A great search engine institution may soon come to an end after ebay has changed its policy regarding how US affiliates can drive traffic to their affiliate programme.
From June 1st, the US ebay programme will no longer allow affiliates to drive traffic direct to the online auction site via paid search on Google, Yahoo, or MSN. There is no news yet as to when / if these changes will be rolled out to the UK affiliate programme. At the same time, they are also changing the payment structure of the programme to create higher performance tiers.
More information at ebay.com
Yes, you’ve guessed it… no more of those ads we all know and love promoting such highly sought after items as “Blue Bums” or “Fanny Magnets”, which according to ebay affiliates are for sale on the famous auction site.
Joking aside, there will be some fairly big earning affiliates feeling a bit of anguish over this one. It’s well known in the affiliate industry that ebay has some affiliates earning huge amounts of cash from the traffic they drive. Its the old don’t put all your eggs in one basket adage, so here’s hoping these affiliates have another string or two to their bow or their mansions may well be reposessed come July!
There’s a fair bit of speculation around regarding ebays reasoning over this change. Perhaps the Google display url changes which took place a while ago has driven ebay to examine whether their PPC costs have been driven up by affiliates competing for the display URL. In addition to this, ebay then had to renumerate affiliates for the leads and sales they created.
This is the kind of decision that many merchants are increasingly taking as they seek to protect themselves from paying commission on traffic they feel they could have generated themselves at a much cheaper rate. I wonder if ebay will keep up the fine blue bum and fanny magnet tradition of its affiliates? If nothing else, its sometimes good for a laugh as I wind my way round the affiliate highways and byways of the internet.
I have saved these images for posterity lest they become a thing of the past!
Update: Rob Of MarketingDrome sent over these images he has collected of similar weird e-bay searches. Thanks Rob!
May 22nd, 2007 at 6:26 am
I love the fact that the ads were permitted. They have a bit of a shock value to them hence why the click rate on them were no doubt high. I don’t expect the change to be take to highly by the people using those to promote their program.
Stephen Welton
May 22nd, 2007 at 6:33 am
These ads have been around for years, and I’ve always wondered how much income might be generated from them. They sure are compelling, I’ve even clicked on a few myself knowing full well what they were.
If anyone wants to let us in on any insider ebay PPC info, we’ll gladly help you fill out your UB40 form* when this change hits the UK!
*For non UK readers, these are forms you fill out to get social security payments.
June 15th, 2007 at 8:12 am
[...] it seems that contrary to my speculation in my previous post, E-bay’s move to stop affiliates using Adwords paid search advertising had absolutely nothing to do with the auction giant looking to reduce costs [...]