Ebay ditches Commission Junction

If you’re familiar with the Ebay affiliate program you’ll also be very familiar with Commission Junction. These two have gone hand in hand with each other like Strawberry’s & Cream for as long as I can remember. The program has also been a very very consistent earner for me over the years.

But in a move that really didn’t take me by surprise, Ebay have decided now to take the Affiliate Management & Reporting in house with the creation of the Ebay Partner Network, a global affiliate management network encompassing all of the Ebay sites into one manageable interface:

Easy global registration to multiple countries simultaneouslyNew, targeted banners and rich media creativesNew landing page optimization and geo-targeting capabilitiesMore detailed reporting capabilities for eBay’s programs

Now you’ll be able to promote every Ebay localisation without having to go through the sign up process for each, which will allow for much more diversification in who you target & also allow you to Geo Target regions you may not have been able to before. The network also takes out the middleman when it comes to support & affiliate issues.

I’m keen to see the new reporting features, as the current ones provided over at CJ are extremely limited, unless you download the daily report via .csv. I’m also interested to see if they provide Geo Targeted ad blocks (similar to what Auctionads was doing).

My heart goes out to Commission Junction, I can’t imagine how much of a hit losing Ebay will have on their bottom line, but the move makes sense. eBay’s Tradera AB, ProStores, Inc, Reseller Marketplace, Media Marketplace, eBay Stores & StubHub will however continue with CJ as normal so all is not lost.

The network opens on April 1st 2008 & all links must be migrated over by May 1st 2008. If you migrate over in April you’ll get a 5% bonus to all traffic for that month only.I’ll report more info when I get it & expect a full review of the new interface & reporting when I get access.