3 Key Steps for Success on the eBay Partner Network

Ever since the eBay Partner Network (ePN) fired a bunch of affiliates, there’s been a lot of discussion on whether or not affiliates can trust the ePN going forward. What you need to realize is that it doesn’t matter if you can trust the ePN. What matters is that you position yourself for success.

“It is not so important who starts the game but who finishes it.” –John Wooden

Step One - Understand Your Surroundings

It’s nearly impossible to succeed at anything in life unless you have a working knowledge of the subject. For example, if you wanted to build a house, you’d need to understand community regulations and zoning laws, drafting and design, construction materials and equipment, framing, concrete work, dirt work, and so on and so forth. There’s a lot of information a person needs to understand if they want to successfully build a house… especially one that won’t blow over during the first storm.

The same holds true for affiliate marketing. If you want to succeed, you need to understand as much as you can about it. That means reading blogs like this one, purchasing training materials like Wealthy Affiliate, understanding how to build and maintain web sites, marketing strategies and techniques, and on and on. There’s a lot that a person needs to know to be successful.

Specific to the eBay Partner Network, you need to understand what eBay expects from affiliates. You need to know how to “play the game” so that eBay’s happy, your visitors are happy, and most importantly, so that you’re happy and earning commissions.

Now I can hear what some of you are thinking, because people are posting this same thought on the various forums and blogs: “how the blank can I know what they want when they don’t tell us?”

Well they did tell us, but people seem uninterested in trying to understand what they said. Unfortunately that’s not an excuse. As with everything in life, if you don’t understand an aspect of something, then you have to figure it out if you want continued success. If eBay didn’t give us detailed specifics, then we all need to analyze the situation. Read between the lines. Put yourself in their shoes and try to determine what they really mean.

Step One’s Action Item: Make the effort to figure things out going forward. Excuses and complaints won’t help you. Learn as much as you can and adapt to changes as they occur.

Step Two - Focus on Your Site’s Visitors Instead of eBay

This should be a no-brainer, but it isn’t. Here’s what happens… someone wants to get started in affiliate marketing. They find out that the eBay Partner Network is a good program to join, so they get signed up. They want to make money, so their focus is on setting up web sites for the ePN so they can start earning commissions as soon as possible.

Trust me when I say that you won’t send “engaged” traffic to eBay with that approach.

Think about it, if your main focus is on making money with any specific affiliate program, you’re not going to come across as someone who’s site really values the people who read it. You just won’t.

They always say that if you want to sound pleasant over the phone, you should be smiling, even though the person on the other end of the line can’t see you. The same is true for your affiliate web sites. If your focus is on making money, trust me, your visitors will figure that out.

So what can you do to change things? Simple… you build web sites that provide value to your visitors even if you removed each and every affiliate link or eBay product listing. The more engaged you are in your niche and with your visitors, the more engaged your visitors will be when you send them over to eBay.

Step Two’s Action Item: Make sure your site provides value to your visitors. This requires adding content, more content, and even more content. Focus on making your site the best it can be for the people who visit it.

Step Three - Get Real and Face the Facts

This last step deals more with your perspective and attitude more than anything else. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there are few guarantees in life, and that includes affiliate marketing. The sooner you come to grips with that, the better off you’ll be.

Instead of worrying about the ePN, you should focus your energy on the things you can control. What are those things? Well for starters, you decide which niche to focus on. You control the content that gets published on your site. You get to choose which affiliate products that you feel will benefit your readers the most.

If you take charge of the aspects of your business that you can control and come to grips with the aspects that you can’t control, then you’ll be a step ahead of the average affiliate marketer. People who’ve had the most business success tend to be the ones who are fluid. They’re able to adapt to the changing landscape around them… even reinventing themselves and their businesses when necessary.

Step Three’s Action Item: Focus on the aspects of your business that you can control, and change your expectations regarding the aspects that you can’t control. Understand that things change, and that keeping a positive attitude and rolling with the punches will give you the best chance for long term success.

Conclusion

It’s my sincere hope that the three steps outlined above will help you understand how to succeed not only with the eBay Partner Network moving forward, but also with affiliate marketing in general.

Personally, my plan is to continue focusing my sites on the visitors, even on the sites that promote or feature eBay product listings. And if the ePN ever decides to fire me, then that’s okay, because I will continue to focus on my niches and my readers first. If I do that, then monetization, commissions and earnings will come.

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How to Think Like a Marketer…

Here’s a post I wrote in the Wealthy Affiliate forums. I thought it would be helpful to my blog readers…

How to Think Like a Marketer:

Here’s the key in my opinion…

Stop trying to find a niche or a product to promote. Instead go find a problem. Seriously, just think about a problem people have in life. It could be a very generalized problem most everyone has at some point (e.g. not enough money, trying to find a boyfriend/girlfriend, etc) or a specific problem affecting only a certain amount of people (e.g. owing the IRS back taxes, adults with ADHD, etc).

Whatever, just find a problem.

Then go research your problem. Pretend that you suffer from the problem, and that you desperately want to find a solution to it. You want a way out. You want to find relief from the pain and burden this problem is placing on you.

So you go out and start doing Google searches. Not keyword research! Just pretend you’re a real person with a real problem, and start finding a solution like a normal person would through normal search engine searches (very few people have problems and seek solutions from the Google Keyword Tool ).

Start taking notes about what you find. What are the main web sites that deal with the problem? Are there support groups? Are there forums? If yes, join the forums and start reading and eventually asking questions.

Also through this searching you will naturally discover if there are products being promoted to resolve the problem. What are those products? Do they have affiliate programs? How good are the sites doing in offering the products as viable solutions to the problem?

Only after you have picked a problem and done this type of research will you begin to know if it’s something that you’re interested in pursuing, and if it will be viable. You’ll also pick up on how hungry people who really suffer from the problem are for a solution (i.e. do they just like to whine or are they really seeking a solution). Finally since you didn’t start with keyword research, your notes should contain many different areas of the problem, questions people are asking, tips and suggestions people offer, etc. You take that list and do your keyword research based on it (not the other way around).

So to recap, you don’t find a product to sell, or even a niche itself. You find the problem first. And you don’t have to think like a marketer. Instead you think like you’re a person with the problem, and you go out and find a solution to it. Then you can sound authentic when you finally begin writing articles and putting up a blog or a web site, or starting a mailing list, or whatever. Maybe you don’t have the problem yourself, but you’ve immersed yourself in it long enough to truly feel for the people that do, and you’ll have an attitude of helping them find a solution so they can get out from the pain and burden. When you truly can relate to and understand the mindset of the people who have the problem, and actually care about them and want them to find relief, you won’t have to sell anything. You’ll come across as authentic by default and they’ll be much more likely to trust anything you recommend.

My 2 cents…

PS. If you can’t find a quality product that solves the problem, then maybe YOU can create one!

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