Hello, My Name is Scott

May 2nd, 2011 | Scott Parent

hello-my-name-is

Hi everyone, my name is Scott Parent and I’m fairly new here.

I’ve worked in the affiliate marketing industry for the last four years. For three of those I was the Director of Emerging Media & Strategy for New York based MediaTrust. Most recently, I’ve served as a consultant helping businesses find their voice using new media channels.

About a year ago I started working with the eBay Partner Network Team as the producer of the “Chatting with ePN” video series – maybe you’ve seen an episode or two? Recently, I was brought onboard to manage this blog and make sure that we’re using it in a way that provides the greatest benefit to our publishers. That means I’ve spent the last few weeks working with the team to look at how we do things here at ePN. What do we do well? What can we do better? How can we build a stronger, more engaged community with our publishers?

That’s where you all come in.

I’ve learned that this community is a passionate one. To that end, I’d like to harness some of that enthusiasm and ask what topics you’d like to see us cover here on the ePN blog. We’ll obviously continue to bring you the latest updates about enhancements to our program, as well as the latest news from inside the walls of eBay – but, what else would make this blog a treasured resource for you? Would you like more educational content about the affiliate industry? Best practices for using social media? Tips and trick on content curation? If we can better understand where the information gaps are, we can do our best to fill them.

I hope you’ll take a few minutes to leave some suggestions and constructive feedback in the comments section below. We’ve made it a priority to post any comments that we feel add value to the discussion, and then address as many of those as we can. I’m sure there will be some that slip through the cracks, but I can promise you that we’re doing our best to make sure that doesn’t happen.

I look forward to working with all of you and wish you continued success here at eBay Partner Network.

-Scott

  • http://ebayinkblog.com RBH

    Scott,
    I can’t tell you how excited I am that you’re taking the reigns of this blog. I know we’ll have some great stories and posts coming our way from you and I look forward to working with you on future projects too. Welcome!
    Cheers,
    RBH

  • Scott

    Thank you Richard. I’m really happy to be on board and I look forward to doing some exciting things with the amazing teams here at eBay and at ePN.

    -Scott

  • Ryan P.

    I don’t know about everyone else but I get enough affiliate marketing industry news and educational content else where but not enough EPN related learning, findings, experiences, best practices, tips of things that are working and not working. Chances are if anyone is reading this blog there is probably a good chance we’re looking to learn more for use with EPN and improve the quality of traffic we send.

  • Scott

    Ryan,

    Thanks for your feedback. I believe that we can provide a little bit of everything. We’ll continue to provide updates and best practices in regards to ePN, but I think there is also value in sharing information that can help publishers grow their businesses.

    Thanks,
    Scott

  • Ryan H.

    I think if you check out threads in other affiliate forums (e.g Abestweb) discussing EPN and also the Q & A’s that come up repeatedly on the in house discussion boards you will find a multitude of content and titles for blog posts to come.

    I personally would really appreciate it if we could subscribe to these blog updates by email versus RSS.

    Thanks for reaching out for suggestions.

  • Scott

    Ryan,

    Great point about the email subscription. It’s on my list of upgrades that I’d like to see on this blog. Hopefully we can make it happen shortly.

    Thank you for contributing and for your input.

    -Scott

  • John

    I wonder if you could host the videos you post. I have most video sharing sites blocked on my network, so when you use vimeo or others, it’s blocked. I’d like to stay informed via this blog and the video series and participate more in the ePN community where I feel I can be helpful.

  • Scott

    John – Unfortunately, hosting videos on our own servers isn’t going to happen. Platforms like Vimeo and YouTube have built a great system for easily sharing video. They’ve done all the work with infrastructure and user experience. It just doesn’t make sense for us to bring it in-house. We do also host the show on YouTube if that helps you at all:

    http://www.youtube.com/ebaypartnernetworktv

  • http://www.waynejohn.com Wayne

    Personally, I’d like to see a mapping between the old RSS Feed Generator request parameters and the new format, with explanations of the possible values for each parameter. I’ve yet to see something like that, and with the upcoming changes, I think it might help a a number of developers out a bit, myself included. :)

  • http://www.waynejohn.com Wayne

    Oh, I second the email subscription…that’s how I roll…

  • Steven

    Hey Scott,

    Didn’t realize you’ve been working with EPN for awhile now. Surprise when I came across this post but glad things are going well for you. Should find time to catch up.

