eBay PartnerNetwork Blog

Here at R.O.EYE we have been listening to publisher feedback and requests for additional assistance and resources. One of the most popular requests has been a downloadable resource for international eBay category IDs and I’ll explain why…

One of the best ways to optimize your custom banner or API integration is to apply category ID filters. This helps to ensure that only the most relevant results are returned.

Pretty straightforward if you are only receiving traffic from one country, however if you are geo-targeting to multiple countries, you will find that the category IDs are not the same in each country. This makes optimizing your custom banner or API integration using category filters more time intensive, especially when you add in the complexities of different languages.

This R.O.EYE blog post has more information on a time saving solution, as well as a sample of what it looks like. Because R.O.EYE created this tool, eBay is unable to offer support for it, however there is a support email address provided by R.O.EYE should you need any assistance.

Finally, make sure that you’re signed up to the relevant eBay Partner Network programs for the territories you want to promote, otherwise you won’t get paid for the traffic you drive to these sites.

Alex Harvey, Technical Solutions Executive at R.O.EYE

Our partner, SHEfinds.com has shared insightful information with us on how to better engage your target market. Whether your site is focused on clothing, shoes and accessories, or any other category, you are sure to pick up tips in this post that will help you to connect with your visitors through your site, blog and social media outlets.

1. Answer the right question
What would you want to find if you were searching for “best bras?” We at SHEfinds think you’d probably want a curated list of expert-approved bras; that’s what we’ve accomplished with our Best Bras guide, which consistently drives search traffic and engagement.

What readers get: A positive search experience
What you get: Conversions; new users

2. Enter relevant conversations
If you’re a guru of some sort – we’re fashion experts – search for Twitter conversations where you can be helpful. SHEfinds editors help Tweeters figure out what to wear. If you’re a home improvement expert, help a frustrated Tweeter hang a photo or fix his leaky faucet.

What readers get: Information they asked for
What you get: Brand engagement

3. Offer free stuff
Giving in to rampant giveaway posts can dilute your core content, but offering free stuff to your readers can certainly boost traffic and engagement.

Find a product that’s relevant to your audience – that home improvement guru might choose a screwdriver set or hardware store gift card – and publicize the freebie in every outlet you have access to. If there’s real value in the prize, new targeted users will find your website and interact with your content.

What readers get: Free stuff!
What you get: New users

4. Find them deals
If you’re blogging about anything commerce-related, readers are always enthusiastic about a sale or deal. eBay is one great way to price-compare and scope out savings for your users; on SHEfinds, we also scan our favorite branded retailers frequently for special savings and coupon codes.

What readers get: Money-saving deals
What you get: Conversions

Thank you SHEfinds for this useful information that is sure to help other site owners grow their businesses!

The eBay Partner Network Team

We found the article The Four Pillars of Building Instant Trust Online by Tim Ash to be very helpful when building a plan of action to increase consumer trust in your website. Here are some ways that you can implement Tim’s advice for building trust while promoting eBay:

• Make sure your visitors know about eBay’s Buyer Protection. When buyers know that eBay will covers their purchase price, including original shipping costs, in the event that they do not receive their item, or it is not as described, they will feel more confident in making their purchase.




• Inform your customers about the positive features of using PayPal as a payment option for eBay products. In addition to the buyer protection plan, PayPal offers a safe environment to pay either by credit card or direct from your bank account, making secure payments convenient to all buyers.




• When promoting items from a particular seller, you can display reviews from previous buyers to build trust in that seller’s store.




• There are many ways in which you can include Tim’s “Objective Numbers” when it comes to eBay. Here are a few examples:
  
  
  
  
  • As of Q1 2010, eBay has 90 million active users worldwide.
  • In 2009, the total worth of goods sold on eBay was $60 billion — $2,000 every second.
  • You can find other statistics on trends and hot items on eBay Pulse or through Terapeak (subscription required).

Applying these tactics, along with eBay’s everyday low prices, will help you to achieve success and grow your revenue!

To your continued success,
The eBay Partner Network Team

Do you know where your website visitors are coming from, what they are looking at while on your site and where they are leaving your site? Accessing and analyzing this crucial information will give you some insights into your audience. Once you have this knowledge, you can use it to implement changes to your website not only to improve the user experience for your viewers, but also to increase your conversion rate and overall revenue. With a variety of user-friendly and free analytical tools available, you can easily examine your site traffic and use that information to grow your business.

How would this information help me to optimize my site?

