eBay has announced “Quality Click Pricing” for the eBay Partner Network affiliate program. The company describes this as a new payout structure designed to further reward affiliates who drive incremental transactions on eBay, and who send “value buyers” to the company’s sites.
Essentially, the program will now run on a cost-per-click basis, as opposed to a cost-per-action one. Affiliates can get paid for sending quality traffic to eBay, even if that traffic isn’t making purchases.
“The price paid per click will still depend on the short-term and long-term revenue of the traffic that the publisher drives to eBay, but will now also 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,” explains Steve Hartman of the eBay Partner Network. “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 says Quality Click Pricing will simplify the commission structure, and that the payout will be more closely aligned with traffic quality. In addition, the company says publishers will be rewarded for “multiple sources of value in addition to sales.” This includes revenue from advertising on eBay pages and PayPal transaction revenue.
eBay’s new model for its affiliate program will take effect for new members beginning September 1st, and for existing members October 1st. There is an FAQ (pdf) document available on the subject.
