Out of the blue, I came up with what I think may be a good idea to push some eBay traffic and hopefully profit off of the eBay affiliate program. I already have some PHPBay sites that do OK with organic traffic only. The traffic is being pushed to the Ebay Publisher Network. For my new idea I figured I should try PepperJam Network. If you didn’t know, Pepperjam is one of these networks where you have to manually apply to each and every program you would like to participate in just like a CJ or Linkshare.
Many months ago, when eBay first announced they were partnering with Pepperjam I applied to the eBay program so that if I ever wanted to use it, I could! I logged into my account today to set up some links to find that my application was still pending. There is a little message icon next to the program that brings up a live chat. I gave that a whirl and had the following conversation.
Ad Hustler: Hi, i am listed as pending for the ebay affiliate program, how do i get approved?
*** Waiting for Mandy Foley to connect
*** If Mandy F. doesn’t receive this message, they will be emailed when you close this window
*** Mandy F.’s IC window is open
Mandy F.: Hello Brandon, we are currently working to review all of our applications in the order they came in.
Mandy F.: Once your application has been reviewed you will receive notification of your new status.
Ad Hustler: i submitted it months ago
Ad Hustler: can you expedite me
Ad Hustler: ?
Mandy F.: I understand that many affiliate have been waiting for an extrensive amount of time and we appreciate your patience. Unfortunately, at this time I cannot expidite any applications.
I’m sure that Pepperjam gets tons of applications for people wanting to be an eBay affiliate. To have a couple of days of a delay is acceptable. Months of waiting is NOT acceptable. Here are some reasons why this type of policy is stupid on PepperJamNetwork’s part:
- Pepperjam makes money off affiliates pushing traffic to advertisers. Not approving affiliates quickly, makes them look elsewhere to push their traffic.
- Delaying an application of someone vocally looking to push traffic puts a bad taste in the affiliates mouth for the network. It makes the affiliate feel that the network isn’t willing to do anything special to help them.
- It circumvents PepperjamNETWORK themselves. It’s not that hard to go straight to eBay and get an eBay Publisher Network account. I already have one and will just end up taking the traffic straight through eBay where PepperJam makes no commission.
I’ve never really had any experience with PepperjamNetwork until now. So far I’m not impressed with this affiliate network.
Why not just go EPN? I used PJ for a little while, but they dicked me over on payment.
@Spyder – I am with EPN. I wanted to use PepperJam to see if it converted any better than EPN. Since you have used both do you happen to have any case studies you can share? 🙂
@Ad Hustler – If you wanted to know how PJN/EPN compare on conversions, here’s my two cents.
First off, I was making $300-$500 per month with CJ/eBay from appx 1000 clicks until the switch, on my main eBay site (vintage guitar niche).
After the switch, I divided the EPN and PJN ads equally on each page (I use my own custom script to show items) of the guitar site to test conversion tracking.
So far, I have made $0, yes $0, a goose egg from the 3000+ EPN clicks and the PepperJam clicks are earning right in line with what my previous earnings were.
EPN is definitely flawed and no offense, but getting Mandy Foley off her butt to do anything for PJN affiliates is like pulling teeth. It’s not PJN’s fault. Trust me, Kris Jones (PJN CEO) will jump through hoops to help you out and he is on several forums, etc where you can PM him.
The problem is eBay could give a rip less about affiliates and is trying to piss us all off. I even got some shady email from Ms. Foley questioning where my minimal traffic was coming from. I responded to her in detail and she never even took the time to respond back. What a loser. I have been tempted to dump eBay alltogether but hey, a buck is a buck…