Warned for high conversion rate

[Darren M]

I just had a bizarre email from CJ, asking me to explain my high conversion rate on the eBay programme! The thing is, like a lot of people I don't actively promote eBay. I just have a single on topic deep link to one of their search pages. It doesn't earn me much money at all, so I'm wondering just how low the average conversion rates is on this programme!

Has anyone else received an email like this? It's not exactly polite.

Note: Please explain your high conversion rate. Recently your account has shown abnormal traffic patterns for one or more of the eBay programs and is therefore suspected of violating section 1(d)(ii) of the Commission Junction Publisher Service Agreement (“PSA”) to which you are bound. Please respond to this email within 48 hours with an detailed explanation of how your traffic is driven. If you do not respond within this time frame, violation of the above mentioned section will be presumed and you risk commission reversals, program termination or network deactivation in compliance with section 6 of the PSA. Sincerely, Program Quality

[smingle]

Hi There,

I have had trouble with cj.com like this before and I just explained it and they left it at that. I don't find cj very ploite at all and I hate dealing with them TBH.

What do you mean a high conversion rate anyway ? do you mean your CTR ? or actually a click which progressed into a sale ?

[Darren M]

Originally Posted by smingle What do you mean a high conversion rate anyway ? do you mean your CTR ? or actually a click which progressed into a sale ?

They must be talking about the clicks to sales ratio, as they have no way of telling how many impressions they're getting. I don't display any banner ads, just a HTML text link.

[morleymouse]

ah makes me giggle, I can kind of see why they do it though.

Basically CJ need to protect ebay (imagine the override that programme generates) and an 'abnormally high' conversion rate could spark suspicion (brand bidding, spyware use etc) id be intersted to hear what sort of figures spark this sort of response?

1 click 1 lead (100% conversion) or are we talking a bit more?

[Darren M]

Originally Posted by morleymouse 1 click 1 lead (100% conversion) or are we talking a bit more?

I just checked for the first time and the conversion was higher than I thought, last month it was 25% and it seems to be rising month on month. It's not surprising the conversion is so high as half the country uses eBay. I'm wondering if most of these are out of session cookie sales? I couldn't find any info on their cookie period.

[Darren M]

I just got a response back from CJ...

Based on your response i will deem your account compliant.

That was it, no hint of an apology! Well at least I can sleep at night, now that I know my eBay commission is safe

[bapages]

Personally, I think from a merchant point of view is a good thing (albeit a phone call would be better), the likely suspicion is 'typosquatting'

[Flightmapping]

I don't see anything wrong with wanting to check these things, but that letter is quite simply rude, arrogant, and unreasonable.

The very least they could do is thank you for sending them such good traffic, and then ask for a better explanation of the link. This is one case where a bullshirt sandwich is justified.

If I ran an airline programme which had an affiliate who converted at 25% (I have heard it can be done), I'd want to know what her secrets were.

The minimum I'd offer the affiliate would be an invite down to CJ's London bunker, a glass of port and a fine (smoke it later of course) cigar.

It just sounds to me that your Ebay link is an example of how deeplinks from quality pages should work. Please tell us your secrets, and tell CJ that they need to learn some manners.

[Darren M]

Originally Posted by Flightmapping It just sounds to me that your Ebay link is an example of how deeplinks from quality pages should work. Please tell us your secrets, and tell CJ that they need to learn some manners.

I don't have any secrets, I just add deep links to relevant products and it would appear that they convert quite well

I had an similar email from CJ a few months ago, although they were much more polite that time. I'd been doing rather well with one of their merchants when I got this email thanking me, but also asking me to make a minor change to a text link. The thing is they'd forgotten to delete the whole email chain and it appears that myself and 4 other affiliates were being investigated for jumping into the top 10 publisher list for that month. It was interesting to see my main rival and a major voucher site on the list too

[bapages]

Nothing suprises me with the networks these days. We have a case yesterday where by CJ own admission we generated 80% of the sales for one merchant last year took time out to meet them face to face to mediate a payment problem, then find out yesterday that brand bidding has been opened up and we never got a look in.

Quite insulting I thought.