The eBay Partner Network – My Perspective

The eBay Partner Network (ePN) is one of the most coveted affiliate programs on the Internet today. Why? Because eBay is a potential gold mine for savvy Internet marketers who know how to promote a specific niche and lure (bait) people in off of the major SE's to show them current eBay listings. You can promote items on eBay that simply don't exist on any of the other major affiliate programs. Plus, you don't have to be an IT expert to effectively compete. There are high-quality 3rd party scripts like phpBay Pro that you can simply plug-in to any Web page or Word Press blog that will automatically tap into eBay's public RSS feed system, download the current listings you want and display them as if they were actual content on your pages. There is tremendous SEO (Search Engine Optimization) value to using this type of script that I will explain later in detail.

What non-eBay affiliates don't know and what many current and past eBay affiliates know all too well, is that the new ePN is plagued with both ethical and technical issues. Back in the day, all eBay affiliates were managed by Commission Junction and things seemed to move along pretty smoothly. Then, in April of 2008, eBay decided to leave CJ and manage their affiliate program in-house. In theory, all existing affiliates had to do was re-apply to the new in-house ePN program, be automatically accepted and alter their existing Web pages with new links. For many affiliates (like me), the changeover went relatively smooth. For many others, it was the beginning of what was soon to become a nightmare.

Within a few days of the changeover, the official ePN forum and just about every affiliate related forum on the Net came alive with people having problems with the new ePN and desperately looking for help. Affiliates all over the world were claiming that their sales had plummeted overnight and were blaming the new ePN. From the affiliates point of view, the ePN staff seemed to be ignoring the issue. There were dozens, if not hundreds of posts on their official forum asking them for help,  but the only replies they made to the forum was to say that they didn't publicly respond to posts relating to specific accounts and that you must email them using the contact link in your account dashboard. Affiliates having problems claimed that contacting ePN through their Dashboard was useless. All they got back some canned reply that said their issue was being escalated to the next level and the next level never bothered to respond.

The next couple of months were very tense. Affiliates continued to complain and demand that ePN fix tracking and reporting issues. ePN continued to largely ignore their cries and deny that anything was wrong. Then came August 20, 2008.  In the world of affiliate marketing...

"...August 20, 2008 is a day that will live in infamy."

On the morning of August 20, 2008, eBay affiliates started flooding the official ePN forum saying they couldn't sign-on to their accounts and didn't know why. "Why," as it turns out, was because they had been terminated in the middle of the night while they slept and all their pending commissions earned since August 1st. had been reversed. Again, ePN staff ignored the forum for several days until finally making a post claiming that all the "expired" affiliates were sent an email explaining their termination and they should check their SPAM folder. Virtually all the terminated affiliates denied ever receiving this email. ePN also posted a claim that only about 300 affiliates were "expired," but many people speculated the true numbers were in the thousands. A couple of weeks later, ePN did another round of terminations, but this time, they did send out emails telling the affiliates they would be paid any pending commissions and asked them to remove their links within 7 days. What ePN did not do either time, was tell any affiliate exactly "why" they were terminated. And to my knowledge, "why," remains a mystery to this day.

Soon after the infamous events of August 2008, new applicants to the ePN program started reporting they were being denied membership into the U.S. program and this soon became the new #1 issue on most of the affiliate marketing sites. As of now, it seems that it takes an act Congress to be accepted into the eBay Partner Network. ePN continues to individually terminate affiliates on what seems to be a daily basis. Sometimes they will give you some vauge reason and sometimes they won't. Making an appeal to ePN claiming your innocence will go unanswered for the most part and any demands to know "why" you were terminated are typically ignored.

Summary:

• Because of the ease in which the average affiliate marketer can promote the unique items found on eBay, their affiliate program provides a great opportunity to earn a living online, If you can get accepted and manage to remain in the program.
• ePN's affiliate Terms of Service (TOS) and Code of Conduct (COC) are so vague and difficult for the average person to correctly interpret, you may be committing some infraction without realizing it. And if you do, they will permanently terminate your account and reverse all your earnings without giving you any advance notice, concise reason, or opportunity to rectify the problem.
• As of the time of this writing, ePN's commission tracking system, and their affiliate Quality Scoring system, continues to be plagued with inconsistencies. This, combined with what is perceived as the continuing unethical treatment of affiliates, has caused many eBay affiliates to distrust the entire program and has left a permanent black-eye on ePN's reputation in the world of affiliate marketers.

Let's face it, in today's world, there is little doubt in any-one's mind that greedy, narcissistic corporate types have no problem with screwing over the average Joe to maximize their own profits. So, with all this in mind, do you think it's wise to keep all your affiliate eggs in ePN's basket?

Update: October 2009, - ePN QCP goes live and the majority of affiliates don't seem very happy.  Read my take on this here.