    Steven Truong
    Formerly Tracking202

  • Scott

    Steven,

    Good to hear from you. Yes, been working behind the scenes here at ePN for about a year on the video series. Started getting more hands on into the blog role about a month ago. I’d love to find time to catch up.

    Hope you’re well.

    -Scott

  • http://www.twitter.com/paidinpassive Yolanda

    Scott,

    I’m glad to hear that someone is taking charge of things on this blog. Hopefully my message doesn’t hit the dust as it has so many other times because it seems as though comments either are unmoderated or rarely get published.

    To answer your question though, the most value I’ve received out of this blog has truly been reading the former archives where people like ROEye have provided great tips on using eBay’s API as well as tips for creating scripts and/or capitalizing on trends.

    I think it would be great to have a case study on getting into the mind of the typical eBay shopper. Additionally, more transparency on Quality Click Pricing and how we can improve EPC and drive better quality leads is always welcomed.

    – Yolanda

  • Scott

    Yolonda,

    Thanks for your comment. I’m trying to not let comments fall through the cracks if they are relevant and on topic. I apologize if that’s happened to you.

    Great list of suggestions. I will add them to idea list and see what we can make happen.

    -Scott

  • Jane

    Great, I’m excited that you’re taking over the blog and want to work toward building a better, strong ePN community.

    A couple things I think you could do to make the blog more useful:

    1. Give us more lead time than you currently do for special promotions, bonuses, coupon events, sales, and other timely announcements. Most of the time, when there’s something like that announced here, it’s so close to the event that I would have to drop everything else in order to get changes and additions made to my websites to promote the event. So I don’t bother, because I usually can’t just drop everything else. I have clients, and deadlines, and such-like, and I have to schedule my time carefully. Not only do we need lead time to schedule time into our calendars to promote the event, but we also need to allow for lead time to buyers to find things, buy them, and receive them.

    The March 15th blog post about college hoops is a good example of way too late. If we want to promote college basketball championship stuff, we need to start working those promotions into our sites by January so that we can be promoting them during February. Buyers need to find the items and order them by mid- to late-February in order to have their team jackets and jerseys in hand by the time March Madness starts.

    2. Use the blog to communicate with us in a timely manner about things that affect us. The recent tracking glitch, for example — there was a thread started on the ePN forum by an affiliate at 3:47am that day, but there was no acknowledgment by a Pink until a full 12 hours later. The system announcement in our dashboard didn’t appear until a day or two later. If you had posted an announcement here on the blog, at least we would have known that the eBay Partner Network Team was aware of the glitch and was working on it. Timely, accurate and relevant communication with affiliates about things that affect us is the single best improvement you could make.

    3. Try to make sure that things posted on the blog actually pertain in some way to affiliates. The post by Griff on “What the Seller the Release Means for Affiliates” was nothing but a restatement of the changes as they were announced to sellers. There wasn’t a single word about what those changes mean for affiliates. But the seller release includes several changes that will probably affect affiliates. For example, the FVF being charged on shipping. We should see higher WBR for purchases that we drive — will that translate into higher earnings for us? Or will the QCP algorithm somehow factor that out of our earnings? But that change will probably result in lower sales of oversized and heavy items that are costly to ship, so affiliates who focus on items that are expensive to ship may need to examine their strategies. The shopping cart, the 50 free auction listings …. how are those likely to affect seller strategies and buying behavior? Are we likely to see more auction listings with higher starting prices? A reduction in $0.99-starting-price auctions? More auction listings with Buy-It-Now attached? Those kinds of changes can affect our strategies as affiliates. I would love to see a blog post about what this seller release means for affiliates…. But unfortunately, Griff’s videos weren’t it.

