In the last three months (February – May), I earned $4,874.26 on the eBay Partner Network (EPN). That’s an average of about $52.98 per day of pure margin SEO income (no media costs attached). Considering I hold a demanding full time job (that I love) and that the time I invest in my eBay Partner Network websites is low (maybe 1 hour/week on average), I couldn’t be more thrilled with the results. Since my prior posts about my EPN earnings have been so popular (Scoring Record EPN Earnings and My EPN Earnings Rock), I thought I’d do another eBay post today to share my success and a few tips so you too can build your own passive income stream while driving substantial user value. When you’re done reading my tips, make sure to check out the screen shot at the bottom of this post that highlights my earnings!

Tip 1: Focus On An Authority Website

My eBay Partner Network Earnings come from one authority website that I started back in 2007. I started this website about a topic I love! Due to my passion, I was able to write hundreds of articles that users love while really sharing my own personality and perspective with my visitors. I consistently get emails from my visitors saying they love my site and I’ve truly helped them. I invested a ton of sweat equity in the early days (mainly 2007-2008), and continue to update my website consistently to this day (although my commitment right now is about 1 hour/week). (Side note: I don’t want to give the illusion that passive income is easy. It takes a ton of up front work, it’s just that I’m now enjoying the passive aspect of my income stream because my EPN operation has matured.)

By focusing on one site, I was able to build a ton of quality traffic within a particular niche, thus having the ability to send eBay lots of qualified visitors. I have found that the large scale approach (when combined with quality) works really well! So, if you’re thinking about going the multi-site route versus the authority site route, I’d highly recommend going with an authority site.

Tip 2: Don’t Go Overboard With Links To eBay

You’d be surprised! I don’t have a ton of links to eBay on my authority website. I almost make my visitors look for them. This is really important. eBay is measuring results (in the form of account sign-ups and also winning bids) and will pay you higher EPCs if you drive higher quality traffic. In fact, they tend to over-reward their highest quality sources of traffic. (Side note: You can learn more about this in my review of eBay’s Quality Click Pricing.) For this very reason, it’s of paramount importance you don’t go overboard and you only send quality traffic. My personal approach has involved extremely long, complex, passionate articles that truly help users with maybe one link to eBay. I could send probably 5 times as much traffic to eBay as I am now, but I don’t want to compromise the quality because then my EPCs would plummet.

Tip 3: Leverage Text Links To eBay

eBay offers a ton of complex ways to link to them. They offer widgets, the ability to embed eBay results right on your website, and all sorts of options. When it comes to SEO, my strategy is one of keeping it very simple. As such, the majority of my eBay links are text links. Of course, I sprinkle in a few widgets too, but those represent the minority of my EPN clicks. My advice is to not overlook the simple, text link strategy because it works really well with Tip 2 (keeping your traffic quality high).

I hope these tips help you out! I’m super thrilled with my eBay results because of the passive income, but more importantly because I’m learning. I’m learning new skills that help my corporate online marketing career while having fun and making some extra income!

Image of my eBay Partner Network Earnings © PPCIan.com

Hey everyone! Just wanted to write a quick post today about my record eBay Partner Network (EPN) earnings for March. I hope this post encourages you to continue working hard towards your own affiliate marketing goals, while seriously considering eBay Partner Network as a great affiliate program. You may recall that my eBay Partner Network earnings have been volatile in 2010. After some of the volatility ended, my EPN earnings started to rock. In late 2010, I did really well as I received big bonuses from eBay due to my year over year growth (didn’t blog about the bonuses). In March, 2011 (see screenshot below) I’m thrilled to announce that my EPN earnings came in at $1,861.86. That’s my best non-bonused month ever!

Affiliate Marketing Works, Even If You Have a Job

I wanted to write this post for two main reasons. First and foremost, I wanted to show that someone with a full time, demanding job can still do really well in affiliate marketing. I work super hard in my full time job (and I love it!), but have also been able to build up a really sweet affiliate marketing business. I earn monthly passive income from EPN and also other affiliate programs such as Google AdSense, Commission Junction, Amazon Associates, ClickBank, and others. The skills I learned have even helped accelerate my corporate online marketing career since I have more value to add. My strategy: Build great websites with great information that offer significant value to the user. I now own 100+ active web businesses. The money did not come easily, but now I’m receiving a good deal of free SEO traffic. My EPN earnings have basically zero cost attached to them so they’re pure margin. My advice: Stick with affiliate marketing. Even if you have a full time job, you can invest a few hours each week for a few years (I’ve been in the affiliate marketing game since 2007) and then you’ll hit gold in the long run.

