We wanted to let you know that we experienced an issue with ACRU tracking this month.  An error was introduced recently during an upgrade in the way ACRUs are tabulated.  The issue affected stats from Nov 13 (when the upgrade rolled that caused the issue) to Nov 16 (when we put the fix in place).  Note that you wouldn’t have seen Nov 16 data until the following day (Nov 17). This issue also affected all eBay programs (countries). It did not affect Half.com.

We were able to recover the data, and will be able to calculate the right number of ACRUs and the correct quality tiers for each account and therefore attribute the right earnings to each of you at the end of the month. The magnitude of the issue was in the order of 30-40% of your ACRUs for those days, but this may vary by publisher.

We will issue a makegood at the end of the month to be paid out with the rest of your November commissions in December. However, please note that we will not be able to update the actual reports in the interface with the correct ACRU numbers. Therefore the numbers that you see in your reports for ACRUs this month will be incomplete for those 4 days worth of data. This will affect all reports, including your campaign quality report. Despite the missing numbers, the campaign quality report should still be a directional indicator of the quality of your traffic at a campaign level.

To see the amount of your makegood bonus, follow these steps.  First, login to your ePN account.  Then click on the Account Tab in the upper left of your screen.  Next, click on the Payment History link to see your payment history details.  Here you will see your past successful payments as well as a pending payment amount.  If you click the pending payment amount you can see a breakdown of your Earnings for the month as well as the makegood Bonus amount.  PLEASE NOTE that the bonus won’t be updated in the interface until late December. 

We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience. 

The eBay Partner Network Team

Daily Deals

The Daily Deals will feature one popular item, each day, such as an Apple Ipod 80GB at a very low price until the quantities are sold out.  Our list of items we plan to offer for the Daily Deal is sure to get shoppers coming back to check what’s coming next!  Here are the key points on this promotion:

• Deeply-discounted, Buy It Now listings with free shipping – limited quantities of one product featured every day for 45 days.
• From November 3 to December 17 (a 45-day period), a unique product will be available each day on the site.
• Items will include electronics, sporting goods, video game accessories, DVD movies, home and garden merchandise, and much more.
• All items are fixed-price for one day, and quantities are limited.
• The Daily Deal will be posted on the site every day at 12 pm PST.

Click on the banner or links below to get the html for the Daily Deal banners:

Other sizes offered:

 728×90

 468×60

 120×600

 125×125 

Bid from $1

The Bid from $1 will feature 100’s of great Holiday gifts with Free Shipping that start at $1 and do not have a minimum set price, so there will be big opportunities for Holiday shoppers to find great deals!  Here are the details: 

• Auctions starting at $1 for new electronics offered with free shipping and no reserve.
• From November 3 to December 17 (a 45-day period), thousands of the in-demand items will be available on eBay via auctions with starting bids at $1.
• These items will have free shipping and no reserves.
• All items are new, and include MP3 players, GPS devices, cameras, video game accessories, video games and more.

Other sizes offered:

728×90

468×60

120×600

125×125

Good luck with your holiday promotions this year!

The eBay Partner Network Team

How to earn your 20% bonus

We have set targets based on the Winning Bid and BIN Revenue you generated for eBay.co.uk in September and if you beat these targets, you will earn a 20% Rev Share bonus, which will be paid to you in January. 

• Beat September Revenue £ amount by 35% in November = 20% RevShare bonus
• Beat September Revenue £ amount by 15% in December = 20% RevShare bonus

Of course, these targets take into account that traffic to eBay.co.uk naturally increases in the run up to Christmas and don’t forget you’ll also receive commission on all the ACRUs you drive too!

Win a Nintendo Wii

Everyone who hits their targets and earns more than £100 in commissions in both November and December will be entered into a draw to win a Nintendo Wii.  We’ll even throw in a Wii Fit to help you work off the Christmas pudding!  The lucky winner will be notified in January. 

We’re looking forward to seeing you earn your bonuses in November and December and good luck with winning the Nintendo Wii!

Cian and Julia

The eBay Partner Network UK Team

For all publishers who joined prior to August 1st, we want to remind you that the new Value Based Pricing structure for ACRUs begins November 1st (all publishers that joined after August 1st have already been on this system since August 1st).  This means that all ACRUs that are generated during the months to come will be placed on a payout tier according to the value of the new active eBay users you send. 

The purpose of this new pricing is to pay publishers based on the expected lifetime value of the new users they send to eBay.  We base this on the new user’s purchases and the level of activity on the site.  It’s simple really, the more a new user is worth to eBay, the more we can and will compensate the publisher who brought us that user.  This is a fundamental change we are making to help focus more on quality and performance rather than just quantity for new user referrals.