Tapping in to your visitor stats can have a tremendous impact on your conversion rates and your revenue. Here are a few examples:

• You may learn that you are getting the majority of your traffic from a particular search engine and that this traffic is very engaged. You may want to consider testing out PPC campaigns on that search engine, if you aren’t already doing so. You may also find that consumers viewing certain types of niche sites are clicking through to your site, which might alert you to further advertising opportunities on similar sites.




• The ability to follow your visitors on your site to see which pages they are viewing may allow you to pinpoint patterns. You could learn that some pages on your site are not as relevant to your viewers, and you might build additional pages with content related to the pages that they are lingering on and develop subjects that your readers are interested in.




• Knowing where your visitors leave your site is crucial. Are they leaving on the home page without looking any further? Are you discovering that the majority of your traffic exits once they reach a certain page? These insights allow you to optimize pages that may be performing poorly.

Diving in a little deeper and looking at demographic stats about your traffic can prove very useful as well. When you put the right message in front of your visitor at the right time, your likelihood of getting a conversion increases dramatically. You may find that your audience is comprised of an entirely different gender and age group than you had assumed, which then allows you to update content and even add advertising that will appeal more to your readers. Additionally, this knowledge allows you to create content and target consumers that you may not have been previously.

A/B Split Testing

Ok, you now have analytics in place and you’re learning more about the traffic that is coming to your site. Maybe you’ve implemented a couple of changes, but you’re not sure what the next step is. This is when you should look at running A/B split tests on your landing pages. This could be as simple as the color of your font in headlines. It may be a small change to the structure of the page. It could be changing one image on the page. It should not be an entirely different page where every single thing has changed. Although you could do that, it is best to make smaller changes and test each one so that you understand which things are truly affecting the outcome and use that knowledge to develop other pages.

The key with A/B testing is to have a tool in place to help you to rotate both of the pages with equal impressions so that you can determine which page outperforms the other. You can find both free and paid tools by performing a search for A/B split testing tools in your web browser.

Once you have completed your test and found a winner you can move on to running tests with other elements of your landing pages. Remember, optimization should be a continuous process! Only when you are running these tests, understanding what your viewers like and optimizing on a constant basis can you be sure that you are getting the best results, conversion rates and earnings that you possibly can be.

Understanding your audience so that you can speak to them in a meaningful way can make or break your business. Once you have an idea of who you are targeting, test, test and test some more so that you can be sure that you are giving your readers what they are looking for. Using the simple tools that are available will help you to maximize your profits today.

To your continued success,
The eBay Partner Network Team

WordPress offers many useful plug-ins that can simplify your daily tasks. We’ve listed ten here that we think you should check out that may help streamline your business (in no particular order):

1. Platinum SEO Pack automates search engine optimization for WordPress blogs. Some of the features of this plug-in include:
   
   
   • Optimized Post and Page Titles for search engines
   • Generates all SEO relevant META tags automatically
   • Helps you avoid duplicate content
   • Add index, noindex, follow or nofollow, noarchive, nosnippet, noodp, noydir meta tags to any post/page
2. GoCodes is great for affiliate marketers, as it allows you to mask long affiliate program URLs and have those URLs blend in with your site more seamlessly by allowing you to create the URL to look like an extension of your own domain name.




3. Robots Meta is a helpful plug-in that allows you to control which of your pages are indexed.




4. SMS Text Message is an interesting widget that you can incorporate into your WordPress site, which allows your visitors to submit their cell phone number and receive updates and alerts from you via SMS.




5. TestIt is a great tool for those of you A/B split testers. This plug-in allows you to perform tests on variations of posts and then see which post generated more clicks within the WordPress Admin.




6. Google Analyticator makes it possible to utilize Google Analytics without having to implement the actual tracking code to your site. In addition, it also includes widgets that will display data right in the WP Admin.




7. BackType Tweetcount allows your visitors to easily retweet a link to your post without forcing them to authorize the program to access their Twitter account by providing their username and password to do so. This plug-in also shows you how many times your posts are being mentioned in Twitter.




8. WP-Affiliate makes it simple to mask affiliate links and now has the ability to search Commission Junction and track clicks.




9. Insights is a great tool to search, edit and insert links easily into your posts. You can also insert images, videos and more with this plug-in.




10. WordPress.com Stats is a simple way to view and analyze only the stats that really matter to writers. It includes a link in your WP Admin where you can see all of this data on a single page.

As always, if there are WordPress plug-ins that you couldn’t live without, please feel free to leave a comment and share with us what you find to be most useful.

