After testing their new affiliate payment model with select affiliates for over three months, the eBay Partner Network (eBPN) has made an official announcement of it yesterday. The model bears a name of Quality Click Pricing (QCP), and is essentially a CPC (cost per click) model. It is called to do something previously unprecedented: namely, “take into account the incremental value of that traffic to eBay, i.e., whether a sale happened as a direct result of the publisher’s actions” [italics mine], and reward the affiliate accordingly.
Laurie Sullivan of MediaPost clarifies the idea:
Most retailers pay affiliate publishers either a percentage of sale or a per-lead fee, paying for transactions based on volume. Under eBay’s old compensation structure, for example, if someone were to click on an affiliate link and make a purchase within the next seven days, the affiliate would receive the same revenue share — no matter when the event happened within those seven days. Under the new payment model, purchases that happen closer to the click will be rewarded more than those that happen later.
eBPN states that this new affiliate payment model will be better for affiliates, because of the following 4 advantages:
- Simplification of the commission structure
- Alignment of payout more closely with traffic quality, allows eBPN to pay more to those affiliates that are driving high quality traffic
- Publishers will be rewarded for multiple sources of value in addition to sales, such as revenue from advertising on eBay pages and PayPal transaction revenue
- EPC will be visible the very next day and will be more stable on a day to day basis
eBay also wrote that “for many” affiliates “this change will mean that [their] payout will increase”. Some, however, will start making “less money than under the previous payment structure, and will need to make some changes to [their] campaigns in order to see better rewards.”
You may read more about the new QCP model on eBPN’s blog by following this link: “Announcing Quality Click Pricing”.
The thoughts at the foundation of QCP were originally brought up in the Search Engine Marketing Journal (where I serve as the Senior Editor of the Affiliate Marketing section), and I certainly remember reviewing the eBay team’s “The Coming Evolution in Affiliate Marketing: A Focus on Quality” white paper prior to its publication in the February 2009 issue. I did disagree with some of the conclusions (and terminology used), but in principle, I did agree with the need to focus on traffic quality.
Will the QCP idea be wholeheartedly welcomed by all eBay affiliates (over 100,000 people worldwide)? Of course, not. Will it benefit and help eBPN grow the quality of their affiliate program/network even further? Time will show.
I’m dubious that affiliates will get paid more by eBay under these rules. Also, I think they’re going to hurt affiliates who generate more brand awareness for them, because their click pricing is focused on the bottom of the sales funnel. That is, by paying affiliates whose traffic converts sooner rather than later, they aim to support bottom of funnel affs.
Besides that, the folks they had at ASE gave me such a runaround when I asked some basic questions about their conversion rates that they seemed like a hassle to work with. Not a program I’m anxious to join, personally.
QPC is interesting though it seems similar to the affiliate programs, Its simplification procedure of affiliate marketing makes it the odd one out. It is definitely worth a try.
It is based on “the affiliate programs” concept, Andre. It’s just that the model being used is a CPC (cost-per-click) and not CPL (cost-per-lead) or CPS (cost-per-sale) one. In a way, it’s a hybrid between CPC and CPS with a heavy emphasis on the former.
Quality Click Pricing is designed to do one thing only – allow ebay to pay affiliates less and make more for themselves. Why? Because they can and there is nothing you can do about it as an affiliate.
Example, I earned 92.00 for sept. Quality Click Pricing predicts my payment would be 32.00 for the same traffic.
What is wrong with that?
The 92.00 is based on actual earnings for auctions won by people who come to ebay through my links. Quality Click Pricing is based on Voodoo
Why is it ok for ebay to now claim that traffic that last month was worth 92.00 is worth only 32.00?
There can be only one reason since the 92.00 figure was based on actual auctions closed, a verifiable metric. ebay now simply wants to be able to pay affiliates less for the same amount of auctions closed. ebay is trying to claim the traffic is not performing but the fact is the traffic is performing exactly the same but will be paid out at a much lower rate. A rate that is about 2/3 lower then before.
I will be removing every ebay auction link I have and replacing them with affiliate links from a source who sells something from my site’s niche or adsense. Anything is better then dealing with a company who just wants me to be happy being screwed.
ebay, you suck!
###