Over the last few months we have been uploading quality scores every two weeks into the Campaign Quality Report, which represent the value of your ACRUs.  You can find your quality scores, which are factored into your final payout tier, in the reports tab by selecting “Campaign Quality” from the drop down menu. 
For those of you who have not yet gotten a chance to run the report – it’s easy to do following these steps:

1. Log into your account and click on the Reports Tab
2. Select Report Type: By Campaign Quality
3. Period – (for example once 12/15 is uploaded it will reflect your November ACRU payout tier)
4. Program: US
5. Actions: ACRU

At the very top of the report, under “Total”, you will see the total overall quality score for all of your traffic.  This is the score that will be used to calculate your ACRU payout for the US program and will be applied to all the ACRUs in your account (i.e. the score is applied at a publisher level, not at a campaign level).  The tiers translate into ACRU payment as follows:

• Very High = $50 / ACRU
• High = $40 / ACRU
• Medium = $28 / ACRU
• Low = $10 / ACRU
• Very Low = $1 / ACRU

Note that campaign level data is estimated and may not match the payout tier for your overall account.  This is because your account-level tier is calculated using historical and other account-level factors not applied to campaign-level data.  Here are a few other points to note:

• It takes us a few days after the close of a period to calculate quality scores.   For example, scores for October will not be uploaded until November 10th
• Quality score is not based on volume, ie. higher volume does not mean a higher quality score
• We’ll continue to update these quality reports every two weeks with updated scores, and they will allow you to see performance over time

Also note is that your reports for a current month will show our best estimate of your ACRU tier will be based on your last month’s data.  For example if you run a report on Nov 16th of your month to date metrics, your ACRU earnings will be calculated using your October tier.  Final ACRU tiers for November will be finalized and calculated by December 10th.   

You can find more information about this report in the help user manual under Reports->Summary Reporting->By Campaign Quality.

Many affiliates will be generating more earnings per ACRU following this pricing change.  However, those affiliates with low or very low quality may wish to optimize their promotions to achieve a higher payout tier.  We have talked about some of these methods in the past: http://www.ebaypartnernetworkblog.com/en/news/tips-for-sending-engaged-buyer-traffic-to-ebay-sites/

Thank you for your work in driving traffic to eBay.  We remain committed to working with you to continue to strengthen and make you successful in the eBay Partner Network. 

The eBay Partner Network Team

Custom Banner is a customizable flash banner that displays real-time eBay listings based on your search criteria.  For those of you who are familiar with our existing creatives and widgets, think of Custom Banner as an enhancement to regular flash and static banner ads that don’t show specific, live eBay listings.  It also has several new features that give it an enhanced look and feel and, in some ways, more flexibility than Editor Kit. 

Custom banner allows you to choose from several pre-defined themes or design your own, then filter the search results based on keyword, category, and more.  It’s branded with the “Right Now on eBay” logo and PayPal logos for listings that offer PayPal as a payment method.

Benefits:

• Provides more flexibility than banner ads and Editor Kit – you can choose a standard banner ad size or specify the exact height and width you want
• Simple to set up right from the eBay Partner Network interface
• Enhanced look and feel – scrolling, Flash display, PayPal logo, and the ability to customize the color scheme
• Extended search options – you can get listings based on keyword, category, price range, seller, and listing type

To use Custom Banner:

• Go to the Tools tab in your ePN account and click on Widgets, then click on Custom Banner
• Choose your ad size (standard or custom)
• Select a pre-made theme or create your own
• Enter your tracking information
• Pick your search criteria
• Copy and paste the code from the wizard to your site

It’s that easy to use, so what are you waiting for?  Note that Custom Banner is compatible with all eBay Partner Network country Programs.  Try it now on your sites, and tell us what you think!

The eBay Partner Network Team

• Always verify that the URL in your browser displays www.ebaypartnernetwork.com in the domain, prior to entering your User ID and Password.
• Only log into eBay Partner Network by typing the address into your address bar. Do not follow hyperlinks or search engine results to our webpage. If there is a hyperlink in any communications that claim to be from eBay Partner Network, cut and paste it into the Address bar instead of clicking on it.
• Do not share you User ID and Password with anyone.
• Create a strong Password that is not easy to guess.  Be sure to use different passwords for eBay Partner Network than you do for your email, bank accounts, or computer login. This is important to ensure security for all of your accounts.
• We will never send you an email that asks for your personal information or login.  Be aware of phishing emails and spoof sites. Do not put your account password into any forms other than the sign in on the ebaypartnernetwork.com page.

If at any point you feel your account may have been compromised, or see that your personal information or payment details have changed without your knowledge, please contact customer service right away.

