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Last Post Feb 7, 2009 4:44 PM by: dvd2sl
Replies: 313
steveh@ebay.com
Posts: 110

August 20 Expirations

Aug 21, 2008 4:50 PM
I wanted to address all of the board posts regarding the expiration emails that were sent last night.

These actions were part of our continued effort to focus on delivering the highest quality buyer traffic to eBay via affiliate marketing. To that end, we’ve been analyzing our program closely over the last few months. I know there have been a number of requests to provide insight into all of the metrics via which we are evaluating affiliate traffic, but unfortunately there’s an active black hat community that is pretty effective at exploiting these insights so we can’t go into details on them. However, what I can say is that in addition to earnings per click metrics (EPC), we look at a variety of metrics to see how users are behaving when they come to eBay.com – how engaged they are with our site, and whether the affiliate link clicks lead to incremental buying activity. As we’ve done this, we have seen a big discrepancy in how interested and active the traffic is that comes to eBay from different sources.

Our responsibility in the affiliate marketing channel is to allocate our resources to best drive incremental demand to our sellers. To that end, we need to focus on partners who have had the most success in engaging users who become some of our best buyers on eBay. I understand that these actions do have a very real impact on some of our affiliates who have been working with us over the years. For that, I sincerely apologize, but these decisions are made in the best interest of eBay's sellers and the overall health of our affiliate program.

We want to be very clear. Affiliates who received these messages of expiration last night are not being asked to stop sending traffic to us due to fraudulent activity or violations of the terms of service. For those of you who received the message, commissions are not being reversed, and you will be paid for all valid traffic you have sent to us to date, and for the next 7 days.

Sincerely,
Steve
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grandassets
Posts: 1,149
(30 of 313)

August 20 Expirations

Aug 21, 2008 6:17 PM
Coin: its not even the outside ads Im talking about, in the new beta pages when you view auctions its going to show other sellers down the side that says you may also like, and that directly takes food out of my mouth!

The person came into an auction I POSTED, and I PAID FOR, to only be directed at another sellers item, tell me thats not STUPID

and if you think about it with even the out side ads, eBay has turned in to a BANS site it self! they draw traffic only to have you click on an affiliate!
they them self are a low quality traffic site now.
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coinaf13
Posts: 954
(31 of 313)

August 20 Expirations

Aug 21, 2008 6:20 PM
I'm not blaming Steve I'm blaming eBay.

OK, didn't sound like it to me first time through.

Coin... Don't forget you could be next.

I'm well aware. Didn't you see where I said I've already axed 20 new sites for fear of non-performance?
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mattd241
Posts: 38
(32 of 313)

August 20 Expirations

Aug 21, 2008 6:22 PM
Coinaf13 thinks butt kissing has worked so well, thus far, why ruin a good business plan.

The axe isn't done. Still plenty of a cutting edge left. He'll probably get the chop in the next round. He's making enough money, so he says, to be on their radar for improving their bottom line.
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coinaf13
Posts: 954
(33 of 313)

August 20 Expirations

Aug 21, 2008 6:28 PM
Coinaf13 thinks butt kissing has worked so well, thus far, why ruin a good business plan.

Your funny.... and ignorant. You obviously know nothing about me.
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grandassets
Posts: 1,149
(34 of 313)

August 20 Expirations

Aug 21, 2008 6:33 PM
I'm not blaming Steve I'm blaming eBay
I am, if its a team up there like they say it is, he is part of the problem also!

Steve: your not doing your job, that just added bad juju you were to stop this NOT MAKE IT WORSEWere you not thinking about the firestorm that post would have caused?
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painthappy
Posts: 12
(35 of 313)

August 20 Expirations

Aug 21, 2008 6:34 PM
I'm well aware. Didn't you see where I said I've already axed 20 new sites for fear of non-performance?

But that shouldn't need to be the case. We should try new avenues and new ventures. You never know what might work, if you don't try.

Many of the folks were no under-performers. I don't feel I was. I had one site that was pulling in XXXX a month steady. Now that's gone. That's just one site.

Steve clearly states that it wasn't fraud ( I knew that already, I've been playing by the rules ), but that we've been let go due to some mysterious figures that we're not allowed to know. So we don't know if we're doing well or not????

Probably the folks that were let go where the ones that didn't bring in many new members, had folks that ebay felt "would have bought that item regardless of the affiliate", and therefore let those affiliates go.

I mean, if I was in this business, I'd probably think that way too.

The thing is, my site wasn't like that. We found old/rare/mis-labeled items that would have sold for $10, but due to us finding it and promoting it, sold for much much more. It's a win / win place in my eyes.

I hope to dispute it, and have someone look at it, as I do like ebay, and I understand business is business, but as long as the fair shake goes both ways, I'll still be there. If not, then I'll just find a new avenue I suppose, and the planned expansions into other areas will go forward but in other areas.

I do feel this will hurt ebay in the long run as folks left behind will diversify more and instead of pursuing more ebay, they'll look elsewhere, and I know I would if I wasn't removed.

