eBay.. what’s up with the batch?

I’ve seen a few posts where people are saying that haven’t seen sales since the 3rd of February, but are still receiving ACRU signups. People are also freaking out that this might be a tracking issue like what happened in Spring 2007. Along those lines people are also confused that CJ is not reporting a delay.

First off, you must understand the system. eBay updates your sales/commissions at CJ once a day, and this process is their batch update. ACRU is handed differently, and is basically handled in real time, this is why you see ACRUs but no sales. The difference between this problem and what happened in Spring 2007 is that in Spring 2007 there were daily batches, and clicks reports showed consistent clicks, but no sales were reported. This problem “appears” to be batch related. This could still be a tracking issue that eBay is trying to resolve, and this might be the reason for not updating the batch.

To understand when eBay submits a batch just log into CJ and scroll down on the home page. You’ll see a box area called ‘My Advertisers’ with a drop down containing all of your merchants. Simply select eBay and press ‘Go!’.

A pop up window will open with information about eBay, scroll about half way and look for ‘Last Batch Data Transfer Dates’. This is showing the last three transfers that were processed. At the time of this writing (2/6/2008 7:25AM), 3-Feb-2008 was the last update. So clearly, eBay has not processed a batch in some time.

On CJ’s point of view, I don’t think they see a problem. I’m sure they’re tracking fine, and this appears to be more of an issue with eBay vs. CJ. That is why I think that CJ is not reporting any tracking notice, etc.

Hopefully we’ll see some batches soon. I know a few people that are pausing their PPC campaigns. As for me.. I’m letting it ride.

Related posts:

1. Unusual March Trends
2. eBay leaving Commission Junction
3. eBay Affiliate Tracking Issues?
4. Prepare for eBay Partner Network cutover.
5. Spring is here