eBay PartnerNetwork Blog

The dates for eBay’s 9th annual Developers Conference have just been announced, and if you register before April 9th you can attend this educational and inspirational event for only $99! Set to take place in sunny San Jose, CA, this year’s summit will take place June 8th-10th at the Fairmont Hotel in the heart of Silicon Valley.

This year’s DevCon includes three days of:

• 40+ hands on workshops, one-on-one sessions and best practices
• Sneak peak of eBay’s plans for the future
• Pre-conference workshops where you can learn directly from the Pros
• Fun network events, like our annual Beer Bash

For more information, including student discounts, schedule and further details about the location, take a look at the DevCon website.

Don’t forget to connect with us on Twitter and Facebook, and you can always find great information on our blog.

We look forward to meeting you in June!

The eBay Partner Network Team

Hello Partners,

As you may know, a scheduled upgrade to the eBay Partner Network RSS Feeds caused a one-time mapping error that has now been corrected. The issue began on February 9th and was fixed on February 16th. Please note that only non-US publishers using the RSS Feeds were affected. A makegood will be issued with February earnings in the March payment to all impacted publishers.

Thank you for your patience as we worked to resolve this issue.
The eBay Partner Network Team

Hello Partners,

We have had a few reports that some of our affiliates have been experiencing issues with bots and other automated activity inflating their click numbers. We have been working on enhancements to our click filtering platform to help ensure that click counts in the eBay Partner Network are an accurate representation of valid clicks. We will continue to roll these out in the coming weeks.

Thank you for your continued partnership.
The eBay Partner Network Team

From Wednesday 10th Feburary, we will be adding some new parameters to the links generated by the RSS feed for publishers promoting non-US programs. Publisher links will automatically be changed to the new link structure.

For the vast majority of publishers, there will be no need to make any changes to the way you promote eBay or to how the RSS feed is configured. However, if you are using software or tools to further manipulate the RSS feed links (e.g. Build A Niche Store or PHPBay), you may need to check that your links still work properly after the change has been implemented. If you experience any issues, please contact your software or tool provider.

Below are examples of an RSS feed link in the current and new formats:

Example of current format RSS feed link:
http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/707-53477-19255-0/1?campid=5336450197&customid=&toolid=10005&
mpre=http%3A%2F%2Fcgi.ebay.de%2FElmo-Elchmeter-Bpz-Magicsport-Magic-Sport-2-2008-TOP_
W0QQitemZ220551167382QQcmdZViewItemQQssPageNameZRSS%3AB%3ASRCH%3ADE%3A102

Example of new format RSS feed link:
http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?icep_ff3=2&toolid=10005&campid=5336450197
&customid=&icep_item=350310730839&ipn=psmain&icep_vectorid=238401&kwid=9020
99&mtid=824&kw=rss

We’re pleased to report that eBay Partner Network (ePN) won the Pinnacle Award for “Exceptional Merchant” at Affiliate Summit West in Las Vegas, the US’s biggest affiliate event of 2010.

Judged by the Affiliate Summit Advisory Board, the Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Awards are affiliate marketing’s most prestigious and competitive honor for the leaders in the space. According to Affiliate Tip, award winners are recognized because they are innovative leaders with vision and influence.

This award is great testimony to the thought leadership and execution shown by the entire team. We’re proud of our accomplishments during the past year, including the move to our Quality Click Pricing system, which has allowed us to reward affiliates driving high-quality traffic to eBay with one of the most competitive payouts in the industry.

This is the second accolade in two months for ePN: in December our team won the eConsultancy Innovation Award. We’re working hard to promote quality in performance marketing, and it’s exciting to see our efforts being recognized throughout the industry.

Thanks to the Pinnacle Awards judging staff, and thank you to our publishers who continue to drive valuable traffic to eBay every day!

The eBay Partner Network Team

Hello,

This is a reminder to review the accuracy of your W9 Information for 1099-Tax forms for the year 2009. For more information on how to do this, please read this blog post.

PLEASE NOTE that eBay Partner Network (ePN) will be sending a 1099 to the ePN account holder that was listed on each account as of December 31, 2009. We unfortunately can’t make any exceptions.

eBay Partner Network Forms 1099-MISC will be postmarked via US Postal Service no later than January 31, 2010. You can find additional information about the 1099-MISC Form from the IRS website, www.irs.gov.

Here are a few questions that have come up on 1099s:

1. When do I receive a 1099 Form from eBay Partner Network?

IRS regulations mandate that 1099-MISC forms be distributed no later than January 31st of the year following payment. Forms 1099-MISC are mailed via the US Postal Service no later than January 31st. Please allow time for delivery.

2. Which 1099 Form will I receive from eBay Partner Network?

You will receive the 1099-MISC form from eBay Partner Network.

3. What is a 1099-MISC and what does it mean?

A 1099-MISC is an information return. An information return is a tax document businesses are required to file to report certain business transactions to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The requirement to file Information Returns is mandated by the Internal Revenue Service and associated regulations. It is used to report miscellaneous income paid to individuals and companies who have received $600 or more other income payments during a calendar year.

