Looks like EPN (eBay Partner Network) is going through more changes once again. This time with Quality Click Pricing, where they will adjust the transactions based on quality, similar to what they’re already doing with ACRU. Seems very sketchy to me, and I can see it riddled with reporting errors. I hope not!

This is the email I just received going into further detail and announcing a webinar they’re having on Friday August, 21st.

Following the announcement of Quality Click Pricing, I realize that there are going to be a lot of questions, so I wanted to take a moment to speak with you about why we’re making this change.

Since we launched eBay Partner Network, we’ve continued to invest in the platform and have made many improvements to the quality of our affiliate program. Quite simply, quality in eBay Partner Network means that eBay’s affiliate spend results in incremental transactions and incremental high lifetime value users. Said another way, we are working to make sure that our affiliate marketing spend delivers transactions that would not have otherwise occurred and new high value users who may not have registered on eBay.

We’ve taken a number of steps to make sure that eBay Partner Network delivers on this promise so that we can continue to invest in our affiliate program, but we’ve been missing one key piece: fully aligning affiliate payouts with the true value of the traffic, transactions, and users that they deliver. Our first step towards aligning compensation with actual value was our Value Based ACRU pricing, which we launched in the US last year. With Quality Click Pricing, we will go further; compensating each affiliate not only for the value of your ACRUs, but also the incrementality of the transactions you drive.

By fully aligning our compensation with quality, we hope that the affiliates whose earnings increase under the new payout model will find ways to drive even more of your high quality traffic to eBay. For affiliates who will initially earn less, we’d like to see you test some of our suggestions and work to improve the incrementality of your traffic, as this will increase your earnings and benefit eBay. From our experiences with our beta publishers, we know that with optimization increasing your payout is a real possibility.

We have not taken this decision to change our compensation model lightly. The eBay Partner Network team has put a lot of effort and thought into the move to Quality Click Pricing over the last year, and we’ve involved numerous publishers in a beta program and previews of the system. From the results that we have seen for eBay and for our publishers, I feel strongly that this is a very positive move for the future of our affiliate program and I am personally excited to see the continued improvements in quality that it will drive.

We know that change is not always easy, and that any change like this has a large impact for each of you on a personal level. I’m sure that there will still be additional questions moving forward, and to help address them, we’re setting aside time to engage more with you on the discussion boards, and will hold a live webinar on Friday 21st August at 9am PST. You can visit the blog for more details. I look forward to the dialogue and to continuing to build our mutual success on eBay Partner Network.