eBay PartnerNetwork Blog

Hi All,

In this videocast Chad talks with his predecessor, Will Martin-Gill, about topics such as what it’s like to work within eBay Partner Network, his advice for our partners and also parting advice for Chad in his new role.

Thank you for your commitment to eBay Partner Network and best wishes in your new position, Will!

The eBay Partner Network Team

Hi All,

We’ve decided to try a new form of communication with you, our affiliate partners – video. This is the first in a series of videocasts we’ll be releasing over the next few weeks, to give you a chance to get to know the team here at eBay Partner Network. We’ll be discussing what’s happening here at eBay, what it’s like to work for ePN, industry trends and other things that pop up along the way. We’ll also be giving you a chance to help us shape future content. We’d love to hear your thoughts along the way (constructive, please!) so that we can improve on this as we go. And, of course, we hope you enjoy them as much as we’ve been enjoying working on them.

By the way, the case study I reference in this video can be downloaded here: http://bit.ly/cgVami

Thanks and enjoy!
Chad

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

Due to the overwhelming success & popularity of Beach Camera TVs during the June coupon event, Beach Camera is going big this July with two coupons that mark down the low prices on their TVs even further. Currently there are 230 different TVs in the Beach Camera eBay store, and while some may be refurbished, many of these units are brand new and come with complete factory warranties. A majority of these TVs(almost all of them) are also listed with Free Shipping. The two coupon codes for the promotion are:

CBEACHCAML – Save an additional 10% on all TV’s priced under $2000. $200 maximum discount.

CBEACHCAMH – Save an additional 15% on all TVs priced $2000 and above. $375 maximum discount.

The best part about this deal, is that eBay Partner Network affiliates are given a five day head start, as onsite promotions will not begin until July 6. The main landing page for this promotion is here and will be live on July 1st, 2010. Both of these coupon offers are good from July 1-30, 2010, or while supplies last. PayPal payment method required to redeem the coupon. Please note these coupon codes are only valid on TV purchases made at the Beach Camera eBay store. In order to create eBay Partner Network links to this offer, please use the Link Generator Tool with the custom url or item id options.

- The eBay Partner Network Team

The globe is abuzz with FIFA fever, and it’s been an exciting Cup so far! The month-long soccer (or football, to the rest of the world) tournament is in full swing and there’s still time to score some extra revenue by creating a tie-in to some of the most sought after World Cup items found on eBay.

With increased listings for soccer and World Cup during the first two weeks of the games, sellers are capitalizing on the attention brought to the event that only happens once every four years. Memorabilia, clothing and collectibles are hot, along with high-priced tickets to view the matches.

Whether watching the matches live or on television, spectators are no doubt familiar with vuvuzelas, the buzzing South African horns. These instruments weren’t even on our radar a month ago, but listings have skyrocketed since the games began. The same goes for the Adidas Jabulani, the World Cup 2010 Official Match Ball that has been used during all of the games.

With international audiences cheering on their favorite teams, bids and listings for the teams still in the hunt have been increasing as the games play out. Who knows what team will take home the cup, but if the competition was measured by eBay listings, USA and Mexico would be neck and neck, with Argentina and Germany following closely behind. Buyers also seem to have taken an interest in the host country, as items from South Africa – not limited to World Cup memorabilia – have surged since May.

Although defending champ Italy was favored over Slovakia with 6:1 odds, the underdog came out on top, unexpectedly knocking Team Italia out of contention. Italian fans might find a little bit of solace in knowing that their merchandise is much more popular with eBay users, with nearly 25 times as many items listed. However, if Slovakia continues to do well, listings may follow suit.

By keeping an eye on the games and thinking of ways to capitalize on the excitement of the World Cup and other current events, you’ll catch the attention of both current and new website visitors. And by tapping into the buzz, eBay affiliates should be able to score some financial GOOOOOOAAAAAAALS!!!!

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

Summer has officially begun and you can get your designer shades at eBay’s Fashion Vault, where Derek Lam, MODO, NETJETS, FABIEN BARON and Jennifer Creel sunglasses will be up to 60% off retail prices! This sale takes place Monday, June 21st at 9am PDT through Wednesday, June 23rd at 9pm PDT. Make sure to check the Fashion Vault for updated information and specific sale items.

Additional 20% Off
You can take an additional 20% off your purchase when you enter code CMDFASHIONVAULT at checkout. This coupon is valid Monday, June 21st only.

How to Promote eBay’s Fashion Vault
You will be able to promote this exciting flash sale in several ways:

• Dynamic Banners in sizes 160×600, 300×250 and 728×90, under the Clothing, Shoes, & Accessories Category in the Creative Generator.
• You can access the Fashion Vault XML Feed.
• Use the Link Generator Tool with the Custom URL or Item ID options to link directly to sale items.
• Use seller id: Stylepremium for the RSS Feed Generator and Custom Banner.

