Great News - eBay Partner Network Announcing Quality Click Pricing

1. 68

   soni2006posted 15 years ago

   I just received an email today from ebay stating that they are starting quality click pricing for new users from 1st of Septembers and for old users like me and you from 1st of October.
   
   Now we will earn some money when visitors on our hubs will click products on our ebay widgets. Please read this email below to know more details.
   
   "Today we're announcing Quality Click Pricing, a new payout structure designed to further reward the affiliates who drive incremental transactions on eBay and who send valued buyers to our sites.
   
   What's Quality Click Pricing?
   
   Until now, eBay Partner Network has paid for sales and leads. With Quality Click Pricing, we will now instead pay affiliates for each click sent to an eBay site. The price paid per click will still depend on the short-term and long-term revenue of the traffic that the publisher drives to eBay, but will now also take into account the incremental value of that traffic to eBay, i.e., whether a sale happened as a direct result of the publisher's actions. The greater the incremental revenue and the higher the expected lifetime value of the customers an affiliate sends, the higher the EPC and total earnings the affiliate will receive. Earnings Per Click (EPC) will be set daily for the previous day's traffic.
   
   When will this change take place?
   
   We plan to phase the introduction of Quality Click Pricing to ensure existing publishers have enough time to understand how this affects them.
   
       * New publishers that join the eBay Partner Network as of September 1st will be paid out under the new system. This includes all publishers joining as they transition from TradeDoubler and affilinet.
       * Publishers that joined eBay Partner Network prior to September 1st will remain on the current pricing system until October 1st, when they will begin to be paid under the new Quality Click Pricing payment structure. Before October 1st, and starting the last week in August, existing publishers will have access to a preview report to see how their new payouts compare with the existing payment structure for them.
   
   How can I find out more about this change?
   
   We know that you may have questions about Quality Click Pricing, so we have put together several resources to give you more information about it:
   
       * Read more about this change and some of the reasons behind it on our blog, including a FAQs document.
       * A new set of pages on the eBay Partner Network site that explain how Quality Click Pricing works in more detail will be available later today.
       * Two new videos that explain the concept of Quality Click Pricing (one available today and a second that will explain new reports on September 1st).
       * In addition, we will hold two live webinars to explain the change and give publishers the opportunity to ask questions. Find out more about the webinars.
   
   We will also be on the boards more frequently over the next few days to answer publishers' questions.
   
   We are very excited about the launch of Quality Click Pricing, as it will allow us to reward publishers who are driving high quality, engaged and incremental traffic to eBay. We are also committed to continuing to invest in helping our publishers succeed with eBay Partner Network, and to ensuring that everyone is rewarded fairly for the value they generate for eBay."

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   sunstreeksposted 15 years ago

   As a good chunk of my income is now coming from ebay, I'll wait and see what the return is before I consider this good news. I actually prefer making money by the sale. But am anxious to see if the new payment structure is better.

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      ryankettposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      I sympathise with the anxious wait, but Im sure that it will go well for those already making sales.
      
      As somebody that hasn't yet got an Ebay affiliate account, I am just happy that it will still exist long enough for me to have a crack at it!

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   kerrygposted 15 years ago

   Yeah, I read through the FAQ on this thing and am puzzled how paying per click could possibly be simpler or harder to game than simply paying a commission on sales made, but I guess I'll withhold final judgment until I've seen what it does to my average earnings.

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      ryankettposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      I think that it could work out to peoples benefit, this is effectively saying that it will pay for active referrals. I wonder how many of your referrals bid for an item but do not win it?
      
      Ebay are effectively saying that we will pay you for your bids, that cant be a bad thing? There is a thin line between your referral bidding $100 for an item which sells for $105, and your referral being the one that bids $105....
      
      Your referral that bids $100 has earnt ebay money, just like the one has bid $105.... So I am supportive of this move.
      
      Could we possibly see a system whereas those that refer a lot of 'winning' bidders get a tiered commission? e.g. 50% extra for clicks after you have sold 10 items in a month?
      
      It excites me.

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         Mrvoodooposted 15 years agoin reply to this

         Not many at all in my case.

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4. 59

   Mrvoodooposted 15 years ago

   Great news?  I'd be surprised.
   
