SEMJ.org and eBay’s Affiliate Model

March 4, 2009
 

The new issue of the Search Engine Marketing Journal will be hitting the search circuit soon. On SEM Synergy, we get to look behind the scenes at the creation of SEMJ.org and the papers that will be featured in this issue. Founder and publisher Sean Golliher joins Bruce and Susan — principal editor, SEO and editor, SEO, respectively) to talk about what people can look forward to later this month.

One of the papers in SEMJ.org this month is called “The Coming Evolution in Affiliate Marketing: A Focus on Quality” (pdf). Will Martin-Gill, Senior Manager, Internet Marketing for the North America and Asia Pacific affiliate programs on the eBay Partner Network, headed the team that wrote this paper. He speaks with Virginia about the findings his team had when eBay brought its affiliate program in house and was able to see the different levels of traffic each partner was responsible for. eBay then created a performance-based payment and bonus model to reward their most valuable partners. As a result, quality referrals went up.

Then, Sean, Bruce and Susan look at the future plans for SEMJ.org. The print publication is currently on a semi-annual schedule, with a quarterly schedule in the works. Current editors and members of the advisory board are discussed, along with the ways people can submit their own papers to the peer-reviewed journal. Also available for a sneak preview is the paper “Web Analytics 2.0: Empowering Customer Centricity” (pdf) by Avinash Kaushink and Daniel Waisberg. From the look of it, there’s a lot to look forward to in the new issue of SEMJ.