You Should Seriously Consider eBay Partner Network

Second, I wanted to highlight EPN as a great affiliate network. eBay Partner Network can be volatile (just look at March 31 in the graph below and you can see that my CPC tanked on the last day of the month) but my results have been super overall and I couldn’t be happier. My strategy: Focus on niches you’re passionate about, and review and recommend products and sellers on eBay that you’re personally passionate about. Better yet, review products and sellers you’ve personally done business with! Once you build that bond with you users, the quality of clicks you send eBay will be tremendous and then eBay’s quality click pricing will reward you. eBay will over-reward those affiliates sending the best quality clicks, clicks that convert! Looking for another great affiliate network to check out? I recommend CPA Tank, a great network operated by my friend Vito.

Image in this post © PPCIan.com

Hey everyone! As you may have noticed, I have been updating PPC Ian a little less frequently lately. It’s not that I’ve been slacking off, it’s just that I’ve been super busy. As you may remember from my 2010 goals, I set the goal to develop six new websites this year. Well, I’m actually on pace now to develop 75 plus. The best part of it? All 75 plus sites are amazing and deliver substantial value to the Internet. How is this possible? Stay tuned, I will be writing a post all about this in the coming months!

PPC Ian still remains a priority and I’m hoping to boost my post frequency going forward now that things are cooling down a bit. I’m particularly excited about today’s post about my October and November eBay Partner Network (EPN) earnings. You may recall that I posted about my Volatile eBay Partner Network Earnings not that long ago, back in early October. Well, the volatility continues, but this time in my favor!

My eBay Partner Network Earnings Skyrocket

It’s really funny! Just as I posted about my volatile EPN earnings in early October, things really started looking up. October was a strong month (compared to prior months) and I ended up earning $500.46. The crazy part of this is the earnings all came in during the first few weeks of October and then started tapering off like crazy. By the end of October, I was only earning a few bucks per day. So, the volatility was still there, it was just working in my favor a bit more. Want to see my earnings in October? Check out the first graph at the end of this post!

November has been even better than October. I’ve pulled in a solid $846.59 so far this month! While the month is not over, I do see my earnings tapering off just like October. Check out the second graph below, the month started really strong and then started getting weaker over time. The click volume has been somewhat consistent, and it’s really my EPC (earnings per click) that has been dropping over time. I’m definitely happy with my results in November and am hoping to break through the $1,000 mark, but definitely could be a challenge if I get back to that few bucks per day level. Again, make sure to check out the second graph at the end of this post to see a detailed view of my earnings.

eBay Partner Network Takeaways

My excitement for the eBay Partner Network is really taking off and I’d like to close out today with a few of my takeaways from this case study:

1. People love posts about earnings! My last post about my Volatile eBay Earnings got 14 comments and was even featured on the ever popular blog Make Money On The Internet by Chris Guthrie, one of my favorite blogs!
2. Don’t give up on eBay. When I wrote my last post about my volatile eBay earnings, I was definitely de-motivated with my earnings trends on eBay. While the volatility is still there, I’m now making some good money from it! These last few months tell me that it’s all about the long term and that seemingly permanent trends can and will change!
3. It’s all about profit and not revenue. The numbers shared in this post are pure margin. The sites on which I run the eBay Partner Network get all of their traffic organically (read: no PPC). That’s a bit ironic on blog called PPC Ian, but I’ll be the first guy to tell you that PPC does not make sense in all business cases. The sites on which I run EPN are information sites. I have found the slow passive income SEO strategy ideal for these types of sites. The net effect: I’m able to pocket all of my EPN earnings! This looks even sweeter when you combine this passive income strategy with a full time job. It looks even sweeter still when you factor in passive income from Google AdSense, Commission Junction, ClickBank, and other affiliate programs. I’m going to be writing a post very soon about my overall passive income strategy and how I plan to retire rich from leveraging multiple income streams.
4. eBay Still Pays On Conversions. About a year ago, eBay moved to their new Quality Click Pricing model where they smooth out commissions and pay on clicks (and not conversions). However, based on my experience, eBay is still paying on conversions, they’re just smoothing it out over clicks a bit more than in the past. There’s nothing wrong with this, but it’s just something to be aware of. When you drive conversions, you will see a spike in earnings like me. I’m hoping with the holiday shopping season approaching that my EPN earnings skyrocket as more people convert!

There you have it! If you have been observing lower earnings on eBay Partner Network, I encourage you to hang in there like me. Don’t forget to check out the graphs of my October and November (month to date) earnings below…

My October and November (MTD) eBay Partner Network Earnings