Last week eBay Partner Network introduced Quality Click Pricing, a new quality-based Cost Per Click (CPC) payout model designed to reward top affiliates. The goal was to simplify its commission structure and raise the quality of traffic driven to eBay sites through the affiliate program.

In contrast to eBay’s current Cost Per Action (CPA) system, Quality Click Pricing rewards affiliates based on the value of the traffic they send to eBay ( i.e., the incremental transactions that result from their traffic.) Payouts will also factor in revenue streams beyond item purchases, including eBay advertising revenue and PayPal revenue resulting from increased traffic and transactions.

Steve Hartman, Senior Director of Internet Marketing at eBay says:

“Affiliates make eBay more vibrant by highlighting the great inventory and values to potential buyers across the web, which helps drive success for our sellers. This is why we built eBay Partner Network and why we’ve continued to invest in its technology and infrastructure with things like Quality Click Pricing.”

It’s no secret that eBay has been researching ways to better reward quality over quantity. In fact Steve Hartman brought up that notion as a panelist at Peter Bordes’ keynote presentation at Affiliate Convention in Denver.

Peter released a statement as well:

“eBay is leading the way forward for the affiliate marketing industry through the steps it has taken to improve the quality of traffic driven to its sites through affiliates. Should other merchants and affiliate networks follow suit, the entire performance marketing industry would benefit as a result.”

I think eBay is definitely onto something with this strategy. As an industry we are constantly fighting the battle of bringing advertisers qualified usable traffic. Sure, volume is great, but if most of it is junk, then nobody really wins in the longterm. It will be interesting to see how this new model pays off for eBay and if other companies follow suit with the same blueprint.