Turn $270 into $18 with the Ebay Affiliate Program

I'm not one of those guys that blogs about my successes and fails to mention the 372 times my project turned out to be a complete disaster. I just experienced one of those disasters marketing a website monetized with the eBay affiliate program.

I've owned a website that sells leather motorcycle jackets for the last few years. I've got my hands around the throat of some pretty good keywords and ads that convert pretty well for this merchandise. I had the idea of setting up 30 - 50 eBay auctions featuring my jackets with a 99 cent starting bid. There was no gimmick. All the items had a very reasonable shipping and handling charge of $15 or less.

I created a page on my site displaying all of these 99 cent auctions. When a visitor clicked on any of the items, it directed the the eBay auction through my eBay affiliate link of course. I drove traffic to the site using Google Adwords. I was expecting a success. What I got was something completely different.

I spent $270 on adwords to get 1,016 visitors. Only 255 of these visitors clicked on my auctions resulting in 10 conversion worth $17.78. The auctions also ended terribly. Some of them actually sold for the 99 cent starting bid. This project was a complete failure. It couldn't have been any worse.

This was my first time out on this type of project. Normally, I don't surrender so easily. But you have to know when to call a dog a dog.

I could waste time testing different landing pages to try and increase the percentage of visitors clicking ads. Even if I could double or triple that number, this project would still be a major loser.

I haven't given up on the eBay affiliate program. I actually make $800 - $1,000 a month from displaying eBay ads on a couple of my sites. I'll be looking for other ways to make money with this program. After this project, I know of at least one more way not to do it.

Good Luck,

Brent Crouch

P.S. You can take a look at the landing page at this link. Let me know what you think and how it could be improved.

Leather Jackets, Handbags, and Wallets

 

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Posted by: Brent Crouch on 03 Sep, 20075 Comments »

5 Responses to “Turn $270 into $18 with the Ebay Affiliate Program”

  1. September 5th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
    Todd Says:

    How about bigger pictures on your landing page, that’s what I want to see.

  2. September 5th, 2007 at 11:03 pm
    Brent Crouch Says:

    Hi Todd,

    I agree. There is a lot of improvement that can be made to the landing page. But even if I could have gotten 100% of my visitors to click on the links, I would have only generated $72 in commissions. This is still well below the $270 I spent on ads.

    Brent

  3. October 3rd, 2007 at 11:18 pm
    » Ebay Affiliate Program Versus Amazon Affiliate Program Says:

    […] http://www.brentcrouch.com/2007/09/03/turn-270-into-18-with-the-ebay-affiliate-program/ […]

  4. May 17th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
    phone cards Says:

    design of lanfing page so ugly….

  5. July 19th, 2012 at 2:05 pm
    carolyn Says:

    What is an ebay ad? Is ebay paying you to have their ad banner on your website?

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