Affiliates earn money from eBay for driving traffic to eBay. For more information, see eBay Partner Network.
eBay knows that a sale came from your application because you include your affiliate ID in your API calls. Affiliate tracking is enabled for all of the search calls in the Finding API.
Affiliate-related fields, which are included in a call request using the affiliate container, enable the tracking of user activity. The affiliate container has the following fields: networkId, trackingId, and customId. If you are registered with eBay Partner Network, the networkId is 9 and the trackingId is the Campaign ID. The Campaign ID is given to you by eBay Partner Network.
The networkId specifies the third party who is your tracking partner. When specifying affiliate details, this field is required. Not all partners are valid for all sites.
The trackingId specifies an ID to identify you to your tracking partner. The value you specify is obtained from your tracking partner. For eBay Partner Network, the trackingId is the Campaign ID ("campid") provided by eBay Partner Network. A Campaign ID is a 10-digit, unique number to be used for associating traffic. A Campaign ID is valid across all programs to which you have been accepted.
The customId need not be specified. You can define a customId (up to 256 characters) if you want to leverage it to better monitor your marketing efforts. If you are using the eBay Partner Network, and you provide a customId, it will be contained in the tracking URL returned by eBay Partner Network.
The following example shows sample input with the affiliate container:
Sample Input for Affiliate Tracking (XML)
... <affiliate> <trackingId>1********9</trackingId> <networkId>9</networkId> <customId>2********4</customId> </AffiliateTrackingDetails> ...
The following example shows how to specify your affiliate tracking details in a URL:
Sample Input for Affiliate Tracking (URL)
...&affiliate.trackingId=1********9&affiliate.networkId=9&affiliate.customId=2********4...
When you use the AffiliateTrackingDetails container, a URL is returned that includes information for tracking user activity.
The following example shows a sample URL returned after you specified a TrackingPartnerCode of 9 in the AffiliateTrackingDetails container:
Sample Output URL For Affiliate Tracking
<viewItemURL> http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?campid=1********9&customid=2********4&toolid=0&mpre=http%3A%2F%2F cgi.ebay.com%2FWhite-Apple-iPod-M9245LL-A_W0QQitemZ1********7QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0%3Fhash%3D item1********7 </viewItemURL>
For more information about the Affiliate Program, see eBay Partner Network.