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Can’t ePN and Squidoo Get Along?
Since the announcement of the change to eBay affiliate payout structure this past August 19th, there has been a LOT of craziness surrounding the eBay Partner Network (eBay’s in-house affiliate program). One of the main changes was the new guideline that retracted affiliates option to put their eBay affiliate links on web pages they do not own. In other words, sites like HubPages and Squidoo that were once famous for being a strong authority sites to expose your links are now a “no go”. It seemed as if eBay was going to work something out with Squidoo tho since Squidoo is such a strong affiliate for eBay. However, this has not happened…leaving many Squidoo lensmasters out to dry.
The Squidoo eBay Earnings Module
When the eBay Partner Network made it so we could no longer use our own eBay affiliate links on a Squidoo lens, we lensmasters breathed a sigh of relief to find that at least we could still use Squidoo’s eBay modules. These eBay modules allow us to promote eBay items as an affiliate under Squidoo’s eBay affiliate account. When our lens earned something via eBay’s affiliate program, those earnings would be tagged to our lens and then Squidoo generously split those commissions with us.
Since eBay has gone to this new Quality Click Pricing payout structure that pays affiliate based on “quality clicks” as opposed to commission per sale or per sign up, it seems there is some break down in communication from eBay to Squidoo as to how the new payout structure will be tracked and paid to Squidoo, so Squidoo could then in turn pay the respective lensmaster.
In short – all those eBay modules on Squidoo are earning nothing for anyone but for eBay.
From what I understand, Squidoo is not being paid because no one from eBay will take the time to work out an agreement and a process for tracking the clicks from each lens that hosts eBay earning modules.
Considering eBay announced this new Quality Click Pricing structure on August 19th, and it’s now the beginning of November, am I crazy to think that eBay could care less about Squidoo and the traffic they bring to the eBay site?
If it was me, and I had an affiliate with the earnings power of Squidoo, I do believe I’d be paying a bit more attention to the situation and trying to come to some sort of plan for the future – even if it’s just to say, “Sorry, Squidoo, we can’t do it – we don’t know how to track these earnings for you”.
But THEN what would happen? Yup, lensmasters (like me) would be dumping those eBay modules off their lenses like crazy and switching to Amazon (who, by the way, is still more than happy to have the traffic and sales from Squidoo).
What Squidoo Has To Say About eBay
Last we lensmasters heard officially from Squidoo HQ regarding eBay earning modules was on October 8th:
With eBay’s recent announcement of their Quality Click Pricing plan come some good questions from lensmasters who love (and profit from) our eBay module, and a good dose of patience while we wait for some fixes from eBay.
The short of it is that eBay is changing the way they pay partners, even big and trusted ones like Squidoo. And as they implement some of their changes, other things break. That explains why you’re not seeing the daily eBay stats for your lenses right now, and we’re confident eBay will fix it for us very soon.
Once we know more from eBay about how their QCP plan will work for us, we’ll share it with you right away!
However, that was almost a month ago. Meanwhile, some great lensmasters who relied on their nice income from Squidoo eBay modules are now earning exactly $0.00. I have a funny feeling that Squidoo.com is missing that revenue, too!
From my perspective and from all I have read, this is NOT Squidoo’s fault. They can’t do anything about this without eBay – who apparently is not communicating with Squidoo on this matter.
Poor Gil, the lone ranger programmer from Squidoo (I still have NO clue when he sleeps – or IF he sleeps) has said in the SquidU forum:
On 10-19-2009
I promise that we’ll post an update as soon as we hear back from eBay. We’ve done everything we can to escalate the issue.
and on 10-20-2009
Yes we were aware of the quality click pricing change before it happened and attempted to make pre-emptive adjustments, but with no data or reporting tools how do you propose we do that?
I know you just WANT THIS FIXED (i do too!) but it’s not so simple. There isn’t an obvious solution other than pooling eBay revenue. Now I don’t like that option and I’m sure you probably don’t either, so that’s why we’re hoping eBay provides new tools for us soon.
Just hang in there and we’ll keep pushing together. OK?
Poor guy, he’s catching a bunch of slack about all this when there is absolutely nothing he can do without eBay’s participation.
Yes, Squidoo HQ could keep us more up-to-date on this matter, but what is there to say other than “Still No News From eBay”?
