eBay replaced the head of its affiliate program after Michael Lill recently resigned for a job with another company. Reanne Berkstresser has been with eBay since 2015 when she started working for the company’s marketing team in Seattle focusing on paid search.
Berkstresser’s new title is Director of eBay Global Partnerships & Affiliates, according to her profile in LinkedIn, though she referred to herself as Director of EPN in a recent “spring message to partners” where she outlined priorities for the program.
“In 2022, growth and innovation are priorities across the EPN business and more broadly at eBay,” she wrote. “Within the Partnerships world we plan to test targeted pricing adjustments to incentivize partner growth. Secondly, we continue to expand across priority categories where eBay has a unique competitive offering. Expect to hear more about how we can partner in these focus categories in 2022.”
She also said eBay was working on releasing coupon codes more widely and effectively so partners could promote eBay to their user base.
Priority Listings continue to be important – Berkstresser said they were particularly valuable to eBay due to the focus of the listing or due to the category itself. “Last year, we laid the foundation by adding new “Priority Listings” flags and tracking parameters to our Link Generator tool, Feeds, and Browse APIs. We’ve now started to offer higher commissions to reward our partners who successfully drive conversions of these valuable listings.”
(In December, we noted that eBay has published very little information about how it determines what makes an listing a “Priority” status, which would be helpful for sellers to understand.)
Berkstresser’s predecessor Michael Lill had said in a social media post 2 weeks ago that leaving eBay had been a tough decision. “eBay is one of the best companies I’ve worked for, if not the best, due to the company’s values, mission, work environment, the many tangible and intangible benefits, and the wonderful people.”
Great word salad.
Does it matter which village idiot tries to rip off sellers???
The eBay mafia is strong and hires new captains when needed.
As time goes by, the percentage of paid placement vs non paid increases, but the “character of ebays merchandise “ declines in proportion.
eBay has always wanted to be in the commodity biz and this is how they do it.
I have an ebay “store” for $25 a year, what ever I sell on it, I sell and the rest sells on other sites.
Ebay itself is the biggest contributor to “off eBay sales” since it’s they themselves that drive it!
All this blah blah blah just for eBay to say “We still suck.”