The eBay Partner Network Team

With summer just around the corner this is the perfect time to start promoting eBay Motors! As enthusiasts start dusting off old classic cars, tuning motorcycles, and tinkering with summer projects, you can capitalize on the growing demand for eBay Motors parts, accessories, and vehicles. This year eBay Partner Network is excited to offer a number of new tools to help you promote these important eBay Motors categories.

New Motors Parts and Accessories Deals

You may have noticed that eBay Motors features an area (on the right side of the homepage) where users can find heavily discounted deals. Now you can promote these same deals on your website.

Try using the new eBay Motors Parts & Accessories XML Feed and create your own widget or customized module to feature these great deals.

You can also try out several new banners powered by this feed in your eBay Partner Network Creatives Generator. To find the banners simply enter the Tool ID numbers below or choose the ‘Motors’ category and browse for them.

7115320019255101 eBay Motors Parts & Accessories Feed – 160×600
7115320019255102 eBay Motors Parts & Accessories Feed – 300×250
7115320019255103 eBay Motors Parts & Accessories Feed – 728×90

Improved eBay Motors Widgets

The eBay Motors Quick Finder is available at eBay Partner Network under tools>widgets. Functionality on this widget has now been expanded, allowing you to pre-populate its search fields with make, zip code, or keyword. You can also customize colors, add your own logo, and more.

The eBay Motors Vehicles & Parts Widget is a new customizable banner that is not yet available in the eBay Partner Network interface. Bookmark this link and use the configuration page to customize size, category, and default values with make, model, year, zip code, and keyword. Give it a spin!

Other Promotion Options

• Use the Custom Banner and limit products to specific eBay Motors Parts, Accessories, or Vehicles by keyword or category.
• Customize an RSS feed with Category ID of eBay Motors (6000), and then use Widgetbox to create a custom widget.
• The very best integrations are created by publishers and built to suit their needs using the eBay API at the eBay Developer Site. You may want to consider joining the eBay Developer Conference on June 8-10 next month in San Jose to learn the best practices in using these APIs.

As you use these tools be sure to segment new implementations with different campaign IDs to optimize and measure the resulting CPC. Finally, don’t forget to check your category reports to determine which specific motors subcategories perform best, and adjust your promotions accordingly. Thanks for promoting the eBay Motors ‘Vehicles’ and ‘Parts and Accessories’ categories, and be sure to have FUN this summer!

Kevin Schwery / eBay Partner Network

It’s been almost a year since we gave you some introductory tips on getting started with the eBay API, so we thought it would be a good idea to encourage those of you who haven’t yet taken the plunge by publishing a simple step by step guide. In this post, we’ll show you how to create a simple search page, and hopefully by the end, you’ll be able to produce something like this mini site. So let’s get started…

Step 1
Get signed up to the eBay Developers Program. You will be assigned an AppID which will look something like ABCDE12f3-gh45-67i8-9012-jk345lm6789. This is your unique key to access the API.

Step 2
Construct your API call. We’ll use the findItemsAdvanced call in the Finding API. The call is made using a URL. By adding in extra parameters to the URL, you can apply any of the search options and filters that are available if you were searching through the main eBay sites. The following example URL, when put together will return search results for the term iPod Nano with fixed priced items only from the UK site, in XML. Try it out, but remember to put in your own AppID after ‘SECURITY-APPNAME=’

http://svcs.ebay.com/services/search/FindingService/v1?OPERATION-NAME=findItemsAdvanced&SERVICE-VERSION=1.0.1
&SECURITY-APPNAME= ABCDE12f3-gh45-67i8-9012-jk345lm6789
&RESPONSE-DATA-FORMAT=XML
&REST-PAYLOAD=true
&GLOBAL-ID=EBAY-GB
&paginationInput.entriesPerPage=5
&paginationInput.pageNumber=1
&keywords=iPod+Nano
&itemFilter(0).name=ListingType
&itemFilter(0).value(0)=FixedPrice

Step 3
Now you need to take the response and turn it into something useful on your site – this is the tricky part! The API can return data in several formats – XML, JSON, Name Value pairs and SOAP. In this example, we’ll use PHP to render an XML response. Here is the source code for the example search page. You can also download the complete page with CSS and images here. Grab it and a play around with the code, page layout and stylesheet.

This script will construct a findItemsAdvanced API call, as detailed above, and then use a PHP function to run through each item within the returned XML in a loop. This loop repeats until it reaches the last product within the XML. Each time the loop runs, it extracts the relevant information within the listing, and adds it as a row to a HTML table, which is then printed out at the end. Download it and have a play around, but remember to insert your AppID in the indicated place, otherwise it won’t work!