4. What is reported on the 1099-MISC form?

Form 1099-MISC is used to report payments made in the course of a trade or business to another person or business who is not an employee. The form is required to be filed when $600 or more in other income is paid. The form is provided by the payer (eBay Partner Network) to the IRS and the person or business that received the payment.

5. What is the difference between a Form W-2 and a Form 1099-MISC?

Both of these forms are called information returns. The Form W-2 is used by employers to report wages, tips and other compensation paid to an employee. The form also reports the employee’s income tax and Social Security taxes withheld and any advanced earned income credit payments. The Form W-2 is provided by the employer to the employee and the Social Security Administration.

A Form 1099-MISC is used to report payments made in the course of a trade or business to another person or business who is not an employee. The form is required among other things, when payments of $10 or more in gross royalties or $600 or more in rents or other income payments are paid. The form is provided by the payer to the IRS and the person or business that received the payment.

6. I didn’t receive the 1099-MISC form. What should I do?

The 2009 Form 1099-MISC will be mailed by January 31, 2010. Please allow for normal delivery time. If you have not received your 1099-MISC form by February 8, 2010, contact us at ePN-cs-english@ebay.com to order a duplicate copy of your 2009 1099-MISC form.

7. What happens if I have questions relating to amount, payment details, incorrect Tax ID or name listed on the 1099-MISC form?

Please contact us at ePN-cs-english@ebay.com.

8. What happens if I the amount, payment details, Tax ID or name listed on the 1099-MISC form is incorrect?

Please contact us at ePN-cs-english@ebay.com.

9. Which payments are included on the 2009 1099-MISC form?

The 2009 1099-MISC form reflects all amounts paid during the 2009 tax year by eBay Partner Network, regardless of the month in which the amounts were earned. The 2009 1099-MISC form includes payments with issue dates from January 1, 2009, through December 31, 2009.

Any payments issued after January 1, 2010, for your eBay Partner Network earnings from the month of December 2009 will be in the 2010 1099-MISC form.

10. Does an incorrect address on my 1099-MISC form affect its validity?

An incorrect address does not affect the validity of a Form 1099-MISC. Notify us at ePN-cs-english@ebay.com of any address change or log-in to your eBay Partner Network account and change the address in your W9 online tax form to ensure prompt delivery of your future 1099-MISC forms. Address changes made after December 26, 2009 will not be reflected on the 2009 1099-MISC form.

11. Where can I find additional information?

All the information provided above is from the IRS website, www.irs.gov. Any additional details can be found on their website.

Best regards,

The eBay Partner Network Team

The whole eBay Partner Network team would like to wish our publishers a very happy Holiday and a Happy New Year! We hope you all enjoy a well deserved break and come back fresh in 2010 ready to continue our partnership and keep on driving quality traffic to eBay.

We’re also taking a break from writing articles for the blog until January, so check back then for more news, tips, tricks, and guest blog posts.

Thanks for a great year!

The eBay Partner Network team

Hi all

We’re proud to announce that eBay Partner Network has won the Affiliate Marketing eConsultancy Innovation Award for our introduction of Quality Click Pricing.

It’s great to see that we’ve been recognized for our efforts to better and more fairly reward our best affiliates for the quality traffic they’re driving to eBay. eConsultancy also mentioned our aim to “elevate the quality of traffic driven to eBay sites through (our) affiliate programme,” and this is reflected by the fact that EPCs are on the rise across the network and we’ve seen plenty of publishers that were initially losing make changes to their site and then earn more.

Here’s what the judges had to say: “A fantastic idea from eBay. The Quality Click Pricing is a no-brainer. The decision to reward affiliates based on customer lifetime value and PayPal usage is a highly compelling incentive.”

Thanks to the eConsultancy judges and to all our publishers for making Quality Click Pricing a success!

The eBay Partner Network team

As many of you know, on November 21st eBay had some problems with the search functionality on the eBay sites. This affected some search results to queries on the site, as well as affected a number of affiliates that use the RSS feeds and the API through eBay Partner Network. The issues began around 5am US Pacific Daylight Time on November 21st and were resolved around 10pm US Pacific Daylight Time that same day.

We have finalized calculations for a makegood that will use the earnings on the days before and the days after the outage, along with a factor to account for Christmas seasonality, to calculate a makegood to make up for the decrease in affiliate earnings caused by this outage.

This makegood will be added to each account and will be paid out along with the December payment.

Thanks for your patience as we worked to resolve this issue.

We wanted to notify US Publishers of some important tax information.

You will receive a 1099 tax form for the year 2009 from eBay Partner Network if:

• you are a United States citizen or legal resident and
• you had $600 reportable tax activity for the year 2009

eBay Partner Network Forms 1099-MISC will be postmarked via US Postal Service no later than January 31, 2010.

To ensure the accuracy of the 1099 –MISC Forms, please log-in to your eBay Partner Network account and make sure that you have entered the latest information in your W9 online form:

Here is how to confirm your tax information:

In your dashboard go to Account – Payment Information, under Tax Information – Enter & Approve W9

You can find additional information about the 1099-MISC Form from the IRS website, www.irs.gov.

Please note that eBay Partner Network is not authorized to give you any tax advice. Please reach out to a tax advisor to get qualified advice about your taxes.

Warm wishes,

The eBay Partner Network Team