eBay finally have their own contextual advertising solution, joining other contextual ad networks to provide mo choices to publishers. eBay AdContext, comes with three types of ad formats right now: text and images, text only and flash ads.

Like other contextual advertising program, it will scan the content of a Web site and automaticaly return relevant eBay ad content. AdContext uses Javascript code.

If you are interested to try out eBay AdContext, you can sign up as an eBay Affiliate for free and send email to adcontext@ebay.com to request for a review.

The introduction of a new ad network is good for publishers, considering that eBay is also one of the giant online company of which they can offer unique products not available elsewhere.

The problem is, they have to directly compete with AdSense and YPN. That has to be very competitive. Smaller contextual ad networks may have to attempt harder to secure a market of their own, but eBay clearly won’t be satisfied with a tiny share of publishers.

Most bloggers or website publishers have had their own choices of ad network. They may only switch if there is enough reason to do so.

News on Reuters revealed that web site affiliates receive a cut of 35 percent to 60 percent of sales, depending on the volumes. For each successful sales, eBay earns 6.5 percent of the auction value. This translates into 2.27 to 3.9 percent of the auction sale value for affiliates.

On the first impression, that seems to be high, but consider that the visitor you refer to eBay has to win the auction before you get the share. That would be much more difficult.

eBay will get your traffic and branding opportunity once they click. On the other hand, affiliates don’t receive anything in return even if the visitor has expressed their interest in the auction but fail to win. Sounds like it is more difficult than typical affiliate sales on online retail sites.

However, it is intresting to see how it goes. I am sure there will be publishers who have earned a full-time income just from this. Just see how creatively people can use such tools to make money.

Source: Reuters.