eBay Partner Network Tips from The Source

The eBay Partner Network is the new affiliate manager of eBay. And the eBay Partner Network blog is up and running providing eBay network affiliates with timely information about how to optimize their affiliate sites and drive quality traffic to eBay.

Apparently eBay has determined that a great deal of the traffic which was derived from Commission Junction affiliates prior to the switch to the eBay Partner network was of low quality. To eBay this is an issue because if a buyer is driven to the site from a link or a page totally unrelated to eBay or any product on eBay to which the buyer had no intention or interest in when they clicked an eBay affiliate link. Obviously people who follow links such as those described above will not be engaged or interested in buying anything and simply click back off the site.

We have all seen and been the unwitting victim of these links on sites which are simply built to scrape traffic and send it to wherever the site owner thinks he/she could make the most affiliate commission. eBay is very interested in making sure there sites are no longer part of their affiliate network.

eBay wants more product oriented informational sites within the eBay Partner Network. Sites with up to date content related to the products promoted via affiliate links.

One such site (full disclosure the site is designed by iBusinessLogic.com) which we believe provides the kind of quality traffic generation eBay is looking for.

FavoriteTeamwear.com is a NASCAR focused website blog which provides unique and interesting content related to the sport and offers merchandise and apparel from several sources including eBay.

The web visitors to FavoriteTeamwear.com are not tricked into following links to merchandise, when they choose to follow a product link it is very obvious the item they are viewing is for sale. The site also provides more than a simple place for people to find NASCAR or Sprint Cup merchandise. Keith Bloemendaal writes topical and interesting articles about the sport and current events relating to NASCAR. This content is what brings viewers and the content is the primary focus of the site. This is what we believe the eBay Partner Network is looking for in its affiliates.

For more information about what eBay expects from its affiliates in the new era of the eBay Partner Network read the latest post on their blog below, or drop on over to the eBay Partner Network blog

Tips for Sending Engaged Buyer Traffic to eBay Sites

September 5th, 2008

As many of you are aware, last week we made the decision to expire a small
number of affiliates from eBay Partner Network, because the traffic they were
sending to eBay was in the lowest tier of the program for quality and did not
generate enough engagement with the site. We had a lot of dialogue with our
current affiliates on our discussion boards after the action, so wanted to use
this as an opportunity to further open our lines of communication moving
forward.

Our philosophical approach at eBay Partner Network is to pay generous
commissions for quality traffic that drives incremental buying activity on eBay,
i.e., purchases that occurred due to the affiliate’s actions. Thus, we’ve
looked closely at how engaged the traffic is from our affiliates and in the
interest of eBay’s sellers and the overall health of the program, we made the
decision to expire a small number of affiliates who were driving the least
engaged traffic. Moving forward, should we notice that any affiliate is driving
low quality traffic according to our metrics, our goal is to provide help in
improving the affiliate’s site(s) before taking any action such as
expiration.

In the interest of helping you maximize the impact of the traffic you drive
to eBay, and enjoying in the financial benefits, we also wanted to re-post some
of the tips from our board posts which some folks found to be very helpful.

What does “engagement” mean?

“Engagement” is how we look at a user’s experience on eBay once directed via
an affiliate link. Among other metrics, we look at the time that users spend on
eBay, the number of pages that they view, and their bidding and buying activity
after coming through an affiliate link. For example, a user who visits eBay and
then leaves the site immediately is not “engaged”, whereas a user who comes and
browses the site and places a bid or makes a purchase is highly “engaged.”

Can affiliates affect engagement and conversion?

Definitely and there can be a big difference in performance on these metrics
between affiliates. To illustrate the point with an extreme example, a site that
helps potential buyers find and research stereo receivers and then points them
to great deals on eBay will drive more engaged buyers with better conversion
rates than an eBay banner on a ringtone site. Also, a user is far more likely
to be engaged if they knew prior to the click that they were going to be driven
to eBay.

How can affiliates improve engagement from their sites?

Many of you are already using these techniques and others, but for those who
may not be, here are some tips to improve engagement.

• Maximize the amount of unique content to your site. Create commerce-oriented
  content for your site that engages the user in the shopping experience.
  Conversely, avoid putting eBay affiliate ads on pages that have little to do
  with shopping – e.g. ringtone sites, non-commerce oriented social network sites,
  e-mail services, etc. Also, sites that do little other than offer links to
  redirect to eBay generally don’t perform well and remember to always make it
  clear on the affiliate links that they will be redirected to eBay to shop

• Use more targeted creatives and tools. If all you have is a simple text link
  to eBay or a static eBay banner ad on your site, consider using one of our flash
  creatives. Use what you know about your users and your content, so consider
  using our banners targeted to specific demographics (e.g. male vs. female) or
  categories. Also, consider using our Editor Kit and eBay To Go (US only)
  widgets, which can be customized to show specific eBay listings for a given
  category or keyword right on your page.

• Integrate eBay links within your content. Sites that find a way to work eBay
  advertising into the content, rather than just as a simple ad at a top, side, or
  bottom of a page, tend to perform better.