... Frustrated.
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grandassets
Posts: 1,149
(36 of 313)

August 20 Expirations

Aug 21, 2008 6:43 PM
Well here is something else to tkink about, As a PowerSeller now there are less people driving traffic to ebay (my auctions) I guess I also have to take a dip in income becasue if the ammount of people are not there to bid on my items, I will tank, its bad now!
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steveh@ebay.com
Posts: 110
(37 of 313)

August 20 Expirations

Aug 21, 2008 6:45 PM
Just wanted to follow up on Pixelrage's earlier post:

Nice to be compared to black hatters - too. I've been in web development for 10 years and search engine optimization for 4 years, and have been a hardcore white hatter every inch of the way, but it sure feels good to be stereotyped due to a faulty algorithm and prompt quick fix by your company. Not an endearing quality, ebay.

I was really trying to be clear in my original post that we're in no way comparing folks who were expired to black hatters. I know there are a lot of white hat folks who have been working hard on building businesses who were affected by this, and while this is probably of little consolation, please know that the decisions were not made lightly.

For the folks on this thread who remain in the program who are concerned about their status or innovating with their affiliate sites, I want to reiterate that we're looking for you to drive users to eBay who are going to be engaged with the eBay site and who are making incremental purchases based on your affiliate marketing efforts. We're going to continue to innovate on our side to try to bring you the best platform and tools possible to generate affiliate revenue and hope that you continue to innovate on your side as well with your efforts.

Steve
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housesofspringfield
Posts: 10
(38 of 313)

August 20 Expirations

Aug 21, 2008 6:46 PM
I think this was an amazingly shortsighted and foolish decision by eBay.

They obviously spent a TON of money to get the EPN up and running. Then, with one fell swoop, they obliterated its reputation, by terminating people that were following the rules and operating in good faith.

Two days ago, I sent an email to a friend, suggesting that he try EPN. I mentioned that I was seeing great response from the program from a small section of my website, and was going to try and figure out how to integrate EPN to pages of mine that get significantly more traffic.

I will not expend that effort now. The reward is just not worth the risk because at any time I could be randomly terminated. And I'm not going to tell my friend to risk it with EPN now. Too risky.

In fact, I would be foolish to change one single thing on my website. Why? Because I *wasn't* terminated, and I make some good money. If I try something different, I might cross their invisible line and lose it all. So I'm not going to move a muscle.

That's called institutional paralysis, and eBay has just created it.

Congratulations!
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swordsandcues
Posts: 54
(39 of 313)

August 20 Expirations

Aug 21, 2008 6:46 PM
c'mon guys.. poor steve is just some 21 yo, just out of college guy, who could be sold a plat of land in the florida swamplands by his first company and he would believe in them.. do you really thing he could gie a rat's patoot about our livlihoods and what this does to each person and family.. and immorraly and borderline illegally too i'd say.. the Mafia is alive and well at Ebay... I know anger dissapates after a while, but when word hits the news medias, and with the bad taste this is leaving in ardent ebay supporters/ex-affiliates, i would be shocked it this doesn't severely hurt ebay.. you can add my name to any list of class actions, thank you..
Tony

MustangTraderOnline.com
MedievalClothingStore.com
WeLovePool.com
HighlandRags.com
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grandassets
Posts: 1,149
(40 of 313)

August 20 Expirations

Aug 21, 2008 6:47 PM
I'll be Honest, I really cant believe that some of us are still in the program?
maybe they are playing Fav because I am also a PowerSeller.....
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mrguyhp
Posts: 505
(41 of 313)

August 20 Expirations

Aug 21, 2008 6:56 PM
"For the folks on this thread who remain in the program who are concerned about their status or innovating with their affiliate sites, I want to reiterate that we're looking for you to drive users to eBay who are going to be engaged with the eBay site and who are making incremental purchases based on your affiliate marketing efforts. We're going to continue to innovate on our side to try to bring you the best platform and tools possible to generate affiliate revenue and hope that you continue to innovate on your side as well with your efforts."

Translation: You were lucky this go around. The next time you might not be. Promote other affiliate programs if you want to sleep at night.
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housesofspringfield
Posts: 10
(42 of 313)

August 20 Expirations

Aug 21, 2008 6:56 PM
For the folks on this thread who remain in the program who are concerned about their status or innovating with their affiliate sites, I want to reiterate that we're looking for you to drive users to eBay who are going to be engaged with the eBay site and who are making incremental purchases based on your affiliate marketing efforts.


Wow. Way to say absolutely nothing in 50 words. This is what I heard:

"For those of you remaining, we're not going to tell you what we want you to do, but you need make sure you do it anyway ... or else!".

Institutional paralysis. If you do something, it might be the wrong thing, so instead do nothing.
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lissey143
Posts: 1
(43 of 313)

August 20 Expirations

Aug 21, 2008 6:58 PM
carious to know, how many affiliates plan to hold their breath and continue promoting eBay.. knowing they're capable of such stunts like this?

I personally will be redirecting traffic elsewhere.

In my 4 years of affiliate marketing I have never seen a company, make such a unfortunate decision.

It's time for another big player in auction business to knock them off their pedestal, ebay clearly has its head up its ass
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fikse
Posts: 30
(44 of 313)

August 20 Expirations

Aug 21, 2008 6:58 PM
Steveh,

Is it possible as with previous rounds of expiring some affiliates, that this latest set of expirations has caught up some legitimate well performing affiliates, than upon a manual review by EPN staff could be reinstated into the program?

thanks!
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