid, but it's pennies.)

After users bid, they then need to win the auction. Only when they win, do you get that sweet, sweet commission. AWR varies wildly. Sometimes a bidder wins a bunch of auctions, sometimes none.

Here are some numbers to consider (all rates are generous estimates):

1000 impressions * 10% CTR = 100 possible bidders
100 possible bidders * 50% BTR = 50 bidders
50 bidders * 10% AWR = 5 wins with commission

Now, how commission is figured is interesting. You get commissions on eBay's revenue, which are the fees eBay earns on a winning auction. These are Insertion Fees and Final Value Fees. You can see how these add up here:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/fees.html

Your commission is a percentage of these fees, from 40 to 65% based on sales volume. AuctionAds is consolidated under one account, so I'd expect them to hit 57.5 to 60%.

So here's an example commission:

Winning bid: $39.93
Insertion fee: $.40 (based on the start price of $1.00)
Final Value Fee: $25.00 * 5.25% + $14.93 * 3.25% = $1.31 + $.49 = $1.80
Total fees: $.40 + $1.80 = $2.20
Commission: $2.20 * 60% = $1.32

So, with this auction & the numbers above, 100 clicks COULD earn you 5 * $1.32 = $6.60.

You also earn a direct commission when a new user signs up for eBay. They need to click through your ad, register for eBay, then make a bid. You can earn from $12 - $22 per sign up. This is really good stuff. It works especially well when are in an area where people don't realize the niche's items are available on eBay or when you feature a product and can show auctions well below retail.

Shoemoney mentioned the earnings take a while to develop. Very true. Once you get your cookies out there, you are banking on a crazy high BTR over the cookies' life span, which is one month, I think.

Hope this helps explain a little bit how the program works and what you can expect. Please add to or correct this information.

Good luck,
Ty

 

Nice idea shoemoney! I wish you the best.
Thanks for the explanation tkroll.

 

Great summary, tkroll!

Actually, that kind of summary would be great on the AuctionAds site - stop so many people asking so many questions or moaning ("It's not working, I haven't got any commission").

 

Anybody have any ideas for integrating this to their existing eBay plan? I'm a powerseller right now (adult DVDs) and I'm wondering if there might be a good way to drive traffic to my site and then push it back to eBay since all of my customers right now come from eBay.

 

Hi ShoeMoney. Congratulations for this great service!

However I have a problem. I cannot receive money via PayPal. Are there any other payment methods? In your promotional ad you are holding a check from you company :

 

Its something that we are looking into. At this time paypal is the only option.

 

There's a problem with the graph statistics or an error in the reporting.

In my stats it shows ~19,000 impressions for the day while on the graph it's above the 22,575 impressions level. Something wrong there.

 

can you report this to support just so they have it. I will also pass it along.

 

Just did, problem is they didn't reply to my other email so thought they're busy.

 

My CTR with AuctionAds is way higher than with any other program I've tried (ypn, and cpa offers).

I've had a total of 20 clicks with about 2,000 impressions (I set them up last night). Even though the ctr is high, I haven't earned a single penny. I'll leave them on for another week or so. I know they have potential though, because one of those clicks could be worth a lot.

The CTR actually isn't so good, but it's a forum so it's not that bad.

 

The guy above really defines how the revenue comes in. It snowballs overtime. You will be able to make money from those clicks over the next 30 days.

I wish someone would write a aucitonads ebook lol

 

Well that's why I'm gonna test it for a while.

Oh and I really like how there's a thumbnail of the products. It's kinda like 'images next to adsense' (which isn't allowed anymore). It attracts people's attention.

 

Hi Shoemoney,

I've signed up yesterday and I'm having some trouble with the keywords. I just don't seem to get multiple keywords in. Whatever I do, the code generator and the examples only react on the first keyword.

When I hover over the [?] in hope for some help the only thing I get is a popup with the signup page instead of the help page I guess should be there.

Cheers

PS is it allowed to click on an ad yourself as this doesn't generate payment already?

 

I have placed that ads last night to my directory. There are 1300 impressions and 12 clicks till now. I know that the auction has not come to an end yet. Maybe I will get revenue when they end.

Actually click rates are better than AdSense. Keyword choosing and picture near the ads attract people more easily than ordinary AdSense ads.

 

AuctionAds will give more money than adsense, almost sure.
But it's not the golden eggs chicken. Remember Allways this is CPA not CPC, you can have alot of clicks but win zero. But you also can have few clicks and earn money. For example, i've a site that had 100 click, and earned nothing at all!! In th opposite, i had another site that had 5 clicks and earned money.

It's a question of the type of the user who clicks the ads.

In this kind of ads, it's really a question of traffic numbers, you need alot of pageviews in your site (and users of course). Bigger sites will see a good revenue for sure, but smaller sites will not get rich, but they could win more money than if they had adsense (example: adsense - $18, AuctionAds - $30)

 

How many days did it take you to get your first $1?

I'm on the third day with 300 clicks and $0.00 revenue now

 

Hey Shoemoney man,

A great feature would be support for showing auctions with only x minutes remaining. I've done well showing auctions on their last hour with some "CLOSING SOON!"-type text. Helps establish urgency.

Right on,
Ty

 

It took me 1 day for one site. But it took me 8 days for another.

It's a question allways of quantity, time and the niche of your site/blog

 

Did it turn out to be better than adsense on these sites? Worth the wait I mean?