Step 4
Affiliatise your links. The developers program is not automatically connected to your EPN account. In order to do this, you’ll need to add some extra parameters onto the call URL:
&affiliate.trackingId=[yourcampaignid]
&affiliate.networkId=9
&affiliate.customId=[customid]

Check out this section of the call reference for more information on adding the affiliate parameters.

Hopefully the example code will help you to better understand how to implement the eBay API, and provide a good starting platform for you to build extra functionality into your site.

James Skelland, Technical Solutions Manager at R.O.EYE

Hi all,

We have noticed recently that the use of temporary redirects (302 redirects) instead of 301 redirects can result in activity that is not compliant with our terms & conditions. We know that often this is unintentional, so we have worked together with a few of our affiliates to identify and prevent the problem. Here is an example to illustrate what can happen:

Many of our affiliates use a redirection page to help collect statistics on their click through to eBay. In these cases, when a user clicks on a link on the affiliate site, they are taken to a URL (redirection page) that logs the click through and then redirects them to an eBay page by using a 302 HTTP return code. The search engine crawler indexes the content it finds at the end of the temporary redirect (the eBay page) to the redirection URL. Therefore, when a user searches for content from the eBay page, the search engine results will contain matches to the redirection URL that link directly to eBay. This type of redirection is not compliant with our terms and conditions. A solution to this problem is to use permanent redirects, i.e. 301 return codes instead of 302. This will ensure that all the content on the destination page after the redirect is indexed to that page only.

If you are currently using a 302 redirect in a method similar to the one described above, please inform us by emailing CS and make the appropriate changes immediately. From June 8th 2010, we will treat this issue as an intentional breach of our terms and conditions and any affiliate exhibiting this behavior will be expired.

The eBay Partner Network team

Most affiliate marketers are already familiar with Facebook Ads, AdWords, Pay-Per-View Networks like TrafficVance and maybe even Twitter advertising with ad.ly. So what other options do you have for cost effectively acquiring traffic that you can monetize?

I believe there’s an opportunity in buying good websites which are often sold for a fraction of what they are worth in the hands of someone with proven monetization skills. There are millions of websites, blogs and forums that people start as a hobby. Often times their monetization is limited to throwing up Google AdSense ads.

Because these websites are run on a part-time basis, and don’t generate much revenue, they get abandoned, or occasionally auctioned off on marketplaces like Flippa.com, WebsiteBroker and BizBuySell.com.

Imagine being able to buy a website that gets 10,000 unique visitors each and every month for only $2000? Sounds a lot more attractive than paying 20 or 30 cents per click on AdWords for that same traffic!

Established websites that have established organic search rankings, communities, email lists, and hundreds or sometimes even thousands of pages of content are ripe for monetization by experienced affiliate marketers who can sometimes increase the revenue of a website by a factor of 10X compared to the original owner by integrating better ads, higher paying offers, and taking advantage of neglected monetization opportunities.

Thankfully it’s easier than ever to find website that match your buying criteria and budget by setting up custom filters & alerts on websites such as Flippa.

What can you do with websites, blogs & forums that you can acquire?

• Update them with better, more relevant content and keep the content fresh and updated on a regular basis.
• Use them to build one-way links to your main property. Inbound links to your main site will improve your search engine rankings.
• Do 301 redirects to squeeze pages that promote relevant affiliate offers. A 301 redirect tells Google that the page has been permanently moved, and will re-direct all your traffic to your other relevant web properties.
• Re-use and repurpose the content that came with the acquired website.
• Or just continue running the website independently, and market relevant offers or items to its readership.

What should you watch out for when buying websites? Here’s my Top 10 list:

1. Check the WHOIS info. If it’s private, ask the seller to unmask it.
2. Insist on Google Analytics for traffic stats. Ask for 6 months+.
3. Check the geographic breakdown of traffic to ensure it’s monetizable.
4. Check a sites history at ARCHIVE.org.
5. Google the seller’s name and the name of the website.
6. Manually review the inbound links to the domain name.
7. Check the marketing on SEMRush.com.
8. Talk to the seller on the telephone to ensure they are legitimate.
9. Overlay ad network stats with Google Analytics & look for divergences.
10. Check the robots.txt file on the domain to see if any particular pages or directories are excluded, and if so, check them manually to find out why.

Finally, make sure to ask the seller if the site has ever driven traffic to eBay via eBay Partner Network and ask for the account’s status. Also, remember that if you plan to drive traffic from the site to eBay directly rather than to one of your existing sites, then make sure you understand the site’s code, as once you are the site’s owners, you are responsible for the traffic it drives!

