eBay.co.uk programme news email

[Grazza]

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Anybody get the email from eBay.co.uk yesterday?

eBay.co.uk moves to GBP functional currency with new compensation model 'Active User, Bid and BIN' tiers.

Thats not all eBay.co.uk introduces new policies and tracking?

Can't wait for CJ to be back online to look into this.

Anyone have more news?

[Aquanuke]

I didnt get it.. can you paste it on the forum, or pm it to me.

Cheers.

[Grazza]

Sure here it is in text form - had a little trouble

Dear Magicfootball.co.uk

Thank you for your continued support of the eBay.co.uk Affiliate Programme. This message provides an update on several important and exciting programme changes that will come into effect on Saturday May 1, 2004.

In this newsletter
1 - New Enhanced Compensation Structure
2 - Enhancements to eBay.co.uk Programme Terms and Conditions
3 - Changes to Tracking 'Potential Reversals'

1. New Enhanced Compensation Structure

eBay has grown to be one of the largest internet shopping destinations through the ongoing support of affiliate partners such as yourself. We have received significant feedback within the past year that you have generated a tremendous amount of registered users for eBay and would like to be compensated for the ongoing activity that these registrations produce. For this reason we are altering our current programme to create a way for you to earn commissions for driving both active registrations and bidding activity from your promotions of eBay.co.uk.

You will notice from the details below that the commissions are now listed in 'Pounds Sterling' the eBay.co.uk Affiliate Programme will be implementing the new programme in 'Pounds Sterling' for Active Registration (ACRU), Bid, and Buy-It-Now (BIN) activity exclusively on the CJ platform beginning May 1st, 2004.

UK Active Registration Tiers
Total Active Users
£

1- 49 £3.00
50 - 149 £5.00
150 - 499 £6.00
500 - 999 £8.00
1,000 - 1,999 £9.00
2,000 - 4,999 £9.50
5,000+ £10.00

*A registration is considered active when the user places a bid on eBay.co.uk within 30 days of their initial registration. Registrations that do not become active within 30 days will expire. No compensation is offered for expired registrations.
Registrations are tracked as leads through the Commission Junction system.


UK Bid and Buy It Now Tiers
Total Bids/Buy It Now's
£

1 - 499 £0.03
500 - 1,499 £0.04
1,500 - 4,999 £0.05
5,000 - 14,999 £0.06
15,000 - 49,999 £0.07
50,000 - 149,999 £0.08
150,000 - 249,999 £0.09
250,000+ £0.10

*The eBay.co.uk Programme compensates for one bid or Buy-It-Now (BIN) per click from your web site. Therefore, your site links must be used as navigation to the eBay.co.uk site prior to every bid or BIN transaction in order for you to be compensated. A bid and BIN are tracked as a sale through the Commission Junction system.

eBay has invested significant time and resources to create tools that will allow us to add the bid compensation component to our programme. We realise that as an affiliate, you were not previously being compensated for all of the activity you drive to eBay and decided that we needed to make this change based on your feedback. The pricing structure above has been enhanced to pay aggressively for affiliate performance, so that you can quickly reach higher compensation levels and earn more in commissions.

Please note: With the new compensation structure above you will need to agree to specific Terms and Conditions or you will be dropped from the eBay.co.uk Programme. All eBay.co.uk affiliates who accept the new Terms and Conditions will be pushed the enhanced compensation structure on May 1, 2004. Please read the section below very carefully.

2. Enhancements to Programme Terms and Conditions

eBay.co.uk is committed to paying publishers fairly for their hard work. Just as eBay fosters a level playing field for our buyers and sellers, we also aim to provide a level playing field for our publishers. With that in mind, we are making several enhancements to our programme Terms and Conditions to protect the efforts of all of eBay.co.uk's publishers.

You will receive new programme terms during the 1st May 2004 that you need to accept to continue to work with eBay.co.uk.

Firstly, 'forced clicks' will be prohibited within the eBay.co.uk Affiliate Programme. We believe strongly that it is in the best interest of eBay.co.uk and eBay.co.uk's publishers to require that an end user takes an affirmative action (by clicking on an affiliate link) for an affiliate to be compensated for an Active Registration (ACRU), Bid or Buy-It-Now (BIN) transaction.

Secondly, eBay.co.uk have introduced new policies relating to the buying of keywords, under the new terms.

eBay.co.uk affiliates are restricted from purchasing or registering keywords, Adwords, search terms or other identifying terms that include the word 'eBay' or certain variations thereof for use in any search engine, portal, sponsored advertising service or other search or referral service. Specifically, this policy prohibits affiliates from bidding on:

eBay's trade mark , 'eBay', and any keyword string that includes this term. For example, 'eBay auctions', 'eBaymotors', 'eBay motors', 'eBay jewellery', etc.; and variations of eBay's trade mark, for example: 'e-bay', 'ebay.co.uk', 'www.ebay.co.uk', 'e-bay', 'e bay', 'www.ebay', 'ww.ebay.co.uk', 'e-bay.co.uk', 'www,ebay.co.uk', 'e.bay', 'wwwebay.co.uk', 'ebya', 'eBay UK', etc.

eBay.co.uk affiliates shall not purchase or register search engine keywords, Adwords, search terms or other identifying terms that fall into the following categories:
Promote sexually explicit materials

Promote violence

Promote firearms or weapons

Promote illegal activities

Promote fake or counterfeit items

Promote gambling or betting

Promote discrimination based on race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation, or age

Infringe intellectual property rights

Additionally, these new Terms and Conditions incorporate policies on CJ tracking code usage, restrictions on use of 'eBay' or confusingly similar variations thereof in affiliate domain names and URLs, restrictions on the use of affiliate links within ebay.co.uk URLs, ongoing adherence to privacy and electronic communications (EC Directive) regulations 2003 and the restriction of all Pops (pop under, pop ups or Subsite ad formats).