   I'm fairly sure that eBay wouldn't go out of their way to develop a new system that pays affiliates more than they currently do, so there for the opposite seems more likely.
   
   I'm guessing this is the end of the ACRU system as well? 
   
   Although eBay are my second best money-maker they're without a doubt the company I enjoy dealing with the least.

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5. 65

   darksideposted 15 years ago

   Instead of a % of the sale they'll give price per click. What determines a quality click? I'm guessing only a click leads to a sale. Which is understandable. But why the system overhaul?
   
   I think it'll be a sneaky way to introduce a new revenue rewards scheme whereby the affiliate gets less money than before.

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      ryankettposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      I suspect that other referrals may constitute a click? for example, a bid?
      
      If Ebay sells an item for a good price, it is likely to have a number of bids. Lets say for example that a piece of development land in New York State was listed at $1000 no reserve (full price, not a foreclosure etc...) and it sold for $2200.
      
      There could have been 8 bids on that land to reach that price. Ebay could determine the value of each bid to its profit on the item. e.g.
      
      Bid 1 - 5% of commission
      Bid 2 - 5% of commission
      Bid 3 - 10% of commission
      Bid 4 - 10% of commission
      Bid 5 - 12.5% of commission
      Bid 6 - 12.5% of commission
      Bid 7 - 20% of commission
      Bid 8 - 25% of commission
      
      If your referral goes in at bid 1.... they could well also go in at Bid 3, bid 5, bid 7.....  In that case you would get 47.5% of the commission.
      
      The referral (if any) of Bid 8 would get 25% of the commission, if they were only in front for that bid.
      
      Your referral has actually made more money for ebay than the referral of bidder 8 (if it was even a referral).
      
      By getting paid for activity, you could refer Bid 7... whilst Bidder 8 is a direct visitor. Under the current system you would not get any money, under a pay per activity system you would.
      
      I have seen a couple of people talking about this sort of system being in place today, although my example is pretty hypothetical.
      
      Could you see how this could actually work in favour of the small affiliates?

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         darksideposted 15 years agoin reply to this

         The biggest problem I see with your hypothetical scenario is that it would encourage gaming such as shill bidding.
         
         In the meantime I won't speculate or hope that they'll do something that means more money for affiliates. eBay have a track record of changing the TOS and policies to suit their own purposes.

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      waynetposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      I have this doubt too!
      Affiliate programs changing their policies and payment structures...I guess time will tell on the clicks that we do get!

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   Nelle Hoxieposted 15 years ago

   This Ebay change is probably the reason for all of the recent drama regarding hubpages and squidoo.
   
   
   It will be hard to tell what the true impact is until some of the folks who make real money with Ebay report in. I have such little revenue from them it will be hard to tell what the impact is.

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7. 68

   soni2006posted 15 years ago

   You all will be really surprised to know that it has been two years since I am here at hubpages. Out of 254 hubs, I have 100 hubs displaying ebay widgets and I have earned just 4.56 dollars from the ebay partner network.
   
   I was so upset with this since many months back and that's why stopped displaying ebay widgets on my hubs because I think these widgets interrupt with my adsense ads and amazon widgets which are performing well.
   
   NOW, the main question comes is WHAT WILL HAPPEN WHEN THIS NEW QUALITY CLICK PRICING WILL BE ACTIVATED?
   
   I guess for me it will be beneficial because I have received a good number of clicks but no sales from ebay.
   
   WHAT DO YOU SAY considering me????

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8. 67

   relacheposted 15 years ago

   The capsules in use here on HubPages are NOT eBay widgets.
   
   So essentially, you'll still keep earning the almost nothing that you are generating now.
   
   Whether you earn or not from eBay isn't primarily based on their pricing, it's based on your writing.  I've got about 100 less Hubs than you, very nearly all of them offer something from eBay and in 2008, I averaged $57/month from them.

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9. 68

   soni2006posted 15 years ago

   Thanks Relache for that info.
   
   Besides I received another email from ebay:
   
   "Following the announcement of Quality Click Pricing, I realize that there are going to be a lot of questions, so I wanted to take a moment to speak with you about why we're making this change.
   