There are some amazing deals to be had in buying under-monetized or abandoned websites. For example, LiveCrunch.com a tech blog with 170,000 unique visitors per month and 18,000 indexed pages in Yahoo! was was only generating $600 in monthly revenue and sold for $10,000. Imagine having 170,000 monthly visitors, each and every month, for a one-time cost of $10,000.

I hope this blog post opens your eyes to the massive opportunity around acquiring high-quality website and traffic on the cheap. Find relevant websites that match the niches and affiliate programs that you’re promoting through markplaces like Flippa.com, do your due diligence, and then pull the trigger. You’ll be surprised by how much traffic you can acquire for a fraction of the costs of buying online media.

Matt Mickiewicz is the owner of Flippa and a serial entrepreneur who started his first online business in 1998. He lives in Vancouver, Canada and is an avid traveler.

Public relations is an essential component of any small business growth strategy. A well-planned PR campaign can raise awareness of your company and get other people talking about you – evangelizing your products or services for you. It can, however, be costly.

If you don’t have the time or resources for a full-scale PR campaign, there are some things you can do on your own that borrow from the PR philosophy. By investing just a little time, you can quickly increase company buzz and build upon your site traffic using these low-cost techniques.

Before we dive into the tactics, though, let’s take a high-level look at what PR is. In the traditional sense, public relations involves working with bloggers, reporters and other influencers in an effort to get them to speak or write positively about your company or product. Why would you want to do this? Because every company tells people that they’re great, but when someone else says you’re great, people listen.

In today’s world of social media, anyone can be an influencer, which means anyone can be an evangelist for you. Why would they be? Because they like you. In short, this means that PR is about building relationships. When you think of it this way, it becomes much easier to work towards your ultimate goal: getting other people to say good things about you.

While building relationships is something that obviously takes time, here are five top tips to help get you started:

1. Sign up for HelpAReporterOut (HARO) at helpareporterout.com. This is a free service started by PR industry veteran Peter Shankman that aggregates reporter requests for sources for their stories. Whether you sell dog collars or motorcycle helmets, are CEO of a major corporation or a self-employed “expert,” this newsletter is chock full of PR opportunities for you.

2. Get social. Learn how to use Twitter and other social media tools. Search for people that are talking about your industry and start talking to them. Don’t just promote yourself! Actively engage them in conversation. Remember how your mom encouraged you to talk to the other kids during recess? She may or may not have told you that listening is just as important. Think back to being a kid. Social media isn’t so scary – it’s just like talking to the other kids on the playground. Jump in and give it a shot.

3. Learn how to write a news release about a new product or service. There are a number of sites offering advice in this realm (TopRank Blog is one of my favorites). A few tips to get you started: Make sure your “news” is actually newsworthy. Write for your customer – get rid of the industry jargon. Nine times out of ten, your customer won’t know what your “industry-leading, super-technologically advanced” contraption is. Tell them how it will benefit them and make their lives easier. And make it simple! Choose the most affordable and relevant distribution mechanism for your news and issue your release. You can do this over a newswire ($200-$1000+), a web-only press release service (free-$200) or just post it on your website and share it with a few key influencers, per the tip below.

4. Get to know the reporters, bloggers and influencers in your industry. Do the research online to see who really may be interested in your company and approach them politely with your news, or find another way to strike up a conversation. Maybe you have a comment on their latest story. Maybe you know of another expert they’d be interested in meeting. Find ways to add value to the relationship, as opposed to simply pitching yourself. This is the best way to build the relationship, get people to like you, and think of you when they have a story to write that you might be a fit for.

5. Guest blog. Guest blogging is a great way to position yourself as an expert and grow your audience. By writing balanced articles that pertain to your industry on other people’s blogs, you’ll build credibility, gain additional visitors to your site and enhance your search engine optimization efforts. Many bloggers are looking for additional content, so if you take the time to write a neutral (read: not self-promotional) piece that their audience would genuinely be interested in, there’s a good chance they’ll take you up on it. For a great primer on how to get started guest-blogging, check out this guest post on CopyBlogger.

These are just a few things that you can do to gain more exposure for your company through the realm of PR. You can find lots of great resources on the net about doing your own PR, and when you’re big enough, you can hire someone to help. In the meantime, remember that the best thing you can do is focus on building relationships. Be nice, be helpful – to your customers and others in your industry – and good opportunities will come your way.

Good luck!

Ali Croft is co-founder and director of PR at Just Drive Media, a boutique PR and online marketing consultancy. She shares thoughts and news about PR and affiliate marketing at www.twitter.com/JustDrive.