• Optimize your landing pages. Use what you know about your users to help them
  find what they want on eBay. If your site is about tennis rackets, avoid landing
  your users on the eBay homepage, and instead send them to a search results page
  on eBay for targeted tennis queries.

• Use our geotargeting functionality. Sending a visitor on your site who is
  from the UK to ebay.co.uk (our British site) rather than ebay.com (our US site),
  will significantly improve conversion rates and engagement. You can select this
  option when you’re generating eBay links in the “tools” tab.

• >Avoid simply incentivizing visits to eBay or registration with eBay –If you
  are going to give your users cash back or points, tie those rewards to actual
  valid purchases on eBay. If you incentivize visits or sign up, a user’s primary
  motivation is typically not browsing or purchasing from eBay, so their value to
  us is low.

How can affiliates test & improve their performance?

• Set up specific campaigns to test out any new sites, links, content, etc.,
  and ideally, test these new approaches in smaller volumes than your overall
  traffic. This way you will be able to evaluate the performance of each new
  campaign separately, ramp up the ones that perform the best, and prune the ones
  that don’t perform.

• Leverage the custom ID reports to further segment your testing. In an
  upcoming release, additional category reporting will be made available that will
  help you identify at campaign, tool, and program levels the categories whose
  traffic is most likely to convert into sales, which will help you further
  optimize your content and affiliate links.

Lastly, as we have set high standards for the program, we are also taking
this into account as we screen new registrations. We are committed to growing
the number of quality affiliates in the program, and we want to make sure our
newest partners can meet those expectations. As a result going forward we are
paying close attention to all aspects of applications – especially the
descriptions of affiliates’ business models and URLs that affiliates are
planning on sending traffic from. If you are interested in applying, please
keep this in mind as you fill out your application.

We hope you find this communication helpful and wanted to thank you for your
work in driving great traffic to eBay. We remain committed to working with you
to continue to build and strengthen eBay Partner Network.

The eBay Partner Network Team

Blog Design follow Up...

Last May I wrote an article here about a company by the name of Carolina Custom fences LLC and their Sales Manager Keith Bloemendaal

In the earlier article I described the process we set up for the development of a new site for Carolina Custom Fences, how we inspired keith Bloemendaal to start blogging on Wordpress.com simply to test his desire to keep up with a blogs and to see if he actually enjoyed the process. He Did!

As in any project, along the way we ran into delays and certain set backs. One of which was a big change at Carolina Custom Fences LLC. As it turns out, the changes brought with them large changes in our project and I am glad to say they were all for the best for everyone involved. The project received a new name and a new owner, and our relationship with Keith Bloemendaal became even stronger. Keith bought the website project from his former employer Carolina Custom Fences and started a new company with it - Raleigh Fence Contractors LLC.

All the delays from within Carolina Custom had allowed Keith to really see the power of blogging with his Wordpress.com blog. He had made contacts in the social network that is blogging and had made friends with other construction niche bloggers. So once he had ownership of the new site, Keith was ready to get it up and running as fast as possible.

We worked hard to accomodate Keith because I knew how important this new website would be for his new business. From the date Keith sent us the paperwork stating he owned the site outright to go-live as a working website took us just over 6 days. I am personally very proud of the work we did for Keith and Raleigh Fence Contractors LLC.

The new site had a completely new look and it was designed with a focus on what Keith wanted the site to do... Provide information for prospective fence customers in his niche market.

This is the result of our development work:

And as you can see from this screenshot of Google, Raleigh Fence
is doing well in organic search in a very competitive market. Using the
Keyword phrase "Raleigh Fence Contractor" one finds this one month old
site on the first page of Google in organic search. Phenomenal results
for any site and even though the keyword phrase is related to the site
URL the result is still worthy of praise.

Keith is very happy with his new site and has been singled out by other websites for having a very good clean and interesting small business website blog. We will be posting an article on our iBusinesslogic.com/blog site soon detailing the fantastic results of Keith's social marketing efforts.

Chrysler has reached a partnership with eBay to market over 15,000 of its dealers certified pre-owned vehicles.

Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge brands will be initially offered on the eBay Motors site. One could wonder how long it will be before dealers entire inventory of used cars will be included in the deal?

The announced agreement follows General Motors stunning coo last February to list all of its dealers inventory of certified pre-owned cars from over 3,900 GM dealers on eBay.

GM said on Thursday that its listings are now live on eBay.

As a small non-affiliated used car dealer competing in this Internet landscape has become more important than ever. Initially it was the small local dealers who utilized online selling through places like eBay. Now the big three are doing more than looking at these small local dealers successes, they are joining the fray in a big way.

Chrysler's eBay showroom presents consumers a view of its used vehicles within their local area within a classified listings format. eBay motors is not just for bidding on used car auctions anymore.

Chrysler's certified pre-owned vehicles cover models from 2003 to 2008 with less than 65,000 miles and are reconditioned to meet the automaker's standards. They carry an eight-year, or 80,000-mile powertrain warranty, roadside assistance and rental car allowances. A great deal if your shopping for a used car...

