(Editor's Note: This is the first in a series updating how several popular affiliate programs work — and pay. Even with all the fee changes afoot at eBay, there's still a way to keep making money at the auction giant that doesn't necessarily tie into listing fees and such — Affiliates. We decided to take a look to see what latest developments are underway with the eBay Affiliate program, as well as provide the information you need to get started if you're new to affiliate marketing).
If you ask Will Martin-Gill, senior manager for Internet marketing at eBay, what the Affiliates program is all about, he's likely to say its purpose is to "take eBay content to the edges of the Internet." What he means by that, of course, is that Affiliates dot their own Web sites with links to eBay, thereby drawing to eBay users from the multitudinous arenas of Internet content.
"We are one of the broadest Web sites out there," Martin-Gill said. "No matter what type of content you have on your Web site... there's usually something on eBay that's related."
When you sign up as an Affiliate, which is free, you have myriad options for getting your users to specific auctions or categories of goods on eBay, and when you drive traffic to eBay, you get paid.
"We pay out between 50-75 percent of the revenue we make," Martin-Gill said of sales resulting from Affiliate referrals. You get paid also each time a user clicks from your site to eBay and then signs up as a new eBay user and goes on to bid on or purchase something within 30 days.
How it Works Affiliates use free tools to place links on their sites that lead users to eBay. The most rock-bottom simple option is simply a link to the eBay home page. But Martin-Gill says savvy Affiliates are carefully selecting the links they place. Getting your users to pages likely to be of interest to them is smart strategy. If you write a blog reviewing sound cards, for example, you could have a link on your main page that takes your readers directly to a list of sound cards available on eBay. That's a spot they might find something to buy, whereas directing them to the road bikes category might not result in as much revenue for you.
But you can go far beyond a simple link to the home page or a specific category, Martin-Gill said. Depending on the time you want to commit and the level of programming you want to undertake, you can select from a variety of tools to maximize your effectiveness.
One option is to use your site and your Affiliates account to drive traffic to your own auctions on eBay.
"It is a way for sellers to make money driving traffic" to their own listings, Martin-Gill said. Or, you can drop into your site a bit of code that will allow users to query eBay right from your site.
"When you click on the link, if it's set up correctly, what will happen is that it will real-time execute a query on eBay." The user stays on your site but gets the desired search results from eBay.
Going back to the sound card example, say you don't want users leaving your site to explore different sound cards.
"We do have tools where if you have a Web site that is talking about and reviewing sound cards, you can actually put a box on your website with some of the latest listings on sound cards." That tool's part of the Editor's Kit available to Affiliates.
Martin-Gill said among the 60,000 Affiliates in the U.S. program some are companies with millions of users driving significant traffic to eBay and others are individual bloggers or Web site owners who might make a couple hundred dollars a month. The idea is to provide as much as an Affiliate wants.
"We just launched a new library, a new API (Application Programming Interface), that allows you to place a bid directly from another Web site." Other new tools, all of which Martin-Gill points out are free, include eBay To Go. He's says it's a widget that you can drop on your site for a dynamic display of specific listings. It can also "show a countdown counter for auctions and show a picture," he said. It's all a part of improving the Affiliate's own environment so that "it starts to feel a lot more like content and less like advertising."
Mid-level users who know some programming and want to get more out of the program than just what a simple link brings in can "literally just take this widget or this application and drop it onto your page." Of course, advanced users can do more sophisticated programming to further customize their Affiliate links.
"That's the type of flexibility that we're trying to push." The Affiliates Program began in 2001 and Martin-Gill says it's gotten easier and simpler to take advantage of the code libraries available. The strength of the program, Martin-Gill said, is eBay's community of users.
"We're nothing without our community of buyers and sellers," he says. Leveraging members to increase revenue is a power of partnership. "Right from the very beginning we saw this an as an opportunity."
Pay Structure eBay Affiliates pays out for traffic that converts to either sales or new, registered eBay users. Details on the pay structure are available here. But the gist of it is a two-pronged system. First, you get paid for sending new users to eBay. Each time you drive in a new Active Confirmed Registered User (someone who registers for the first time with eBay, confirms their registration by responding to an e-mail, and then actually buys something or at least bids on something within 30 days of registering), you get between $25 and $35 (the range is based on the number of those users you send to eBay in a given month, 1-49 earns you $25 each, more than 30,000 earns you $35 each).
Then, you also get a percent of the revenue generated for eBay by the sale of any item a user purchases as a result of going from the link on your site to the sale page on eBay. They call it Monthly Revenue Share and you get 50 percent of eBay's revenue for the first $99.99 in sales that you've driven. If you drive over $3 million in sales in a month, eBay will send you 75 percent of its revenue.
"We are completely open to receiving as much traffic as you want or can send to us," Martin-Gill said, adding that traffic originating from Affiliates has become an important part of eBay's overall business, though he declined to state exactly how important in dollar figures.
For your revenue-generating purposes, following what's happening with your links is important. eBay's partner, Commission Junction, manages that end of things. When you become an Affiliate, you have to open a Commission Junction account, too, and that gives you access to detailed information about the traffic you've driven.
"You can see exactly how many clicks you've sent over, how many of those clicks have turned into new registered users and how many of those clicks have turned into actual purchases," Martin-Gill said. You can also see how much money you've earned. It's then sent to you as a paper check or directly deposited.
Is It Right for Your Site? "I would say there are lots of examples of websites that are successful and I would say there is no one formula for folks that send us traffic," Martin-Gill said. He also says the program doesn't appear to favor individuals and smaller companies or larger entities.
"We have both of them and we have both of them in large numbers."
When he talks with Affiliates, Martin-Gill says they "always want to know how they can make more money driving traffic to our site." He'll tell them about technical and business resources that have improved or grown. He'll discuss ways to expand the destination of the links an Affiliate is using, to best leverage the breadth and depth of eBay.
"Some of these affiliates are global as well and they have websites that are driving traffic from all over." He tells those affiliates that they may want to join the Affiliate programs in the countries where users are, such as the UK, Germany, Italy or France, all of which run their own Affiliate programs.
Finally, Martin-Gill said eBay tries to run its Affiliate program in a way that you will never outgrow.
"We can grow with you," he said. "As the Web site that you create becomes bigger, we both have the breadth of categories and the ability to pay you for the traffic you send to us, to scale up with you."
Though eBay's business clearly benefits directly from the sales Affiliates generate, Martin-Gill said the company also hopes to be at the forefront of new developments.
"The way we think about it is we know that there's going to be a lot of innovation on the Web," he said. By providing a service for start-ups to make some money, Martin-Gill says eBay Affiliates helps entrepreneurs launch new businesses.
"The affiliate program is really a way for us to tap into that innovation."
Weathering Change Martin-Gill said the March departure of Meg Whitman, eBay's CEO for the past 10 years, is not expected to impact the Affiliates program directly.
"We are not planning any big changes at this time and we'll see as the year goes on. We're constantly trying to innovate and taking the suggestions we get from our Affiliates to see how we can improve the site."
Other companies such as Amazon and Google also offer affiliate programs. Martin-Gill said some eBay Affiliates work only with eBay while others are members of multiple programs.
The bottom line, Martin-Gill said, is this: "There is a lot of money to be made as affiliates."
Amy Mayer, a new contributor to ECommerce-Guide.com, is a freelance writer and independent radio producer based in Greenfield, Massachusetts.
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eBay Affiliates Profile: What's New, How It Pays
