Try These If You Are Banned on EPN

This will be a very brief post as I'm completely overwhelmed with the task of switching over a bunch of affiliate sites and tweaking PPC campaigns.  Will you forgive me if I agree to do a complete write up of how I will be replacing my $1000 per month EPN revenue?

uBid looks like it will be a stable replacement for EPN visitors.  Time will truly tell but this is where I will be focusing some of my efforts.

PepperJamNetwork is a back door to EPN.  I've been banned from EPN but I'm still able to earn revenue the exact same way through PepperJam.  Again, I'm sure time will tell when they will bring the hammer down on PJ affiliates as well.  I'm not betting the farm it will last, but at least it will give me longer than a 7 day window to jump ship.

Look for a full write up instead of a quick link post in the upcoming days.  For those who received the expired from EPN letter, the sun will rise tomorrow.

August 25, 2008 · Filed Under Making Money

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Banned From EPN

It looks like the proverbial fecal matter has hit the fan and there are a lot of unhappy affiliates.  Like countless others I received an email and message last night in my dashboard from EPN saying that they are expiring my account.  Although the message was very vague, it does make reference to my visitors being less engaged with eBay.

The part about less engaged has me confused, because the majority of my income comes from winning bid recvenue, NOT ACRUs.  Furthermore my EPC is less than $3 which is not a crazy amount that should send a warning flag.  Also I should add that I have never undertaken any black hat methods of promotion for the eBay affiliate program.  I earn far too much to jeopardize that program, so it's all been white hat methods and quality traffic sent.

Currently there are countless discussions going on over at the BANS forums and directly on EPN.  Obviously that is just one thread amongst others that is getting the most attention.  The frustrating part, zero contact from EPN in regards to this mass ban hammer.  This shows a serious lack of understanding in regards to proper affiliate program attention, maintenance, and just common courtesy.

For now I've not seen a pattern in regards to those being banned from EPN.  My guess is that there is an automated script that takes a look at Impressions per Click ratio and sends out messages accordingly.  On any other affiliate program this would make sense, since many black hat methods involve cookie stuffing.  However with eBay they provide API's that require no impressions, so it should be null and void.  Perhaps some outside company have sold their services to EPN with promises to automatically take out the bottom feeders.  Although to me it looks like they just ended up doubling their work load.

I'm chilling for now, knowing that I have an account with the PepperJamNetwork, where I can still make money as an eBay affiliate.  That is until that automated script gets ahold of them too.  I'm praying a notice will be sent out that this was just an error on their behalf and things can get back to normal.

August 21, 2008 · Filed Under Making Money

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New BANS Templates and Themes

BuildANicheStore.com has just reopened after a little remodeling and now they are offering all kinds of new tools and features to sink your teeth into.  First, as a member you will enjoy a newly updated forum, which will be better moderated, structured, and hopefully more useful and worth the price of admission.  All BANS purchasers receive full forum access and only BANS owners are able to view and post in the forums.

In addition, there is a new tab at the top of your members only BANS page, which is 'TEMPLATES'.  These BANS templates are great, not cheap, not rehashed, but actually quality templates with features.  This will help with the laced thin affiliates sprouting up everywhere, but will also help those looking for cheap place holders that look good.

August 14, 2008 · Filed Under Templates

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EPN Announces ACRU Tiers

Let me start by saying I'm very, very excited about the new program eBay Partner Network will be putting into place, which will promote quality registrations and help weed out the thin affiliates.  Their plan, which will effect new signups but not existing EPN members until November 1st, is to not pay a flat $25 for all ACRU's in the US.  Instead, EPN will give payouts at the end of the month based on the quality of traffic sent and how eBay views the new registration, in terms of longevity and potential revenue to eBay.  If you derive most of your EPN affiliate revenue from winning bids, then this won't really effect you because those tiers are not changing, only ACRUs.

The tiers for the new ACRU system is wide and I mean wide, meaning that you could earn as little as a dollar for sending crap traffic or as much as $50!  I'm hoping to be at the latter end of the scale, since repeatedly my new signups purchase multiple items throughout the eBay cookie length.

To aid in the shock of this new system EPN will be providing parrallel stats until November 1st which will show you what affiliates would be making and will be making on the new system.  However, actual payouts on the new tier ACRU will only take effect in November, so if you are a thin affiliate sending craptastic traffic it will give you an opportunity to bail out and find something else.  On the flip side, it'll be hard to stomach those bigger numbers when you know you can't get them till later on in the year.

Big Question

There is still talk that EPN is having trouble tracking ACRUs and even winning bids and on a large scale if you believe the official EPN forums.  Will they be able to accurately track this new level of data?  I would expect some serious discussions going on between now and November 1st, most likely very heated discussions.

It was just last month that eBay announced that they would be hiring an outside firm to help test EPN tracking.  Would be nice if they would at least publish these results fix or state things are running smooth before rolling out a completely new revenue system.  But, I'm just a worker bee, not a thinker bee.

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Programs I use to generate EPN ACRUs are phpBay and Build A Niche Store. Two great scripts that I highly recommend to any affiliate marketer new or experienced with eBay.

August 1, 2008 · Filed Under Making Money

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