Uh ohh...Ebay changes from commission to cpc

I'm seeing my actual earnings more than double QCP preview earnings. I will definitely promote eBay less if I see a significant drop in my earnings with the same or more clicks. I've trusted Google with their "we'll pay you what we want to pay you" PPC model, but they've earned that trust. If I know I'm sending someone quality traffic based on my history with that company, I'm going to have a hard time believing them when they tell me my traffic has suddenly turned to garbage.

 

Totally agree.... know what sucks the most about eBay? There are items on there that you will NEVER find for sale on any other affiliate program. I have several niches in categories that simply don't have affiliate programs off of eBay. In essence I feel like I've painted myself into a corner by starting a business around ePN - if they should ever go down, I'm pretty much screwed since the majority of what I make at-home is through this program.

 

I know exactly what you mean. There are no other options for some of my sites. Even adsense won't fit with some of them, or at least well enough to bother.

I didn't want to jump the gun before i'd seen some numbers, and from the 18th of august until the 31st it looked good. My 'quality' click numbers were a little more than my earnings. I was cautiously optimistic to say the least.

This month is a completely different story. My earnings with the new QCP are abysmal. I've already started pushing things other than ebay, but it's a shame that i won't be able to replace my old moderately profitable niche sites.

Even though I don't make enough online to live on, i could foresee a time when i could, and was aiming towards that. Now i'm not so sure that it will ever happen. If it does, it will be without the help of ebay.

/rant

 

This sums up my life right now - if I lived in the mid-west, I could probably work from home on what I'm making off of ebay...certainly not in northern NJ though.. but my biggest fear is this affiliate program going down or becoming so strict that only an elite few are allowed in.

 

Amazon is really the way to go. And Amazon is much more user friendly than Ebay. Even when it comes to selling. I stopped using Ebay a lot time ago because the fees are rediculous.

 

I sometimes think eBay is run by ex-government workers. They are always looking for new ways to alienate the people who make money for them. I used to sell there a lot, and my brother sells antiques there, but they make it harder and harder to do business with them.

 

With each passing day I'm getting more confused about Quality Click Pricing. My earnings have been up the past few days. I think I've earned more in the past 3 days than I did in the previous 3 weeks combined. How is QCP adjusted to factor this in? What I'm seeing is higher earnings per click in the QCP preview for the first few days of this month (when my actual earnings were low) and lower earnings per click in the QCP preview for the past few days (when my actual earnings were high). I'm just a little confused about what they are using to determine how much they would pay us per click. Is it based on the value of clicks from the previous few days, or the previous few weeks, or just last week but not including the past few days? Am I going to see a significant jump in my QCP per click earnings next week as a result of my big jump in actual earnings the past few days?

By the way, just as an update, a few days ago I said my actual earnings were beating my QCP preview earnings by about 2:1. That margin is now about 3:1. I realize we're not on the QCP system until next month, but if eBay doesn't want to scare its affiliates away they should stop showing us this preview tool that clearly indicates I'm going to be much worse off with QCP.

 

Just like how everything else is calculated there, it's an enigma and is never fully explained. I've never seen an affiliate program invent so many calculations and useless BS than ePN does...and it's on a regular basis, on top of that...nearly every month there's some stupid new metric that comes out...

It shouldn't be that way. Shame on them for making their affiliates feel anxious every month about getting hit with the ban stick. What an awful business model. There's a huge divide between cutting cheaters, blackhatters and spammers...but when honest affiliates have to feel afraid, that's where it is really concerning.

I still wish I knew why they judge you based on what other individual human beings do after they click from your site to ebay and make a purchase. Why the hell are you, the affiliate marketer, being held accountable for that customer coming back at some point in the future and buying again? Maybe the guy just wanted to buy a used Toyota and never use ebay again...why blame the affiliate for that? It's just retarded logic.

 

I totally agree. If a seller on eBay has a complaint against him/her, they must prove they have done nothing wrong. They may be targeted by rip-offs who return knock-offs for an expensive item and want a full refund, but eBay bans the seller if they don't let the crook succeed!

Remember the old Bugs Bunny line? "What a moron! What an ultra-maroon!" That's eBay.

 

I could not have said it better.....totally agree with every word.

 

This totally sucks... I've had many months of 4 figure earnings from eBay... it's all gone downhill over the last year. Now, with the new CPC progam, I've earned $76 this month so far.. with the old program it would have been over $700... this bites.. oh well... onwards and upwards.

 

Yeah....i totally agree with you
See from $700 to $76?
haiz..........

 

The sad part that they're not taking into account is that they are making work-from-home entrepreneurs go bankrupt, and ruining their lives. Imagine someone who has been making $4,000/mo as their sole income for the past 10 years suddenly go down to $100/mo, or worse yet, get banned over some stupid mathematical equation in whatever new system they implemented...

 

that's why you should never, never ever rely on other business to make you any income.

 

We do have to depend to some extent on other businesses - no matter where in the business world we are at. Retailer depend upon wholesalers and wholesalers depend upon manufacturers and so on.

In the affiliate world, we do depend on other websites and what products they sell or what services they provide - just as they depend upon us to provide them with new customers. If eBay did not exist, I wouldn't make any money from them...

It is important to NOT DEPEND ON JUST ONE PROGRAM for your affiliate commissions.

The sad fact is that any business enterprise can be pushed into failure by changing world events. That includes using eBay as a source of revenue.

I am still giving eBay the benefit of the doubt, they remain a part of my network, but I admit that I am working now focusing on other affiliate network programs for future revenues.

 

I miss the old commission structures BUT money is money and worth the effort to optimize for the new structure. I am trying to still figure out the best methods to BOOST epc's and so far what I have found is that in each category having a low click/bin to WINNING BID ratio seems to do the trick. Not sure how to weed out the categories that have a ton of clicks and bids BUT low winning bids.

 

My revenue tripled once they did this.. Thanks ebay..