eBay has set up its own affiliate network to generate traffic to its sites, taking its marketing program in-house.

eBay have taken the responsibility away from ValueClick's Commission Junction platform and will rely on its own newly created eBay partner network, which will serve more than 100,000 individual affiliates globally.

Will Martin-Gill, eBay's marketing program senior manager, said: "The more you can see your customers and how they're reacting [to banner and search ads], the better you can target them and work with them."

The changes will take place on April 1st 2008, and all affiliated sites that are affected must migrate to the network fully by May 1st.

One of the products eBay will launch is a geo-targeted banner ad. When the ad is shown in a foreign country the traffic through it will be diverted to its site for that country.

eBay has outsourced its paid search advertising since 2001 and web searchers were paid for driving traffic to eBay.

Mr Martin-Gill said the company also decided to bring the service in-house because "we want closer control of the data".