In the meantime, eBay gets the traffic, eBay gets the commissions (and saves paying for the clicks) – Squidoo gets nothing and our lensmasters get nothing.
Will Lensmasters Get “Back Pay” From eBay?
All this brings about the next logical question – When/IF eBay gets their super affiliate Squidoo all squared away and operational again, what about the lost earnings from when we were NON-operational? Will Squidoo and it’s lensmasters get paid for those clicks?
Who knows?
Its scary to think that a mega-company like eBay who has known for Lord only knows HOW long that they would be changing the payout structure to affiliates didn’t factor in and proactively prepare for their Super Affiliates like Squidoo.com. If it’s taken all this time to even begin to try and figure out how to track Squidoo’s eBay affiliate activity from that day forward, how in the world can we feel confident that eBay will ALSO figure out how to track activity that already happened?
Sad thing is, we lensmasters can SEE all the clickouts from our lenses to the eBay site. And now, with this new Quality Click Pricing, each click is worth money. It’s no longer sales-based… we are supposed to be paid by the click.
Yes, we can SEE that we are losing money…. just great, huh?
When I think of just the lensmasters that had Halloween-based lenses that promoted relevant eBay products, and all the money that the lensmasters lost during that time (but eBay still earned), it makes me sad for those folks.
And now… here comes Christmas… so now what?
Should We Dump All Our Ebay Modules?
Another good question is if should we dump all our eBay modules and replace them with Amazon earning modules? Hey, while it might not be the best solution, at least Amazon pays Squidoo. With the holiday shopping season fast approaching, I’d rather promote a company that will pay Squidoo than promote one that won’t even work with us.
But here’s the thing…..
Once upon a time, wayyyyyy back in 2007, I was an eBay affiliate thru Commission Junction. All was good. Then, in Spring 2008, eBay announced that they were going to a new in-house affiliate program (ePN) and that we’d all have to reapply AND change out ALLLLLLL our eBay affiliate links to fit the new Partner Network links.
That was NO FUN – but we did it.
Then, in August 2009, eBay announces this new Quality Click Pricing structure (that is vague at best). Along with that announcement comes the new terms which prohibit eBay affiliates from using their own affiliate link on web properties that they do not own. That meant, in a nutshell, get alllllllllllllll your eBay links OFF Squidoo, and Blogger….. and no more eBay earnings on HubPages.
So off we all go AGAIN…. changing or removing our own personal eBay affiliate links from Squidoo (or at least the ones we can remember are out there. Many lensmasters, like myself, have been working on Squidoo since 2007…and that is a LOT of lenses and eBay affiliate links out there).
Again, NO FUN – but I, like the others, did it and changed our Squidoo eBay links to reflect Squidoo’s affiliate account so we would be within the terms of service of ePN…oh, and so we would get paid.
Now I’m not some super affiliate for eBay. I send a couple thousand clicks their way each month….a couple hundred bucks in earnings…nothing to get excited about. But at Squidoo, we have lensmasters who were (operative word: WERE) making really good money via their eBay modules.
Now they are making nothing. POOF, gone. While I am a little frustrated, I can only imagine how frustrated the bigger eBay earners are…. and how it hurts to have that income source just disappear. I feel for them…. big time.
What’s The Squidoo/eBay Solution?
I have no idea what the solution is here. EBay’s new payout structure is based on “quality clicks” per campaign.
Confused? Trust me, you are NOT the only one.
October was my first month being paid out under this new structure and I think I’m slowly “getting it”. eBay wants it’s affiliates to click eBay ads that are exactly what the consumer is looking for so that they take an on-site action (ie, make a bid, buy it now, sign up for eBay, etc) right away. I managed to get my per click payout up to .31 for a few days last month – but I also had days when I made .04 per click.
As I said before, this new per click pricing structure is vague at best – but that is a story for another day. Or, just travel the eBay affiliates forum and you’ll see how confusing it is for everyone.
Regardless, I am not a programmer (and if I was, I’d break the internet, no doubt), so I don’t know the technical side of all this and how to solve it. I know what my eBay affiliate reports look like now and I wonder why each lensmaster can’t be it’s own ePN “campaign” – however I barely know my ABC’s from PHP =)
But, I am a person who knows that there are fellow Squidoo lensmasters that have worked really hard, played by all the rules, and they aren’t getting credit for clicks they have earned. There are real people out there that are not being credited for income they have earned – and that is a real problem in my book.
