eBay have opened up their risk-free advertising tool – eBay Promote your listings – to all Above Standard and Top Rated eBay sellers. Previously, eBay Promoted Listings were only available to sellers with a Shop subscription.
What can you expect from eBay Promoted Listings
Using Promote your listings, you can promote your items to appear in some of the most prominent locations across eBay. eBay say that your items could see a boost in visibility across eBay by up to 40%. In an independent scientific test of eBay Promoted Listings, Tamebay reader David Brackin realised a statistically significant uplift in sell-through rate with an average uplift of 27%.
How do eBay Promoted Listings work?
eBay have told us that having a good quality of listing in the first place is key for Promoted listings visibility. It’s not possible to just ‘buy your way to the top’ with a high ad rate, as they are looking closely at item quality/history when deciding which listings to promote. A higher ad rate gives you a better chance of winning visibility, but the algorithm looks at far more than just the ad rate. eBay also won’t allow below standard sellers to use eBay Promoted Listings – if you are under-performing according to eBay’s standards then you can’t buy your way to visibility.
There are over 50 individual places where eBay display Promoted Listings, so it’s not just about getting visibility at the top of a Best Match search page.
Why you should start using eBay Promote your listings?
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No risk
You only pay when you sell – it’s a Cost per Acquisition model so you only pay a fee if a buyer purchases your item. If you are eBay Anchor or Featured shop subscribers, don’t forget that you have a monthly credit which you can use against Promoted Listings.
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Full control
Choose which listings to promote and how much you pay to promote them
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Quick and easy set up
No creative work required
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Lasting impact
Improve the long-term performance of a listing
What you should do to start using eBay Promote your listings?
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Promote good quality listings
Listings should be really well optimised and have a decent sales history. Focus on best sellers, new listings and seasonal items. We also recommend listings for promotion if they have high potential to perform well; keep an eye out for these when launching a campaign.
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Set a competitive ad rate
The higher your ad rate, the better your chance of gaining visibility. You can see the trending ad rate set by other sellers in your category when launching a campaign.
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Experiment and review
Try adjusting your ad rate and promoting different listings; analyse your performance periodically to get better results.
5 Responses
It seems ebay are desperately trying to make its shop subscription less attractive.
Bucket loads of free listings for ‘private’ sellers.
Good ’til cancelled listings used to be shop only now available to all.
Promoted Listings formerly shop subscribers only now available to all.
They keep taking away incentives from shop subscribers and yet add incentives to everyone else. Seems a strange business model that encourages people to avoid the shop subscription.
So 500 gtc next month now eBay stealth fees on non shop subscriptions…(They will roll that out for private sellers also)….
Reckon they have had a shed load of cancelled shop subscriptions now. Holiday settings is the only benefit left???
The underlying theme here is ebay are trying to boost profits anyway they can to hide the inherent weakness in the business. they should be romping away with it… but aren’t. So it’s a case of getting people to pay more for what they are already paying for. No need to fix the broken search engine now as it is 2nd place to pay more to list higher! Ironically i am now seeing people pay more for an item simply because it is at the top… somehow this is a better buyer experience? Reality it is a better ebay profits experience. Buyer pays more, seller increases price to cover extra costs, ebay rake in more fees… it’s a real buyer winner that one!
The issue comes when so many try and use it that only sellers payinga stupidly high amount with get the top spots and buyers mistakenly thinking these are the ebst deals will pay ott… of course some may just pay the premium to avoid having to use the broken search engine with keyword spammers, identical listing spam, fake location, chinese spam and of course the ‘NEW other’ items that are actually used but in ‘as new condition’!!!
Welcome to ebay…