Publishers and affiliates worldwide who were less than enthusiastic about eBay’s decision to take their affiliate program “in-house” as opposed to operating it through Commission Junction have now been expressing distress about EPN’s shoddy tracking and reporting. Many publishers have been reporting a significant decrease in earnings since the switch from CJ to EPN and there have even been reports of EPN expiring affiliates for the quality of the traffic they are driving to eBay’s auctions. The EPN discussion boards have been flooded with disgruntled affiliates threatening Class action lawsuits and EPN stealing traffic from affiliates and in true eBay fashion, none of their moderators or representatives have responded to these discussions.
Yesterday, eBay sent out an email to all affiliates that I found in rather poor taste addressing network quality issues…
 |
Thanks for signing up to the eBay Partner Network - we really appreciate your continuing support.
Over the last few weeks, many of you have been asking questions about our policies regarding use of paid search campaigns and ad networks. We thought it would be helpful to provide some clarifications. This is important, because any affiliate that violates the eBay Partner Network Code of Conduct, Network Agreement, Program Terms or Privacy Statement runs the risk of being expired from the eBay Partner Network and/or having their pending commissions reversed. Paid Search What is prohibited? Ad Networks We understand that some affiliates purchase inventory in other ad networks to promote eBay. The eBay Partner Network does not explicitly prohibit the use ad networks; however each affiliate is responsible for the quality of all of the activity on their account. If you use any ad networks, we advise using great caution and that you thoroughly understand their product offering, because you are accountable any policy violations caused by activity within the ad networks you use. Violations we have seen in the past are mostly related to Section A of the eBay Partner Network Code of Conduct which states that the delivery of cookies or any sort of tracking tags not initiated by the affirmative action of an end user is strictly prohibited. Here at the eBay Partner Network, we consider maintaining a high quality network as a critical component of our job. It helps us ensure our valued affiliates get full credit for the activity they drive and helps us provide them with competitive payout terms. We’d like to thank the vast majority of our affiliates who are doing their part in maintaining the quality of their traffic as well. Regards, The eBay Partner Network Team |
While I wanted to give EPN the benefit of the doubt and tried to not to be negative regarding the fact that eBay is possibly one of the most disgraceful companies regarding support, service and honesty (besides Google) and is generally not to be trusted, I kept quiet and wached as the scenario began to unfold. While everybody else was switching their CJ/eBay links to the new EPN links, I resisted and left the majority of my existing CJ links intact, only choosing to use the EPN links on new sites and pages. Now we have PepperJam Network announcing their partnership with the eBay affiliate program which makes even less sense than eBay pulling their program from CJ. Most of my readers know I am 100% supportive of PepperJam and have been a staunch supporter of the CJ/eBay affiliate program however I think eBay and EPN should spend more time concentrating on getting their end of the deal operational before they start slagging affiliates over quality. Especially when they are not exhibithing quality themselves.
It seems to be a slap in the face to us publishers and affiliates that EPN is trying to shift blame for their lackluster performance onto us. You would think a publicly traded company such as eBay who has already been the subject of unfavorable press such as this BusinessWeek article “Auctions on eBay: A Dying Breed” would realize that offending power affiliates with idiotic emails such as the one above can spell disaster to their shareholders.
EPN needs to step up to the plate and take accountability for their own actions rather than make asses of themselves with updates such as the one they issued yesterday.
Tags: eBay, EPN, Commission Junction, PepperJam, affiliate
Url Posted at C4G Forum…
It seems the struggling EPN (Ebay Partner network) has taken an interesting turn and begun bitch sla……
Think that ebay partner network still needs some help developing. I used to sell on ebay but now prefer controlling my ownmarketplace right on my website. Interesting though..
I agree with the last few paragraphs100%…I’m now in a battle of sorts on the forum about whether you can send traffic to an ebay page using the destination link tool. I don’t see it in the code of conduct nor in the network agreement,though others are saying it’s a violation.
Commission Junction is certainly the premium affiliate program out there and should be used where possible. Not sure what E-bay was thinking. dumb decision
Hey Dave,
Ugh, the ebay move. Man this was terrible for me and I am guessing I lost out about $500 last month. What happened? Well over the last 12 months I have launched dozens and dozens of sites promoting ebay, and each month my income grew ;-)
Fair enough right! Then ebay moved in house, and honestly I am not seeing any tracking issues. However I have not been able to change over the links across more than 75 sites. Thus the loss in income.
I love ebay and their affiliate program but I wish they would have stayed with cj.com
You can read more about my ebay / adsense / expired domain system at:
www.revenuedomainsexposed.com
Cheers,
Brian J
[…] Deviants. | money blogKumeyaay.com » Indian Labor In San Diego County, California, 1850-1900EPN Ebay Partner Network Wants Quality While They Fail to Deliver - Affiliate Best Programs Tags > No Tags < This product is also listed in Home & Family Pets New Products […]
EPN dropped me for the ‘quality’ of traffic that I was driving to the site. In my 2 months on the program, I generated $9000 in sales leads and 26 ACRUs. My total commissions were less than $900… and they told me I could never rejoin. EPN- Stay away!
So that says direct or indirect paid link to ebay, but can we use a indirect on one of our pages and that is ok?