Time To Come Clean-EBay Affiliates Read

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  1. Dale Mazurek profile image63
    Dale Mazurekposted 14 years ago

    Well everyone here know that I am a marketer but many dont know what I do.  Well I will not start telling you but I will tell you what I dont do anymore.

    Up until last month I was an eBay affiliate and had been for almost 17 months.  Things started slow but in the last 6 or 8 months things really picked up and my partner and I were seeing 5 and 6 thousand dollar months.

    Well last month that all came to a screeching halt.  Out of the blue, actually no where we logged into our account to see it was suspended.  yes our hearts and jaws dropped to the floor

    We did try numerous appeals to no avail and now our account doesnt even exist anymore.

    We were driving an average of 60 000 to 100 000 visitors a month to eBay and just like that we are done.

    Well yes it hurt but thank god for multiple streams of income.  It will be a while before I can replace the 2 to 3 thousand I was making but thank god I didnt rely on it.  as for my partner she relied heavily on it so we are working hard at other things to get business up again.

    Anyways this is just a warning to how fast things can get taken away.  And also a warning to not keep all your eggs in one basket.

    I will bounce back and have started to already but eBay will now and always be in my books as one of those who doesnt care about their affiliates.

    Dale

    1. lakeerieartists profile image63
      lakeerieartistsposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      I am appalled by the lack of notice of some companies as to their policies.  I had something similar happen to me with a regular vendor, not an online affiliate.  They just kicked me to the curb.  It is a poor way to do business.  But it is a good warning so that people can become aware and diversify.

    2. Frugal Fanny profile image60
      Frugal Fannyposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Ouch!  Did they at least give you a good reason?

    3. Frugal Fanny profile image60
      Frugal Fannyposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Ouch!  Did they at least give you a good reason?

      1. Dale Mazurek profile image63
        Dale Mazurekposted 14 years agoin reply to this

        No warning and no reason.  Just logged in one day and our account was frozen.  We wrote them several times with no response and then our account was terminated.  Just like that we were done.

        1. brawnydt profile image55
          brawnydtposted 14 years agoin reply to this

          This has just happened to me as well. I was in the $5000 range, and out of the blue I got a suspension notice for sending "low quality traffic" this is strange, because I build extremely high quality sites with very high quality reviews and original content to drive organic real buying traffic. My average EPC was .11 too, so I don't know how I got a low quality flag.

          It's the new year, so I haven't been able to get in touch with anybody official yet, but hopefully I will and the situation will get ironed out. Though from what I'm reading in the blogosphere it may not matter, these past few months quite a few big money EPN affiliates have been canned for no good reason (at least that's what they say).

          How frustrating! They are certainly the strangest affiliate I've ever marketed for...

  2. emievil profile image68
    emievilposted 14 years ago

    That was a tough one Dale. Haven't tried eBay yet, still going slow with Amazon. Thanks for the heads-up. Hope you and your partner recover what you've lost.

  3. Len Cannon profile image89
    Len Cannonposted 14 years ago

    You're not the first person I've heard of who has been mysteriously banned from eBay.  It makes me more than a little concerned.

  4. Dale Mazurek profile image63
    Dale Mazurekposted 14 years ago

    Yes emievil we will bounce back and after we cooled off a bit we are back on track and thing will work out.

    Ya Len we have been hearing more and more of that, not to mention when we got shut down we had over 6 grand in earnings that we will never see.

    1. rmcrayne profile image90
      rmcrayneposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Dale you left me with my mouth hanging open.  yikes

  5. profile image0
    Nelle Hoxieposted 14 years ago

    Oh man Dale I am so sorry that the Ebay axe fell on you. That's been happening quite a bit lately. The new PPC policy has been hard on quite a few people. And Ebay is a very hard affiliate program to replace.

    I got tossed from Avon a few days ago. And had to replace over 900 links with diferent merchants. Even with that I know the replacement merchants don't convert as well.

    Last November I lost 11 major merchants - six due to bankruptcy and 5 canceled their affiliate programs (with no notice). It was a very unhappy Christmas season.

    Diversity in affiliate marketing is definitely a necessity. My goal by next December is to be working with at least 1,000 merchants on a variety of niche sites and hubpages - maybe even Squidoo.

    1. Dale Mazurek profile image63
      Dale Mazurekposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks Nelle. it is actually one of your recent posts that encouraged me to tell people a bit about what happened to us.

      We will bounce back because as a team we do work well.  My partner has some kind of sixth sense when it comes to keywords so with some effort we can get great traffic to anything we decide.

      We do have a number of other things on the go and we are looking for other things to bring us our rewards.

  6. profile image0
    Nelle Hoxieposted 14 years ago

    Yes a bounce back attitude is definitely a requirement for affiliate marketing.