I’m not even worried about my own clicks. Heck, I might not even HAVE an account any more after this post goes live…. eBay might give me the axe!
I’d like to know that eBay is on top of this. That this situation is pressing for eBay and they are putting their heads together with Squidoo to work this out for the affiliates that have worked so hard for them both. They deserve it.
Above all, I’d love for poor Gil to be able to have an answer – even a SOLUTION – so we can move past this and get back to our holiday marketing for eBay.
If anyone knows anything I don’t, or I’ve mis-stated something, please let me know.
*** EDIT – INFO UPDATE ***
Thank you to TheFluffanutta for bringing an important Squidoo HQ announcement to my attention regarding the situation with eBay. Since info is always all over the place, it’s easy to miss updates, but in this particular case I am bopping myself in the head. This announcement was found in the Official SquidTeam Announcements thread – yeah, like totally where I shoulda looked in the first place. Duh, Jen!
This information comes from Megan Casey in this SquidU thread. To be sure that everyone reads it, I will copy/paste it here (hope that’s ok, Megan).
Gil already addressed this in this thread about eBay reporting, and I posted about it on the SquidBlog too. But I want to be extra clear since we’ve been hearing from lensmasters with some incorrect assumptions.
Here’s everything we know:
Beginning October 1, 2009 eBay has switched from paying out a commission based on sales to a commission based on “quality clicks” (their own system, not ours). We requested in advance of this change that eBay provide detailed reports to us, so that we can direct those quality click commissions directly to the lensmasters who generated them. We still have not gotten those reports. If eBay cannot provide this level of detail, Squidoo will distribute eBay earnings based on a pool system in much the same way we do with Adsense and Infolinks earnings.
So to put it another way:
* Yes, you will still make money from the eBay module.
* No, it’s not true that “you won’t get paid for your eBay sales.”
* But yes, it IS true that we’re not getting _any_ reporting from eBay right now, so the eBay stats on your royalty pages aren’t updating properly.
* No, we’re not sure if eBay will allow us to continue paying “directly attributable” royalties, sale by sale, directly to the lens and the person who generated them. It might be that we have to pool all eBay earnings and figure out a system to disburse royalties to participating lensmasters.
* No, this eBay reporting problem has nothing to do with the quality of Squidoo lenses or our community, and Squidoo is not being singled out by eBay. This has everything to do with eBay trying to roll out a new payment system in an unfortunately unclear fashion.I understand that a lot of lensmasters are worried about eBay’s new payout structure, and concerned that we don’t have answers yet. We are too. But we’re pushing on this every day with them, and as soon as we know specific answers, we will share them with you.
Thanks for your forbearance.
So, the issue is a reporting communication break-down between ePN and Squidoo BUT earnings to the Squidoo site as a whole are still be recording. Only thing left to figure out is whether these earnings will be paid out via a “pool” earnings like AdSense is, or if they will be paid to the respective lensmaster.
I’ll let you know what I find out.
As for HubPages
Seems I was wrong there, too (thank you, Cat). Apparently you CAN use your personal eBay affiliate links on HubPages. I’ve been collecting info and tips for doing this and will have a follow up post up shortly.
Thanks all!
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Very good post, and one that should not get you into too much trouble. After all, it is the truth.
“That meant, in a nutshell, get alllllllllllllll your eBay links OFF Squidoo, and Blogger….. and no more eBay earnings on HubPages.”
It’s a shame about Squidoo (and yes, I feel very sorry for Gil – must be a stressful position to be in!). However, Hubpages isn’t affected, since eBay made an exception for them – you can still use their eBay module, which contains your own links (it’s not a revenue sharing model like Squidoo’s – I think you get 60% of the impressions). I’m doing better than ever with eBay on Hubpages since the introduction of QPC.
I don’t quite understand eBay’s obsession with ‘quality’ clicks though – you’d think that even if an affiliate referred a person to one product who then went on to buy something completely different, they’d still be just as happy to get a sale!
The most recent message from Squidoo about this was on October 22nd: Ebay Clarification.
