What is an Affiliate?

Put simply, an affiliate is a type of advertising partner for a company such as eBay.  If you have a website which attracts traffic, you can become an affiliate and by placing eBay icons onto your website pages, which your viewers click, earning you $$$. 

How much can I earn?

There is a commission structure which enables you to earn up to US$28 if one of your website viewers registers with eBay from your website.  However this gi-normous $ figure only applies if you are really in the high end of town for referring active registered users.  In reality, you would have to have mega traffic on your website to refer over 501 registered users per month. 

Monthly Active Registration Tiers

                  Total Active Registrations                 Commission per Active Registration

                                        1-5                                                   US$12.00

                                       6-50                                                  US$15.00

                                    51-200                                                 US$22.00

                                  201-500                                                 US$25.00

                                  500 and up                                             US$28.00

You can also earn $$$ for referring users who bid on eBay auctions or buy it now items. 

Monthly Bid & Buy It Now Tiers

                                   Total Bids & BINS              Commission per Bid or BIN

                                               1-600                                     US$0.15

                                            601-6,000                                 US$0.16

                                         6,001-25,000                               US$0.17

                                        25,001 and up                               US$0.18

The eBay program compensates for one bid or BIN per click from your website.  This means that your site links must be used as navigation to the eBay site prior to every bid or Buy it Now transaction in order for you to be compensated.

Ebay quotes "say you generate 300 active registrations and 600 bids and buy it nows in a month.  You will reach the $25.00 tier for active registrations and also be compensated 15 cents for every bid and buy it now.  In total your monthly commissions will be US$7,590 ($25.00 x 300 + $0.15 x 600)!  Simply put, the more activity you drive to eBay, the more you will earn!

However I do think you should be realistic when starting out, these figures only apply to websites with huge traffic.  However you can make $$$ by using this program and using SEO (Search engine techniques) to drive traffic to your website.  It's great pin money and some people even rely on it and make a living!

How is it Managed?

Ebay uses a third party called Commission Junction.  They have many companies such as eBay all vying for space on your website.  You should pick companies that are in keeping with your particular product as "Link Farms" as they are called by those in the know, will be penalised by the search engines.  That is sites that contain mostly links to other companies, without relevant content are generally placed lower in search engine ranking.  So if you decide to have a site with a ton of affiliate icons and little relevant content to speak off, you will probably be at the back of the search pages.  So choose your affiliate partners wisely. 

You can register through eBay.  You will then receive a password from Commission Junction.  Follow the instructions to the letter to signup for a publisher account that will enable you to place links and banners on your Web site or in your newsletter.  When you get the codes you need to insert the eBay icons into your website, you must put them into the html section, not the wysiwyg editor as I tried to. 

Then instead of sitting back and waiting for the $$$ to roll in, optimise your website effectively so you can drive traffic to your site.

I hope this guide has been helpful, if you think so, then please vote for it.  Visit my store Absolute Soul Secrets or read my other guides

Regards, Rose (mysoulsecrets)