  7. Len Cannon profile image89
    Len Cannonposted 14 years ago

    It makes me concerned because I've really started to figure out how to make eBay pay for me over the past few months and have really been considering expanding it both here and on some start up projects.  This is the fifth story I've heard about someone who seems to be sending good traffic eBay's way being unceremoniously booted.

    1. sunforged profile image71
      sunforgedposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      That really sucks Dale, you may be able to pull a fast one and get into their program via the Pepperjam network? You would still have to change all your links though

      Im an affiliate through PN and ePN,



      only 5th! eBay partner Network has been vicious to its affiliates for years..when they switched from CJ to their own system, 3 or 4 major mass axings and now with QCP rules.

      A lot of people are being summarily cut for having average QCP of .03 and under...including users sending tens of thousands of monthly visitors!

      I cut back on ebay a lot over the last year, i still only use it because of the ease of WP pplug ins for store building...to me .03 is real low..so maybe its a smart move on their part

      idk,,still doing research, but yeah ebay is not a friendly partner

      1. Marisa Wright profile image86
        Marisa Wrightposted 14 years agoin reply to this

        Where on EPN do I find my "average QCP", or do you mean EPC?

        1. sunforged profile image71
          sunforgedposted 14 years agoin reply to this

          maybe...the whole system is now Quality Click Pricing but the field may be listed as EPC in the reports. i guess i equate epc with valid systems that dont have mysterious variable earnings
          i prefer some sort  separation in syntax like QCP to point out the difference between ePn and legitimate systems of measurement

          If its labeled as epc, i apologize for the confusion

          I had just been reading this thread as research for a Quality Click Pricing hub i started back when it was announced

          http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthre … amp;page=3

          this reflects my feeling on the system too( a response to, what is epn,epc and qcp)

          EPN - "A once-popular, good-paying affiliate network, now gone down the pan" (or, sometimes, "eBay Partner Network).
          EPC - "A performance statistic, veiled in mystery, on which all of our livelihoods now depend" (also, "Earnings Per Click", but that's a silly name).
          QCP - "The arcane system used to calculate EPC, known only to practitioners of the Dark Arts (EPN)" - also "Quality Click Pricing" (Google it, I'm sure you'll come across the odd mention of it).

    2. Dale Mazurek profile image63
      Dale Mazurekposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Len keep using it if you are making money but dont make it your only source of income.  I am lucky to have a brilliant partner that we are bouncing back nicely.  For many people a kick like this would have put them out of business in a heart beat.

  8. Carol the Writer profile image68
    Carol the Writerposted 14 years ago

    Dale,
    Thanks for letting us know what happened to you and for warning us to not put all our eggs in one basket.

  9. Luciendasky profile image59
    Luciendaskyposted 14 years ago

    You are very wise to have more than one source of income...

    I am sorry that it happened to you but I am happy you and your partner are able to jump back.

    Luci

    1. Dale Mazurek profile image63
      Dale Mazurekposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Its will take a bit of work to get that 5 grand a month back but we are up and ready for the challenge.

      Actually looking forward to a new challenge anyways.  Not happy about the eBay situation but frankly was getting a little sick of all the changes that we had to deal with.

  10. Natural Medicine profile image59
    Natural Medicineposted 14 years ago

    I got the ebay axe too. Not anywhere near as much money due as you Dale, but my $600 was surely missed.

  11. JimmyTH profile image59
    JimmyTHposted 14 years ago

    I haven't been booted out of their associate program as yet but they stopped paying me for clicks on the 19th, and quite a few people on the Ebay forums have reported the same thing. Ebay says its because EPC isn't high enough, but my EPC is the same as it was when they paid me. So suddenly there's no reason to expect Ebay ads to pay off in any consistent fashion. It's completely up to them, using some inscrutable algorithm they change as they see fit.

    What really bothered me about the Quality click program they began in October was their explanation that it wasn't fair to Ebay to pay commissions on sales not directly linked to promotions on your site. That ticked me off, because the ads drive business to Ebay, whether what sells is the advertised product or a second choice.

    I plan to wait a week longer and see if Ebay shapes up, and if not I'm pulling all the Ebay ads out of my hubs and websites. So far their Quality Click program is just a way for them to get free advertising and decide they don't want to pay people. If I can't trust them I won't work with them. I'm not concerned at all about what Ebay thinks is fair, they're obviously a bunch of scammers.

    JimmyTH

  12. waynet profile image68
    waynetposted 14 years ago

    That is just bollock twanging pants to happen to anyone, but sadly it's becoming an ocurrence with affiliate programs as they don't credit all the hard work you put in by giving them traffic and then they dump you without a good or even valid reason, it's even happening to some adsense accounts too.

    Must be some secret policy that they decide on when they feel like it.....

 
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