Chrysler sold more than 122,000 certified used cars in 2007, up 5 percent from a year earlier. With this announcement and eBay affiliation the used car sales should grow at a higher rate. The auto company's used car sales are up 8 percent so far this year, new vehicle sales have dropped more than 20 percent in the same time frame.

How will local non-affiliated dealers compete with the likes of GM & Chrysler?

The entire U.S. auto industry has been hit hard by reduced demand for gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs. Finding new and innovative ways to market used vehicles is a key to economic survival. Check out All Business Auctions Auto Dealer programs on our main website, we have some very interesting programs designed to equip local dealerships with an eBay "storefront" which will engage the buying public more than simply listing a vehicle in the middle of hundreds of thousands of Chrysler or GM certified used cars.

About 43 million used vehicles were sold in the United States last year, well over double the 16.2 million new vehicles sold. Used car profit margins are also generally better than they are for new vehicles. eBay is a good place to be for small used car dealers. The big car makers are trying to help thier dealers survive with these eBay deals. Small dealers have an edge and if they want to keep that edge we suggest investing in online and eBay marketing programs.

Dealer Blogs Part of the future of used car marketing?

A dealer blog could be a very effective method of lead generation. Under utilized until now but certainly an area to explore for any dealer of used vehicles. A blog will outperform any web 1.0 static or flash website when it is measured head to head in terms of traffic generation. Enticing the buying consumers interest is the name of the game and on the Internet, pure content is king. Blogs are ideally suited to tell the story of a dealership.

Ideas for blog development at an auto dealership include:

• Meet the sales manager - Special articles from the sales manager about his job, his family, his time selling cars and why it is important to buy from an honest dealer.
• Owners Corner - the dealership owner is usually the face of the organization - give him a voice as well
• Service Managers Shop - Open up the world of service to the consumer, let them know the many reasons why the best service is found at the best equipped dealer service organizations.
• Car of the Day or Car of the Week - Pick a car of the day or week and completely describe the features of that car. Photos, video, and text... Attract buyers with information.

If your local dealership is
searching for innovative ways to compete in this new Internet sales
landscape give the good people at All Business Auctions and iBusinessLogic.com a call, new web 2.0 methods of lead generation like social media marketing blogs and websites are our specialty.

Scott Pooler - CEO iBusinessLogic Corporation

Tags: chrysler, ebay, car dealer, used cars, social media marketing, auto dealer ebay store, auto sales on the internet,

Consignment Pal Launches New Directory of Resale Businesses

Making it easier than ever to buy, sell, consign, or donate items.

Marketing your resale business just got easier with the launch of a new online nationwide directory of all types of resale stores. Create a free customized business profile and reach a wider audience today!

Read More Here

SAN ANTONIO, TX May 28, 2008 -- Today Consignment Pal (CP) released a new online national business directory of consignment stores, resale stores, antique stores, eBay Trading Assistants, eBay drop off stores, art galleries, business liquidators, non profit stores, and e-commerce websites at www.consignmentpal.com. The Consignment Pal Directory features specialized search options by business name, state, zip code, and distance.

The new CP Directory affords both business owners and resale buyers and sellers unparalleled convenience as compared to existing resale directories. Business owners enjoy a personal profile in which they can list their specialties, upload images, post articles, link to their website, and much more. For instance, Consignment Pal founder Linda Miller says, “I’m excited about our new feature that allows eBay sellers to showcase five active eBay listings on their profiles.” All business profiles include an interactive map to easily locate businesses. Additionally, CP works to protect business owners from email spam. Users can email business owners directly from the business profiles with the click of an icon, which in conjunction with a security code, ensures that business owners only receive emails from legitimate customers.

Continue Reading

"Learn to bear bravely changes of fortune".

It looks to me like further signs of the "Amazonation" of eBay.

Higher closing fees for items posted in a shopping format at lower listing fees driven by DSR performance. The happier the customers the more exposure you get and the more increased FVF eBay will reap.

I think eBay is also attracted to the way Amazon reigns supreme over their sellers and has a "at our pleasure" attitude about if you sell there or not. This is a reversal of the last 5 or 6 years of eBay's campaign tactic of driving sellers to the platform, they took the buyer for granted and focused their marketing on "you to can make a living on eBay, everyone is welcome come sell here". They were at trade shows and any event that had a large group of potential sellers pounding this message. Well look what they got, an unscrupulous unmanaged International den of thieves destroying their name and platform while we the sellers that made them who they are (and many who left along the way) took the brunt of the problem.

At the same time Amazon took another approach, the opposite approach, customer's are gold and sellers offer goods here at our pleasure in a very regulated system. They pay little upfront and share a bigger piece on the back end and they will make buyers happy or they will be gone and no unhappy buyer will be left in the lurch, you will resolve. This is not the "we're the asphalt at the swap meet and you buy and sell to each other and work it out if you're screw each other" kind of a strategy.

Guess where I shop?

eBay knows whats wrong and they are desperately trying to fix and create a format buyers can use. I think I understand the strategy and direction of this new plan. To little to late? Executed ineffectively?

I have my concerns.

Louis Palafoutas - PeSA Member

and vintageroadshow.com, Louis also sells under the eBay names wjoutlet and vintageroadshow