Sincerely,

The eBay Partner Network Team

Screenshot (click to zoom in):

We want to highlight one specific topic, but to learn more about the Category Summary Report, please go the Help section for further details.

What is the Other Category?
The items that are listed under the ‘Other’ bucket are based on the availability of items that were originally listed from another eBay Site, but were purchased via the program site you are
active in.

For example, Seller XYZ posts a Beanie Baby on www.ebay.co.uk and lists the item as being available for buyers on other sites. A buyer clicks on one of your links and is forwarded to the eBay US site, and searches for ‘Beanie Baby.’ They then land on the results of the listing from Seller XYZ and they purchase the item. Because this item was originally listed on eBay UK, but purchased on eBay US, it will appear under the reports for the eBay US program and will fall into the ‘Other’ bucket.  This category usually represents a very small percentage of transactions for most publishers.

We hope you find this report helpful.

The eBay Partner Network Team

We are in the process of upgrading our reporting systems after the reporting delays this past weekend and wanted to tell you ahead of time that there will be some additional delays the rest of this week in reporting as we perform this maintenance. 

The data from the 14th posted today, but the transactions from the 15th will be delayed until tomorrow, the 17th.  We expect tomorrow’s update will also include data from the 16th, and be back to the normal schedule moving forward.

We apologize for the inconvenience and want to confirm that the underlying tracking system is still in place and working properly, this issue is only affecting the loading of that data into the graphs and tables available for publishers on eBay Partner Network.

Sincerely,

eBay Parnter Network Team

Up to now, the eBay.fr affiliate program has mostly rewarded the recruitment of new registered users. As of the 1st of November, we want to compensate you more for the activity of the 12 million registered users we have already!

This is why, on top of the new ACRU compensation, the ebay.fr affiliate program will be tying your earnings per bid and BIN to the revenue we get for the sold item and the share you receive will vary from 40% to 65%. This model has already allowed affiliates to increase their income in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia.

Details on the Revenue Share Payout structure (or “Rev’Share”)

The revenue used to calculate your commission is made up of the seller fees (listing fees and final value fees) earned by eBay after a winning bid or Buy-it-Now that has been generated by traffic that you have driven to eBay.fr.

Basically, this means that when you generate sales on eBay.fr and eBay.fr receives €100 of revenue from these sales, you will be paid between €40 and €65, depending on the total monthly revenue generated by your account.

On top of an exceptional payout on revenue, the eBay.fr affiliate program will continue to reward you for New Active Users based on a new payout structure (see detailed structure below).

The Payout structure:

A couple of examples :

• If you generate 100 New Active Confirmed Registered Users and €8,000 of eBay revenue in any given month, you will therefore receive compensation of (€15*100)+( €8,000*50%)= €1,500+€4,000=€5,500
• If you generate 600 New Active Confirmed Registered Users and €120,000  eBay revenue, you will receive compensation of (€20*600)+(€120,000*65%)= €12,000+€78,000=€90,000

This new Payout structure will apply to all affiliates for the activity generated from the 1st of November onwards! Use this new compensation to increase your income during the holiday season!

*Winning Bid: An end user completes a bid or BIN that results in a successful transaction on eBay.fr and Content within 7 days after clicking your Link.
** ACRU: An end user (a) registers on the eBay.fr for the first time within 30 days of clicking on a Link (b) confirms his or her registration and (c) visits eBay.fr and Content and places a bid or BIN to purchase an item within 30 days of the original registration.

Trainz.com sells inventory on its own website as well as on eBay, conducting about 4,000 total transactions per month. Since much of its inventory is sold on eBay, Trainz.com has incorporated links to its eBay inventory all over its website, encouraging visitors to check eBay as well as Trainz.com for the particular product they’re looking for.

In early 2007, Trainz.com became a member of the eBay Partner Network so that it could be paid for the visitors it was driving to eBay, whether a visitor bought a Trainz.com product or not. Since then, the company has seen an increase in revenues as a result.

Trainz.com issues a monthly newsletter to its 20,000 regular customers, which is used to highlight new and collectible items for sale on its site, and drives people to eBay to check out the new inventory there.  The combination of its multi-channel sales strategy and eBay Partner Network participation has helped Trainz.com continue to grow steadily every year. The company recently won a Professional eBay Sellers’ Alliance (PeSA) contest for driving the most traffic to eBay, outpacing its competition by 2-3X! 

“Joining the eBay Partner Network has been very beneficial to our business,” said Scott Griggs, founder and CEO of Trainz.com. “If our customers can’t find what they’re looking for on our site, we can provide a better experience for them by helping them find what they’re looking for on eBay. Even if they end up buying something completely different, we’ve helped that customer out and eBay rewards us for doing so.”