These terms are requirements to work within the eBay.co.uk Affiliate Programme, in addition to terms of service outlined in your Commission Junction Publisher Service Agreement. You will be required to review and accept these terms within 7 days of receiving these new terms (by May 8th) or you will be dropped from the eBay.co.uk programme.

Please make sure to log into your Account Manager Pending Offers Area before May 7th, 2004 to accept these new terms and enable the new compensation pricing to come into effect. eBay will start to impose these new terms as of June 1st, 2004. This gives you one months notice to comply.

3. Change to Tracking

To address a tracking inefficiency that resulted in potential double counting among affiliates and other eBay.co.uk partners, we have implemented a more accurate tracking infrastructure which will roll out with the launch of the new Active Registration Bid/BIN compensation structure.

Beginning in May, eBay.co.uk affiliates may see reversals in the number of ACRU, Bid and/or BIN transactions reported.

This reporting enhancement prevents eBay from crediting two publishers for the same Active Registration, bid or BIN transaction performed on eBay. To properly process all publisher-driven activity, there is currently a two-day time lag from the time your lead or sale was driven to when it is properly posted on the Commission Junction Account Manager. We are working hard to shorten this time lag. However, in the meantime, a portion of each day's leads and sales may be 'reversed' two days later.

Our data suggests that any decrease will vary depending on the business models an affiliate deploys, as well as an affiliate's conversion rate of clicks to ACRUs, Bid and BIN transactions. To minimise the impact eBay.co.uk has incorporated an aggressive price structure for ACRUs, Bid and BIN.

We understand that we are simultaneously implementing a number of significant changes to our programme. Please be assured that the teams at CJ and eBay.co.uk are committed to ensuring your continued success throughout this process.

As always, eBay.co.uk is dedicated to providing new tools and creative that assist your effectiveness and innovation, we welcome your suggestions and ideas. Please do not hesitate to contact ukaffiliates@ebay.com if you have specific questions related to these programme changes. For technical support involved with the new programme terms, please contact client services by logging in to your Account Manager at www.cj.com and use the "Ask a Question" feature in the Support tab.

Stay tuned for more exciting announcements on the eBay.co.uk Affiliate Programme in the coming weeks!

We are looking forward to continuing our relationship with you in the future.

Best Regards,

The eBay.co.uk Affiliate Team

[drivetowin]

I like these new terms - with all the bids I've never had so many transactions on CJ in one day!

[Mogga]

cynic mode on:Wonder if we'll get the same level of bid reversals as on the .com version.

[CompareStore]

The email didn't say if the number of registrations/bids required to reach each level is reset each month or an ongoing thing, anyone know?

[drivetowin]

Given that the lower level tiers are reasonably easily achievable (its only the third and I'm almost into the second tier already ) - my guess is that they reset every month

[Grazza]

Yes they are monthly tiers - I think its great to see a policy on forced clciks as well, I guess some of us might start to see more registrations - sorry active registrations :-)

[Qui Gon Jinn]

What are your thoughts on these two points.

6) Domain Names and URL's.
You shall not use "eBay" or any confusingly similar variation thereof in Your domain name or URL (including subdomain or URL path).


Does this mean the following url is not permitted?

yoursite.co.uk/relevant_category/ebay

also the next point


9) Pop's (Pop Unders and Pop ups).
You shall not use pop under, pop up or subsites ad formats to promote eBay.co.uk, including any other format in which an eBay.co.uk appears in a new browser window, either above the existing window or below.

Does this mean target=blank for opening up link in new browser window not permitted?

[drivetowin]

On the first point I think you're probably right - though I think its just a badly worded clause - I'm pretty sure they're just trying to stop people using ebay as part of their domain name (though what they would do about something like www.morecambebay.co.uk I'm not sure.

On the second point I think its 'just' to stop people doing popup or popunder advertising for ebay - i.e. trying to put a stop to all those sites (and there are some on this forum with them) that popunder ebay so that when a visitor closes the window with your site in it, there it is - it doesn't mean that you cant open ebay in a new window when someone clicks on a link / banner

[Qui Gon Jinn]

They should make this perfectly clear.

[drivetowin]

I'm getting leads today displaying as 0.00 - anyone else getting this?

[Keith]

Originally posted by kbudden
I'm getting leads today displaying as 0.00 - anyone else getting this?

Yes, just means someone has registered it will change to £3 when/if they become active

[purple]

How are peoples revenue changed since changing to the new structure?

My first impression is I will lose revenue when I accept the terms today but we will see.

Anyone give me feed back on the change it made when ebay.com did a similar pricing structure

[drivetowin]

Depends on your site - but I've also got a suspicion that they've improved their tracking

Old programme - I was getting x registrations a day

New programme - I'm getting slightly more registrations AND I'm very happy with the bid commissions - just hoping they wont be reversed