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July 22, 2007
Auction Ads Review: Is Auction Ads A Winner Or Not?
I'm experimenting with Auction Ads, too, and I don't have any revenue report yet, but I do have some observations.
The Downsides ...
Ease Of Use:
It's more labor-intensive than AdSense, although not more so than the regular eBay affiliate program. With AdSense you just use a piece of generic code and the ads are chosen for you. But with Auction Ads and the regular eBay affiliate program YOU have to choose the keywords, which I find annoying because I have to have different ads for different sections/topics/pages. To me, it's simply a shortcoming of eBay's pathetic technology. For all the money it makes, eBay does a really terrible job of managing its affiliate program, as well as other technology aspects of its site. It would be easy for eBay to choose ads based on the keywords on my page, rather than the current primitive way of doing things. This is not a reflection on Auction Ads, but on eBay.
Low Return Ads:
Some subjects simply don't lend themselves to eBay ads. For instance, I have a section on one of my sites about eBay Motors {http://auctionknowhow.com/ebayautoauction}. AdSense offers some very high-paying keywords related to anything involved with this industry. The eBay ads, on the contrary, only displayed such items as low-value toys (as low as $.99). With Auction Ads I would receive 50%-75% of eBay's revenues but the eBay fees on a $.99 aitem re only twenty six cents (actually, 25 & 1/4 cent). At the maximum revenue, then, I would earn the grand total of $.19. That's not OK with me.
The Upsides ...
Auction Ads Pays More Than The "Regular" eBay Affiliate Program
If your site lends itself to eBay, then Auction Ads is a much better deal than eBay is. Very few marketers will ever get beyond the $100 - $4,999.99 range, which pays 55.00%. With Auction Ads we are probably going to be in the 75% range now, if not already. In other words, we are increasing our revenues by 20%. That is definitely worth doing.
Most Important: Potential For Large, LARGE Payout
eBay has recently made pointed comments about how the growth of their site has slowed down drastically in the US. That's hardly surprising since there are already 225+ million accounts and so the market is fairly saturated. This means that eBay has increased their bounty for recruiting new members. The top payment for a new member is a lovely $35. This is the primary reason, to me, for using the clunky eBay affiliate program. Using Auction Ads increases the potential payout from $25-$35.
International Possibilities
Clearly, the growth potential for eBay is international, rather than US-based. Auction Ads has "some" provision for this: "at this time no ads are displayed from other countries' eBay sites. When a non-US visitor clicks an ad, they are taken to a search page of items from the same keywords. As ad impression volume builds from specific countries, we will consider adding local ad display. Our statistics and testing shows that this converts extremely well for international users."
You Can Run Auction Ads With AdSense
According to Auction Ads, Google has no objection to running AdSense on the same site and page with your eBay ads. So, we are not forced to choose.
Posted by SydneyJohnston at 11:40 AM | TrackBack
July 16, 2007
How I Used eBay For Product Comparison Research
I recently launched a site on a new Mineral Makeup line. One of the reasons I chose this particular topic is that I, personally, have used mineral makeup for years and, as an esthetician, have recommended it to my clients as well.
Of course, one of the main questions I am always asked is: Which is the best mineral makeup? My answer is always to find one that is a 100% pure mineral makeup without all the harmful additives and chemicals.
Which got me to thinking: How was I going to showcase this important benefit, as well as many others of my product on my site and make it stand out from the rest? I really needed to see what the other mineral makeup lines had to offer. The thought of searching through pages and pages (and pages) of Google results had me breaking out the Advil bottle and then it dawned on me! What better place to find the majority and variety of mineral makeup product lines in one place than ebay.
One quick search on ebay saved me hours of time and aggravation in product comparison research.
I was easily able to highlight the benefits of my product over the others and summarize it on one simple web page thanks to the massive amounts of product research available in one convenient location.
Posted by SydneyJohnston at 11:12 AM | TrackBack
eBay Sales Down In Summer?
Each summer our income from the Internet and eBay auctions really drops to a point that at times we lose money by putting some items up for sale or auction. Almost all of our eBay auction listings are in our eBay stores to reduce the cost of listing.
This year appears to be especially bad in terms of traffic and conversion on our websites. Income has dropped as much as 83% from the highs in March of 2007. Some people are blaming this down turn on the loss of discretionary funds due to the increase in the cost of fuel and food. This may be true to some degree as it was recently noted that retails sales in many big-box stores fell in June.
