Though there are a large number of free WordPress plugins available to meet most WordPress blogger’s needs, generally speaking, when you are looking for a quality affiliate marketing plugin, you’re going to need to browse through the premium WordPress plugins available.
In today’s post I want to introduce you to a new premium plugin named Auction Thumbs. For people that maintain a WordPress blog which discusses products that convert well on eBay, this plugin might be very profitable for you!
How Does Auction Thumbs Work?
If you’ve ever used BANS or another software to build an eBay niche store that takes advantage of eBay’s affiliate program, then you’ll have a general idea how this plugin works. Auction Thumbs allows any WordPress user to fully integrate eBay’s affiliate program into their blog in just a few minutes.
Simply activate the Auction Thumbs plugin, enter your eBay campaign code (you can generate one in your eBay Partner Network account), and select where you want to place your ads. With this plugin, you can easily display your eBay ads in any/all of the following places: display a gallery of thumbnails, display pictures below each post, or as a widget in your blog’s sidebar! By default, thumbnails will immediately show up in the footer of every current and archived post on your blog upon activation, but it comes with a fully configurable admin panel so you can control everything from the WordPress dashboard.
The plugin will then display relevant auctions (it matches the tags assigned to your post with eBay’s inventory) and when someone clicks on it, they are taken to that eBay auction. Of course that is only the beginning, as a 7-day cookie is placed in their web browser and you get a percentage of EVERYTHING that person buys during that time.
The author lists the following features which are included with the purchase of Auction Thumbs:
- No messing with script or programming – add Auction Thumbs through standard WordPress plugin administration
- Installation and configuration can be done in a few minutes
- Thumbnail size, border color, count are all configurable
- Track revenue granularity with up to four eBay campaign numbers
Quick note about Auction Thumbs: PHP 5 and curl need to be running on your server. Please ask your hosting provider whether they are present on your server if you are unsure. It will not work on PHP 4.
Where Can I Purchase Auction Thumbs?
If you decide you want to purchase auction thumbs, it normally only costs $47.00, but WPHacks.com readers can use promo code “wphacks” to receive $15.00 off, meaning you can use this plugin on unlimited sites for only $32.00!
To give you an idea of this plugins potential value, when I purchased BANS a few years ago (costs $97.00), I made that investment back in under a month and a half. Everything after that was pure profit and is still providing steady income today. I’ve been using Auction Thumbs for a few days now on my video game blog and my book review blog, where I expect this plugin to convert well, and expect more of the same success as I’ve enjoyed with Build a Niche Store.
Kyle Eslick
Kyle Eslick is WordPress enthusiast who took his passion for WordPress to the next level back in 2007 by launching WPHacks.com as a place to share hacks and review WordPress-related products. You can learn more about him by following his personal tweets here.
I entered elements of code in my post above which don't seem to have appeared, if they appear at a ...
I found this MUCH easier to do :
How to make a page specific stylesheet in a Wordpress multiple-paged site:
1. Go ...
Dave, thanks for giving us a try. I strongly recommend reading the full instructions at http://www.ingboo.com/pvm/plugin .
Also, setting a custom ...
thanks for the additional info, will be giving it a go! 
I am constantly amazed by the huge number of awesome WP plugins. This one is awesome! Now if I can just figure out how to really utilize this on my sites.
awesome plugins. Would you give me for free, I’ll made a review of it
Andrew, write me at info@auctionthumbs.com and I can brainstorm with you on how to leverage it on your site(s).
Busby, you can write me as well re: the review.
I’ve added a special promocode for WP Hacks readers exclusively worth $15.00 off for the rest of November. Use “wphacks” in the promo code field during the purchase.
Wordpress is open source, so should the plugins be. Free is what made WordPress great in the first place, more and more premium plugins will destroy that.
Just my opinion.
seems to have disappeared today, none of the links to any part of their site from anywhere seem to be working.
@ Aran – Not sure if their site was down or what, but I just checked and the site seems to be up and running just fine now.
Yes, it is up. Not sure what you encountered, but all should be good.
Question to folks here: how many of you require PHP 4 support? PHP 4 is reaching end-of-life this December but it appears a fair amount are still using it.
I have a PHP 4 version almost completed and I’m gauging interest. XML processing between 4 and 5 are different; thus the separate branches of Auction Thumbs.
Why do you need a plugin for this when all you have to do is get a piece of code from your eBay partner account and add it to your site.
uhmm I wonder of my comment will be published or does it warrant deletion?
@ Zulfikar – I don’t think anyone said that you NEED a plugin to accomplish this, but it can certainly be much easier if you do. Many of the hacks I write teach people who to do stuff by inserting code, but they ask me why do something manually when a plugin can do it? Heh. To each their own!
Oh, and we do monitor comments, but even negative comments are approved as long as they are both constructive and relevant (I did remove the link to your site though, as people can click your name to get to the same spot). Here at WP Hacks we only delete comments attacking others or comments that aren’t relevant to the post they are on.
Zulfikar,
In addition to Kyle’s comments about the convenience of a plugin, here are some other discussion points about what Ebay provides:
- You get the pretty Ebay colors and logo on your blog
I don’t know about you but I don’t like my blog looking like Ebay with the “bubbles” or “jacks” background image of the editor kit. Tell me which of the two would look better on your blog – http://auctionthumbs.com/images/Ebay-comparison.jpg
- If you want to change anything about the search criteria – off to Ebay again to generate new code from the beginning (selecting colors, size, orientation,…). With Auction Thumbs, you’re making changes in a few fields in WordPress.
- You can’t control the thumbnail size on Ebay. With AT, you can.
- If Ebay changes their architecture of how their tools work, or gives you new criteria to take advantage of, you get to replace all your instances of code littered throughout your blogs. With a plugin – we make the changes and you just upgrade.
Those are just a few off the top of my head.
Fair point – that is a positive comeback kyle and John. And yes constructive critisim is healthy as you have raised a few points I had not looked at. Yes a plugin does make it easier, but as newbies most of us are working with a limited budget which am sure influenced our choice of wordpress as a platform.
Retracting and not putting your plugin down (I am impressed) just letin others know that there is a free alternative they can start up with. Once they start making money and wana a pretty looking website then by all means they can splash out some dosh n grab it.