Confused about Ebay Affiliate Commissions

[SniperRyan]

download your report as a text file, then upload it here - My eBay Partner Network Report - EPN and BANS sales analyzer and click analyze report. Tells you everything that was bought.

Was going to mention this script, which does the same thing except you can upload it to your own server. Not that it matters, I doubt anyone could steal your niche from those reports unless you had laser-targeted traffic. I just like sending reports through my own domain.

As a side note, I set up one of these as a test site for some moderately well-priced items and the first 6 sales I got were coupons and random stuff. Then someone bought one of the actual products I was pushing and I got a $45 commission.

I purchased 10 more domains and am rolling those sites out as I have time. Thought of 3 more niches reading this thread alone

 

[RockDiesel]

Was going to mention this script, which does the same thing except you can upload it to your own server. Not that it matters, I doubt anyone could steal your niche from those reports unless you had laser-targeted traffic. I just like sending reports through my own domain.

As a side note, I set up one of these as a test site for some moderately well-priced items and the first 6 sales I got were coupons and random stuff. Then someone bought one of the actual products I was pushing and I got a $45 commission.

I purchased 10 more domains and am rolling those sites out as I have time. Thought of 3 more niches reading this thread alone

Actually, I was just running another report through there today and I thought to myself that out of all the people that, assuming the site has decent traffic and usage, they may be monitoring all the reports and looking for niches.

I guess it wouldn't be too hard for them to monitor niche, and commissions in that niche to see what would be worth their time.

Anyways, thanks for the script, gonna check it out now.

 

[jennstall]

Another tip... Add a link at the end of the listings that says something like "Next Page >>" and links to some eBay search results with the same filter you were using on your site. Remember... you don't really care where the user finds what they buys... just that they click into eBay at some point.

I was doing everything else, but that's a very sweet tip!

 

[Kerosene]

Actually, I was just running another report through there today and I thought to myself that out of all the people that, assuming the site has decent traffic and usage, they may be monitoring all the reports and looking for niches.

I guess it wouldn't be too hard for them to monitor niche, and commissions in that niche to see what would be worth their time.......

myepnreport.com is my site. I've got no desire to see the reports (read the Privacy Policy), and judging from the EPN users that I'm in contact with, the majority of their sales are "off niche" anyway - I know most of mine are.

There are much easier ways to find out what's selling on eBay - like using the API:
http://developer.ebay.com/DevZone/javascript/docs/JSDocs/logical/FindPopularItemsRequestType.html

 

[Evolver]

As a side note, I set up one of these as a test site for some moderately well-priced items and the first 6 sales I got were coupons and random stuff. Then someone bought one of the actual products I was pushing and I got a $45 commission.

I purchased 10 more domains and am rolling those sites out as I have time. Thought of 3 more niches reading this thread alone

Awesome, you have got a great start.
I'm starting my first site today, and I brainstormed over 100 specific niches on Monday. I am hoping there is a way to automate the creating of pages. From an outside perspective creating those 40+ category pages and writing the descriptions seems to be the bottle neck in development.

myepnreport.com is my site

Thanks for the site. it looks very clean and well designed.

 

[Benji49]

phpBay Pro = Good for organic SEO ebay shoppers. Low EPC but traffic is free so whatever.

BANS = Lousy organic, Google will even de-index your site unless you add lots of content. BUT great EPC with targetted PPC. I have a couple of niche sites with 300% ROI month after month (alas, not enough of those sites otherwise I would be doing it full time).

Another thing to watch out for with PPC->BANS are the seasons. For example, Wii sites run great from October to January and then start to suck. Car parts are in season right now but I wouldn't run a PPC campaign in December for them.

Lastly (gees, this is turning into a longer post than I thought) don't hesitate to change your URL on basis of reading data from Google Analytics/Adwords. Like if your store is www.hockeysticks.blah and you are seeing HUGE traffic with keyword hockey pucks than you should change your URL to www.hockeypucks.blah or buyhockeypuck.blah or whatever.

People fall in love with their domain names thinking "just one more month and Google will lift me out of the sandbox!" Yeah right, if your domain name sucks and you have no content anyways (ever try to write a deep meaningful essay on frickin' Camcorder batteries?) you are more likely to get de-indexed.

 

[rgordon83]

Just too expensive to drive PPC for what they pay, and their reports are absolute dogshit.

PPC + Ebay affiliate = poor strategy

SEO + Ebay affiliate = Good strategy..


Hard to make of PPC, especially with the tracking being delayed b/c of the cookie. SEO is the long term strategy you should be using...

 

[bb_wolfe]

PPC + Ebay affiliate = poor strategy

SEO + Ebay affiliate = Good strategy..


Hard to make of PPC, especially with the tracking being delayed b/c of the cookie. SEO is the long term strategy you should be using...

Troof. I learned this the hard way, and not betting it all on snake eyes either.

 

[coppings]

ever try to write a deep meaningful essay on frickin' Camcorder batteries?

Dear Jesus I hear ya!

It's a pain in the hole creating content around most products.