Happy Promoting!
The eBay Partner Network Team

Now you can promote merchandise alongside the release of one of the most anticipated children’s movies of the summer. June 18th will be the debut of ‘Toy Story 3’ by Disney and Pixar films. Coordinated with this date, eBay has worked directly with Disney to stock their eBay store with ‘Toy Story’ inventory. This includes items in the following categories: toys, apparel, home & décor, and collectibles.

Prices range from $149.95 for a programmable Buzz Lightyear Figure to $1.99 for a Disney ‘Toy Story’ bowl. As part of the promotion, the banner below will appear in all searches in the Disney store, and a small flash widget will display ‘Toy Story 3’ items for sale, through the end of June.

Promotion Ideas

• The ideal place to direct your interested ‘Toy Story 3’ shoppers would be the ‘Toy Story Landing Page’ in the eBay Disney Store.



• You may also want to send traffic directly to the Disney Store.
• Other popular Character searches in the Disney store include:
  WALL-E, Handy Manny, Cars, Tinker Bell, Pooh, Princesses, and Mickey
• Use the Custom Banner and advanced settings to limit products to the eBay Seller ID ‘Disney’
• Customize an RSS feed with Seller ID ‘Disney’ and search term ‘Toy Story,’ and then use Widgetbox to create a custom widget.
• Use the Link Generator to promote specific popular products such as:
• The Toy Story 3 Western Train Lego Play Set
• The Toy Story 3 Bullseye Action Figure
• The Toy Story 3 Rex Action Figure
• The Toy Story 3 Twitch Action Figure
• The Toy Story 3 Chunk Action Figure
  Or, the ever-popular
• Ultimate Programmable Buzz Lightyear Figure
• Remind buyers of the Disney Guarantee: “If you are not completely satisfied with your Disney product, you can return it for an exchange, refund, or merchandise credit.”
• You can also use this logo below or the image above in conjunction with any ‘Toy Story 3’ promotions on your site.

Good luck and Happy Promoting!
The eBay Partner Network Team

Many of you are interested in attending educational conferences to learn techniques to grow your online businesses. With that in mind, we have put together a list of some upcoming events that you might consider attending.

July

PubCon Masters Group Search and Social Media Training is a one day event in Austin, TX on July 21. This day long workshop is a great opportunity to learn more about search engine optimization tactics, such as long-tail search targeting, link-building campaigns and more. Or, if you’re more interested in their social media track, you can attend sessions on reputation management, social media landing page conversion and other social media topics. Whichever track you choose, you are sure to find useful information at this jam-packed seminar.

Registration Information for PubCon Masters Group Search and Social Media Training:

Where: Downtown Radisson Hotel and Suites
When: July 21
Pricing: $1,199

August

Affiliate Summit East is taking place in New York City August 15-17. For those of you that have not attended an Affiliate Summit in the past, this is the largest conference dedicated solely to affiliate marketing in the United States. Whether you are an internet marketing novice, or are an affiliate marketing master, Affiliate Summit offers several tracks from beginner to advanced, so that every attendee can learn and grow from the sessions offered. For more information about Affiliate Summit, including a breakdown of the type of attendees and more, take a look at their site.

Registration Information for Affiliate Summit:

Where: Hilton New York
When: August 15-17, 2010
Pricing: Diamond Pass ($2,249), Platinum Pass ($1,249), Gold Pass ($549), Silver Pass ($249)

*Some of our team members will be attending Affiliate Summit East, we look forward to connecting with new and current partners there!

SES San Francisco will be taking place August 16-20. Search Engine Strategies is now in its 12th year and is the foremost conference to learn more about search engine marketing, including both SEO and PPC. SES is full of sessions covering topics such as keyword research, link building, PPC management and so much more.

Registration Information for SES San Francisco:

Where: The Moscone Center
When: August 16-20, 2010
Early Bird Pricing (through July 30th): Platinum Passport ($1,695), Two-Day Pass ($1,195), One-Day Pass ($845), Expo Only Pass (FREE In Advance)

September

Performance Marketing Expo is a new conference where Affiliate Marketing and Performance Marketing meet. This show takes place in Miami Beach, FL September 27-29. The Performance Marketing Expo differentiates itself from other industry conferences by facilitating numerous networking events to allow attendees to foster new relationships and to cultivate business partnerships.

Registration Information for Performance Marketing Expo:

Where: Miami Beach, FL
When: September 27-29
Pricing (through August 20th): All-Access ($1,695), Elite ($1,195), Executive ($695), Associate ($129)

As always, we hope that this information is helpful to you. If there are other conferences going on this summer that we didn’t highlight here and are worth checking out, please feel free to share them with us through the comments!

To your continued success,
The eBay Partner Network Team