    4. Information about other things happening on eBay that may affect us as affiliates. Category changes, item specifics, things like that. In the information for sellers, I see lots of references to using the “catalog” to list their items. Is there anything about this “catalog” that we can make use of as affiliates to better promote eBay listings to our visitors? Can the developers API make use of the catalog in any way? The whole catalog thing is kind of a black box to me, but it sounds useful.

    Also, items specifics are a biggie. I see that item specifics are being required in more categories. Currently, I’m unable to use item specifics in my API calls as much as I would like, because the bulk of the listings in most of the categories I promote have “unspecified” as the item specifics. But if item specifics are really going to be required in a bunch of additional categories, that would make it much more useful for affiliates. For example, if EVERY listing in Men’s Shoes will actually include item specifics for Size, Style, Brand and Color, well…. that’s HUGE! I’d really like to see blog posts where you tell us about these kinds of changes and let us know how how they can be used in our activities as affiliates.

    Thanks for opening a dialog with us, and thank you for listening.

  • Scott

    Hi Jane,

    Thanks for taking the time to so thoughtfully write out your list of suggestions. I agree that we could be better at doing lots of those things and it’s my goal going forward. We won’t always be perfect but I can tell you that the team here is constantly focused on what we can do better.

    -Scott

  • http://www.thewrestlingtalk.com Kristen

    Welcome to eBay and good luck at your new position!

  • Scott

    Thanks Kristen! :)

    -Scott

  • http://www.watcheditem.com/search Michelle

    I’d like an update on using rover links to send users directly to eBay from within Android/iPhone apps. Sending a user from my app to my mobile website is a bad experience.

    Also, how are smart phone apps classified now? Are they still treated as downloadable SW?

    Thank you in advance!

    Michelle

  • http://www.thewordbay.com Mark – The Word Bay Guy

    Welcome! Things seem to be hugely improving round here with regard to communication – I think that’s the single thing that was sorely lacking in the past. I would second Jane’s comment no. 2 about reporting glitches etc. here. That would really help with transparency.

    Oh, and a larger font size for the comments section here! It is TINY!!

  • Scott

    Mark – Thanks for acknowledging our efforts in communication. We really are working hard to step it up on that front.

    I agree with you (and Jane) on glitches – we need to have a concise way that we communicate that to our partners. I’m not sure if it will be the blog or the forums, or by some other means, but you’re right.

    As far as the font – I totally agree with you. I have to increase my browser font when I respond to comments. That’s on my list of things to tackle as far as aesthetics here at the blog.

    -Scott

  • Affiliate

    Shortly after EPN switched to in house tracking, a satisfaction survey was sent to all affiliates.

    I would love to see another one of those only this time make the results public.

  • Scott

    Affiliate – Thanks for your question and suggestion. We are planning another satisfaction survey as we believe it provides valuable data for us to do our jobs better. I’m curious as to why you’d like to see the results – is there a specific question you’d like answered?

    -Scott

  • Affiliate

    Scott,

    What good is a survey if you don’t show the results to affiliates.

    In general, if you vist the more known affiliate boards that deal with EPN, the mood towards eBay is not what it used to be and there is a LOT of distrust about numerous things the main one being tracking and fualty click filtering.

    The last time they didn’t publish the results it just fueled the speculation and if you take another survery and don’t publish the results again I’m sure it will just feed to the distrust of the program that many of us have.

  • Scott

    Affiliate,

    Thanks for your comment. We place tremendous value in the feedback you provide to us. Some of our surveys are to share back with our community (stay tuned for the rest of the results from the mobile survey), and others are to inherently help us improve the way we work with you. We will certainly share anything that we think you can benefit from as a publisher, but not everything we do is designed for public consumption.

    We hope you’ll continue to share constructive comments and feedback with us going forward.

    Thank you,
    Scott

Join the eBay Partner Network

Drive traffic to one of our partners and get paid for it.

Join Now!