   Since we launched eBay Partner Network, we've continued to invest in the platform and have made many improvements to the quality of our affiliate program. Quite simply, quality in eBay Partner Network means that eBay's affiliate spend results in incremental transactions and incremental high lifetime value users. Said another way, we are working to make sure that our affiliate marketing spend delivers transactions that would not have otherwise occurred and new high value users who may not have registered on eBay.
   
   We've taken a number of steps to make sure that eBay Partner Network delivers on this promise so that we can continue to invest in our affiliate program, but we've been missing one key piece: fully aligning affiliate payouts with the true value of the traffic, transactions, and users that they deliver. Our first step towards aligning compensation with actual value was our Value Based ACRU pricing, which we launched in the US last year. With Quality Click Pricing, we will go further; compensating each affiliate not only for the value of your ACRUs, but also the incrementality of the transactions you drive.
   
   By fully aligning our compensation with quality, we hope that the affiliates whose earnings increase under the new payout model will find ways to drive even more of your high quality traffic to eBay. For affiliates who will initially earn less, we'd like to see you test some of our suggestions and work to improve the incrementality of your traffic, as this will increase your earnings and benefit eBay. From our experiences with our beta publishers, we know that with optimization increasing your payout is a real possibility.
   
   We have not taken this decision to change our compensation model lightly. The eBay Partner Network team has put a lot of effort and thought into the move to Quality Click Pricing over the last year, and we've involved numerous publishers in a beta program and previews of the system. From the results that we have seen for eBay and for our publishers, I feel strongly that this is a very positive move for the future of our affiliate program and I am personally excited to see the continued improvements in quality that it will drive.
   
   We know that change is not always easy, and that any change like this has a large impact for each of you on a personal level. I'm sure that there will still be additional questions moving forward, and to help address them, we're setting aside time to engage more with you on the discussion boards, and will hold a live webinar on Friday 21st August at 9am PST. You can visit the blog for more details. I look forward to the dialogue and to continuing to build our mutual success on eBay Partner Network. "

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    sunforgedposted 15 years ago

    eBay certainly is not creating a new structure that will benefit us more, that is laughable.
    
    Affiliate sales were a major source of their success, there was a time when I was making hundreds a month (not hubpages!) from ePn..with every little change I see that amount decrease.
    
    considering nowadays ebay is a very small part of my campaigns, it might be nice to see an income just from 'clicks" that result in sales, but i expect just to see that my sales commission and ACRU commissions will drop again.

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    Marisa Wrightposted 15 years ago

    This doesn't sound like good news to me.  A lot of my eBay income comes from first-time sign-ups, not from the commission on sales.  Sounds like that's no longer going to apply. 

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12. 68

    soni2006posted 15 years ago

    Don't worry friends. Everything will be fine as these affiliate sites earn money from affiliates like us and will definitely do something in our favor .

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    kerrygposted 15 years ago

    Anybody else played with the Quality Click Pricing Preview they rolled out this morning?
    
    I was irritated to notice that I'd be earning ~$10 less this month than I currently am. Among other things, they converted a commission of over $12.00 to QPC earnings of less than $2. Ugh. Obviously some other clicks made more under the QPC system than they did under the current one, but nothing like $10 more!
    
    ETA - correction: Actually, the preview is only available from August 18th, so I should have said ~$10 less since the 18th.

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       Mrvoodooposted 15 years agoin reply to this

       I have, the £80($130) I made via hubpages using the EPN this month will (under QCP) be worth £8($13).  I knew eBay were gonna screw us, that's what eBay does best, but this is a fuck over of impressive proportions even for them.
       
       I don't like the Amazon affiliate system (short cookie) but anything of high value that I'm promoting that can be switched over will be.  The cheap crap you can't get anywhere else will stay EPN (for now).

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    Anamika Sposted 15 years ago

    I am not sure if i need to rejoice or cry. MY earning clicks are not much. But for the past one year or so my earning from EBay per month averages more than $25.

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    Dale Mazurekposted 15 years ago

    Well I was just talking to my partner who is the eBay expert in our business and we actually have a good news story.
    
    It seems in the days they are comparing our income would actually be 40% higher so you can bet that is bringing a smile to our faces.
    
    She read through and understands everything and for us it looks like it will be a great change.

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