Pixelrage.net

When I first heard about eBay Partner Network’s newest change in the affiliate pay scale termed “Quality Click Pricing,” I immediately became as scared as most other affiliates. ePN has always been my #1 source of affiliate income, and the thought of not making my usual comfortable amount per month was frightening, and potentially devastating to my home business outlook. After letting October go by, I must say – I am impressed with the change.

Here’s a chart for my month’s ePN results (top) and an overall result for the past 3 months (bottom). As you can see, things started spiking near the middle of October, which I am attributing to the shift to Quality Click Pricing. I first thought that I may have ranked for a new term in Google or Yahoo and started receiving and influx of hits and sales, but Google Analytics proved that to not be the case.

There are two things that can be said for the campaigns I’ve been running on eBay: they get a LOT of clicks, and they are targeting extremely specific keyword terms.

Over the years, I’ve learned a lot about how to manage ePN affiliate programs. I’ve been banned from the program. I revolted and urged them to re-consider me, and they did. After that, I took on a newer, more paranoid and more strict attitude where all of my underperforming sites were deleted and 301-redirected elsewhere, while more focus was put on a mere handful of sites. These sites were given my utmost attention. I wrote content for them, I made them easier to navigate, better looking and pointed better backlinks to them, as well as to their inner pages. As a result, I think that all of these actions have contributed to better success with the new Quality Click Pricing model.

My EPC has gone from 0.03 to 0.06 – still a dismal and worrisome figure, since 0.03 is the point in which an ePN affiliate can be evaluated for a potential banning from the program. I’m currently working on de-manufacturing two more of my EPN sites, 301-redirecting them to other sources that I own, and hopefully getting better EPC figures on my dashboard once those poorly-converting sites are gone.

What you see here is a restructuring from the old mentality of ePN: creating tons of sites and hoping they all make a few dollars a day. The problem with that model in regard to the new QCP is that it is producing low-quality clicks, which won’t pay off much. Note that you’re no longer getting paid in commissions, but you’re getting paid per click. It’s a blessing for anyone whose ePN site gets tons of [relevant] clicks. If those clicks go through the unseen algorithm being run by ePN, and are deemed helpful and relevant, you’ll be rewarded.

With that being said, I’m looking at ePN in a whole new light. I made exactly 40.17% more between September 2009 and October 2009, and am looking forward to more success in November if all pans out.