eBay Partner Network
2018 – 2020 • Seattle, WA
Designing EPN's partner portal
OVERVIEW
After returning to the United States from Berlin, I joined eBay’s eBay Partner Network team in Seattle, a small and impactful group tasked with refreshing the EPN platform. The existing platform was outdated and quickly lagging behind competitors, and eBay was ready to roll out a new experience for users worldwide. Part of what drew me to this position was realizing how many people relied on eBay Partner Network to make a living. Like eBay sellers, countless people have been able to quit their day jobs and pursue affiliate marketing full-time, giving them more time for family and personal passions.
Please note: Some metrics and data points have been slightly modified to protect eBay’s confidential information while still accurately representing the impact and outcomes of this project.
THE PROBLEM
The first two steps I took upon joining the team were to become an EPN user myself to fully understand the platform and to speak with as many team members as possible to hear their perspectives on the most pressing issues. I found the customer support team to be one of my greatest allies.
The biggest problems
Platform UI Inconsistencies
EPN’s platform was filled with inconsistencies, lacking a consistent design framework. For example, there were over three different headers across the platform, varying depending on the page. Tools looked different from one another, and colors were applied inconsistently.
Onboarding & Assistance
EPN lacked an effective onboarding process and partner assistance. While documentation existed, it was difficult to locate, leaving users without a clear path to find instructions or support when they needed help. We also prioritized accessibility to make the platform easier for all users to navigate and engage with.
Platform Stability
The platform faced stability issues, which posed a serious concern given that we were dealing with partners’ earnings, and for many, it served as their primary source of income. Reports took far too long to update, bugs were frequent, and its tech stack was outdated.
Reports & Payments
EPN lacked several report types commonly offered by competitors, limiting our partners' ability to gain comprehensive insights. Partners also requested additional API endpoints to support more advanced automation. In terms of payments, popular international currencies like the Euro and British Pound weren’t even supported.
GUIDANCE
It was important for new partners to understand the platform quickly from their first login. By building on eBay's newly updated design system, we achieved a consistent look and feel. We introduced tour tips in the new dashboard, added “Learn More” buttons to each tool, and partnered with Elevio.io to provide users with easy access to our help and message center.
Product tour
We wanted to give our partners a visual tour of the dashboard upon their first login to the platform. To ensure easy access to resources, we included a Help Center button in the left navigation that can be reached at any time.
Consistency
Now that we had a design system in place, it was essential for all pages to maintain consistent primary and secondary CTAs, resource and help links, as well as clear descriptions of each tool and their function.
Help Center
We partnered with Elevio to provide self-serve support directly within the platform, offering in-app contextual content that gives partners quick access to all EPN resources and quick-start guides.
PROTOTYPING
For our team to effectively communicate the new platform direction to our stakeholders, we presented not only static mockups but also clickable prototypes that demonstrated the full flow of new features and tools. InVision was my primary prototyping tool, but for more complex prototypes, I experimented with ProtoPie, Facebook’s Origami and Codepen for HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
SMART SHARE
eBay Partner Network offers a Chrome extension directly within the Chrome browser that enables affiliate partners to easily generate promotable links while browsing most of eBay's global sites. While I handled the design work for the extension’s facelift to align with the platform's new look, the development team took the opportunity to address bugs and enhance its speed.
SMART PLACEMENTS
This tool was one of my favorite projects while on the eBay Partner Network team. Smart Placements allows affiliate partners to create ad banners for their own websites, with products displayed dynamically based on each visitor’s preferences and browsing habits. For example, if an affiliate creates a banner for running shoes, one visitor might see Nike basketball shoes while another sees Adidas running shoes, tailored to their interests.
There were some important issues we had to address:
Font & Color
Partners were given too many font and color choices, which sometimes led to banner ads that didn’t resemble eBay’s style and could deter users from clicking. This was a particular issue in today’s landscape, where phishing scams are more prevalent than ever.
Depending on how our partners configured their banners, the ads could end up looking very different from the official eBay banners users were accustomed to seeing in marketing campaigns, potentially causing users to feel they were unsafe to interact with.
eBay Logo Color
The eBay logo originally appeared in black on the banners, which was unusual and could lead to mistrust among users viewing the ad. I recall when eBay changed its logo on the website for the holidays, and we received messages from users checking if they were on eBay's official page. Users are highly sensitive to these details, so it’s crucial for us to fully represent eBay’s look and feel.
I studied eBay’s new design system and met multiple times with the design system team to ensure our direction was approved. The new ads were restricted to using only eBay’s Market Sans font and the primary text color. Going forward, the only customization option available to our partners was the logo color, limited to only the ones approved for eBay’s marketing campaigns and website UI.
The new banner ads strictly adhered to eBay’s updated brand guidelines. We also introduced signals like “Free Shipping” and sale markers to help boost conversions.
The new Smart Placements tool:
SIGN UP NOW
The sign-up page for eBay Partner Network, which I both designed and coded.
LINK GENERATOR
Our research showed that the Link Generator was one of the most popular tools on the EPN platform. In the old platform, it was only accessible on its dedicated tool page. We wanted to ensure it was also available directly on the dashboard for easy access.
DYNAMIC FEEDS
The Dynamic Feed Generator enabled partners to create tailored product RSS feeds for use in websites, blogs, and marketing materials or access them via APIs for seamless integration into apps and other tools. Partners could apply filters such as category, price range, location range, top sellers, and more, increasing the likelihood of highly relevant listings to boost user engagement.
With its dynamic functionality, the feeds updated in real-time to reflect changes in eBay’s inventory, pricing, and availability.
With an outdated interface and backend, the tool underwent a complete refresh, featuring a redesigned UI built on eBay’s design system. Unused and unsupported features were removed to streamline the user experience, while the APIs were updated and improved for enhanced performance and reliability.
ICONOGRAPHY
SUMMARY
This project was a rewarding opportunity for our team to revitalize eBay Partner Network. It was a challenging year, but we listened to our partners, and we’re proud to have launched the new EPN with a focus on consistency, stability, improved usability, and partner trust. Our goal was to provide a stronger foundation that empowers our affiliate partners to succeed and feel supported.
EPN's contributions to eBay a year after the launch:
$6.3B iGMB
+15% YoY
increase in Influenced Gross Merchandise Bought
191M TXNs
+5.9% YoY
increase in transactions
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