In my case the loss of income on two of my websites Vacuum Cleaner Information and Elliptical Trainer Information is related to normal seasonal drop in demand.
In the future we are going to become more diversified by targeting products and keywords that relate to summer season activities. Our sales of camping tents is doing very well this year and we are expanding with this product on eBay to capture this market. However no matter what your product is, people are not going to spend time on their computers when the weather is nice outside. Frankly I do not blame them.
Author: Jim Kesel
Posted by SydneyJohnston at 11:03 AM | TrackBack
July 13, 2007
Learning About The Acne Market From Ebay
I have to admit that when I created my site about the causes and treatments of acne, Ebay was the farthest thing from my mind. After some gentle prodding from my better half, I finally got off my behind and checked out the auction listings for this topic.
The search term "acne" turned up 1695 results, with 544 "Buy It Now" items. Looking through the list, I realized that it's a great source of keywords that I could have used to do better research for topics to write about. All sorts of brands that I did not even think about come up: "Clearasil", "Clinique", "Clear Logix" and "Clearitol" to name a few.
Murad acne treatment seems to be one of the more prominent in the auctions, so digging a bit deeper I searched for "murad", and Ebay returned 478 results. Not bad at all - it confirms that I was right in creating articles about this topic as it seems to be a popular one.
Proactiv acne solution appears to be an even hotter subject: searching for "proactiv" results in 1955 items. What's interesting about this from the market research viewpoint is that the misspelled "proactive" search term returns 945 results, almost 50% of the correct spelling. Just goes to show that you can't be too complacent in digging for your keywords or you'll miss a huge chunk of your market.
I don't think I'll ever put up a site again without looking at Ebay first.
Author: Flor Serquina
Posted by SydneyJohnston at 1:34 PM | TrackBack
July 10, 2007
eBay Bans International Ivory Trade Sales
I am happy to say that eBay is banning "all international ivory trade" sales.
The International Fund For Animal Welfare (IFAW) conducted a survey in July of this year and claims that, according to this effort, 94% of the ivory sales on eBay are illegal.
The ivory laws and treaties passed over the last 30 years were intended to protect the poaching of endangered ivory species. Of particular concern were elephants. Approximately half of Africa's elephants—and as many as 80 percent in East Africa's—may have been eliminated from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. A large reason for this decimation was elephant poaching to feed international ivory demand.
On June 5, eBay announced the new regs will go into effect in July. According to the IFAW it's illegal to trade in ivory unless:
1. The item for sale is an antique
2. The seller has a certificate proving the age of the ivory
eBay was probably forced to make this move, but it's a good one anyway. It's a damned crime to kill splendid animals like elephants for human vanity!!! The only thing that bothers me is that eBay rules aren't nearly as clear and specific as I would like. NO ivory at all. Period. Ever. Now that would be worthwhile.
Posted by SydneyJohnston at 6:53 PM | TrackBack
July 4, 2007
My eBay Windorphin
Wondering what a windorphin is? If so ... where ya been?
eBay has come up with the windorphin as, of course, a play on words between endorphin + win. The idea is that you will generate some endorphins by winning - something - on eBay. Endorphins are those wonderful feel-good hormones that we all crave. I can't imagine that this windorphin campaign will generate any sales, but it's fun to create your very own. Here's mine:
Notice her wintery cap. That's because we are melting here in Hotlanta, GA, and the thought of some frigid winter breezes sounds pretty darn good here in July. Anyway, if you'd like a Windorphin of your own, go here:
http://windorphins.ebay.com/special/index.html
My only regret is that on the site you can add "jazz hands" that constantly wave - and this image doesn't include them. Too bad.
Posted by SydneyJohnston at 6:07 PM | TrackBack
July 1, 2007
eBay Fraud That Hurts! Hurts! Hurts!
One eBay fraud has cost the perp* 27 months in federal prison. Ouch!
The Justice department announced that Courtney Smith of Indiana sold $4+ million of fake "high-end corporate software from Rockwell Automation" on eBay. Smith claimed that HE was victimized first because he was sold counterfeit copies himself - which he then duplicated and sold at pricey auctions that reached as high as $11,000.
No sympathy here!
According to an assistant Attorney General, ""The Department of Justice is committed to prosecuting individuals who exploit legitimate online auction sites to sell pirated software and commit other acts of fraud." Good.
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* Hey, I know criminal legalese. I watch Law & Order CI and Law & Order SVU. :-)
