From October 1st, the eBay partner network will go live with quality click pricing (QCP) (http://www.ebaypartnernetworkblog.com/en/news/quality-click-pricing-preview-report/). QCP is a new payment structure that will reward affiliates who drive incremental transactions on eBay. It works by changing the payment model for eBay affiliates from a CPA (cost per action) model to a CPC (cost per click) model. The amount paid to the publisher will depend on the quality of the traffic being driven to eBay. eBay will pay more to publishers driving higher quality longer lasting traffic to their site. In their own words: “The greater the incremental revenue and the higher the expected lifetime value of the customers an affiliate sends, the higher the EPC and total earnings the affiliate will receive”. Earnings per click (EPC) will be set daily for the previous day’s traffic.
![ebay-partner-network[1]](http://www.affiliateteacher.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/ebay-partner-network1.jpg "ebay-partner-network[1]")
The implementation of this scheme will no doubt cause high profile winners and losers amongst the web publishing affiliate world.
However, eBay’s ideas represent the forefront of a movement to significantly change the way affiliates are paid for their commissions. eBay’s ultimate motivation for QCP is to encourage affiliates to drive quality traffic to their site. Rewarding these affiliates encourages them to invest in more affiliate marketing. eBay then hope these high quality affiliates will drive more and higher quality traffic to their site.
eBay’s introduction of QCP also represents a shift to paying variable commissions to affiliates based on traffic quality. At the moment affiliate marketing largely works on a fixed sales commission expiring after a 30 day period. There is strong argument that there is more value in a click closer in time to a sale. eBay are also arguing that clicks from traffic with a higher EPC are more valuable than those from a low EPC source.
I believe that the model being presented by eBay will open the door for more affiliate networks and companies to experiment with variable pricing models. I expect this will be the first in a long list of ideas that will slowly iterate towards a significantly more equitable model for affiliate marketing.
References:
- http://www.ebaypartnernetworkblog.com/en/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/qcp_faq_english_new.pdf
- http://www.affiliateblog.co.uk/ebay-partner-network-quality-click-pricing.html
- http://www.ebaypartnernetworkblog.com/en/news/quality-click-pricing-preview-report/
- http://www.ebaypartnernetworkblog.com/en/news/announcing-quality-click-pricing/
Nick Woolley
Nick is currently based at ProfitBite, a new Internet startup based in Manchester, England, UK
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October 2nd, 2009
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!
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October 19th, 2009
It is difficult to ascertain whether or not eBay are actually paying their affilaites less overall through QCP as we do not have access to their internal numbers on affiliate marketing.
However, all the indications are that they want to address the balance of commissions paid through QCP and not to reduce the overall amount paid out in commissions. There will be winners and losers in the scheme.
January 25th, 2010
[...] in September 2009. As well as changing their pricing model (as discussed at length on this blog (Quality Click Pricing), eBay have introduced a new method plenty of new content widgets for you to use on your [...]