It is important to realise that eBay is paying revenue to Squidoo. The problem lies with eBay reporting structure, in that Squidoo can’t fairly attribute that revenue to the lenses that generated it. So, until Squidoo figure something out, they will keep our money safe.
@ – Charlino- Thank you!
@ Cat – Ohhhh interesting – didn’t know that about HubPages. Last I read ePN and HubPages were a No-Go. After reading all over the place this morning, I see that we CAN use our personal ePN links on Hubs.
I will do a follow up post just for that as I collect more info, tips, and details to share.
@ Fluff – THANK YOU! I will edit the post about to reflect this.
Jennifer
~PotPieGirl
You should take a look at Hubpages as an alternative to Squidoo. I just conducted an experiment over there were I focused on Ebay for a month. I just wrote a blog post for Ryan Hupfer called 33 Hubs in 30 Days and $95.02 in Earnings. The hubs were indexed in google within the day and started producing income quickly. So if your tired of Squidoo, come take a look at Hubpages. There’s no reason you can’t work in both places.
I was turned down several times when I applied for EPN presumably because I only had Blogger sites back then but they turned me down again even after I put up several of my own hosted sites. Oh,well. What can you do?
I had been using the Ebay modules on Squidoo quite a bit because they have many products that seemed to be a perfect fit for some of my lenses but I’ve never made a sale. I do make quite a few sales with Amazon so I’ll be sticking with them for now.
I know this is really tough for people who used to make good money with Ebay before they changed their system. I sure hope Squidoo can find a way to get that income rolling in again for the people who have earned it.
I think Hubpages is a better alternative to Squidoo.
Yes, there has been no interruption to tracking on Hubpages because it was always based on the individual’s EPN account. Also, you can have EPN on Blogger if you have your own website and not a blogspot.com. That only costs about $10 per year, much less than you can make on EPN in one month.
Is anyone able to clarify the position with Blogger? I have read and re-read the new terms and conditions at EPN but am none the wiser. It says that you can only put affiliate links on your own site, but I guess it is a matter of debate whether a Blogspot blog is your own site or not.
Not that I am currently making any money at all from EPN anyway!!
Thanks for the helpful information in your article. Just continue to write so.
Hi
Thanks for the great information about ebay.
I have been a Ebay seller for years and I recently applied for an epn affiliate status and was turned down rudely.
Apparently I was not in compliance with all of their rules and they hate my web site.( its not relevant but they require a url) Firstly I was going to set up a website specifically for ebay, targeted to a specific niche to drive traffic to them, obviously I don’t have it set up yet.
It seems that they only want affiliates who can add ebay links to their existing site. Such a site must be able to exist with out the addition of Ebay Products.
Guess I will look elsewhere.
Regards
Rob
Hey Jennifer,
Just curious about how your ebay lenses are performing since this change in monetization. Are you seeing good cpc amounts? Or have they taken a nose dive like many have seen as epn partners?
This seems to be a big debate among us.
Thanks.
I’ve been an eBay affiliate since it was on CJ, and went through the same hassle bringing it over to the Partner Network, but did the work. I don’t think I can remember all the places my links are, they’re spread far and wide, lots of places I don’t have access to delete, like in comments here and there, so hopefully I won’t put my account in jeopardy. My marketing angle is all wrong for this value click pay system. I was promoting new accounts, and doing well with new customer sign-ups. I was also promoting RV’s on another site, and would manage to sell one or two a month through my links, and that was BIG money. Now when I sell an RV I get 14 cents for all 10 clicks to eBay that day!!! Ha Ha Ha it’ so funny that instead of getting $240. from eBay for a commission I worked hard for, I get $1.40!!! And on most days I get $0.00, so my income has REALLY tanked! So I pulled my links from promoting the RV’s and I think I can make more money selling flea powder or hairbrushes or something (ridiculas) like that! Just gotta go with the flow! The only thing constant is change! I’m just super glad I have followed your advice, Jen, to have multiple income streams.
Thanks!
Update: Squidoo have just paid out revenue to Lensmasters, including commissions from eBay for October.
“Commissions earned from eBay stores and auctions are attributed directly to the lensmaster. So if someone goes from your lens to eBay and buys a product or wins the auction, you get the credit.”
Quote above from Money Making Modules.