Over the coming weeks, eBay will be adding Promoted Listing Enhancements including new entry points, management capabilities and more for each version of Promoted Listings.
These new elements will bring eBay closer to industry standards for paid advertising and are all aimed at boosting your success.
– eBay
Tamebay Top Tip
We know the arguments for and against Promoted Listings, some hate the fact that you are paying an additional fee for a sale, whilst other recognise the immense power that Promoted Listings offer in terms of visibility and sell through rates.
As with all features on eBay, you need to pick and choose what works for you, but currently our best overall tip is to experiment with Promoted Listings AdvancedBETA and create a broad campaign with very low (literally pennies!) bids and a relatively small daily budget. It may not benefit you when you’re competing against other sellers for a keyword as you won’t win the bid, but when you have no competition you’ll not only gain first place in search results, so high visibility, but you’ll also be paying a tiny fee per click. This will give you time to learn without a big financial risk and let you gain experience at very low cost.
New Promoted Listing Enhancements
- For Promoted Listings Standard , eBay have introduced a new Campaign Dashboard where you can use filters to see what’s working and learn what needs improvement in each campaign. You can now also make updates to your campaigns directly from the dashboard.
- Promoted Listings Express , the advertising tool for auction-style listings, is expanding to desktop so you can promote your auction-style listings on both desktop and the eBay app. Reporting is now also available on the eBay app and soon on desktop.
For Promoted Listings AdvancedBETA, your listings will show up for relevant buyers more frequently when eBay introduce broad match. eBay will also be working to enhance your ability to control where your listings won’t show by introducing negative phrase match.
Some of these changes will be introduced over the coming months, but you can already start enabling Promoted Listings Express on desktop by opting in through creating a new auction listing on desktop (in the classic listing tool). You can also leverage the new Campaign Dashboard capabilities for Promoted Listings Standard. To access your Campaign Dashboard, go to your Advertising Dashboard and click on the campaign name from your campaign grid.
Updates to Promoted Listings Standard
For Promoted Listings Standard, eBay have launched enhanced management capabilities through a new Campaign Dashboard. This gives you the ability to edit a campaign from the Campaign Dashboard — without having to go through the 3-step campaign flow. eBay will also be rolling out more insight capabilities to provide you with an enhanced experience. (NB Campaign Dashboard is currently not available for any Automated Campaigns.)
Promoted Listings Express expansion
eBay are also expanding the availability of Promoted Listings Express. Promoted Listings Express is a campaign type that lets you boost visibility for your auction-style listings with ads on similar listings’ pages by paying one flat fee.
It could previously only be enabled from the eBay app, but this year we’ve added more ways for you to opt in through multiple desktop entry points. You can access this when creating a new auction listing on desktop (in the classic listing tool), from My eBay Active and Overview on desktop, and from the quick listing tool. What’s more, reporting for Promoted Listings Express is now available on the eBay app and coming soon to desktop.
New keyword targeting capabilities for Promoted Listings AdvancedBETA
For Promoted Listings AdvancedBETA, eBay are working to expand the keyword match types to provide more opportunities for your listings to surface to buyers. Match types determine how closely the keywords in your campaign should match the buyer’s search terms in order for your ad to qualify for display.
Exact and phrase match targeting
eBay currently offer exact and phrase match targeting but plan to start testing broad match keyword targeting capability soon. This can help to increase the visibility of your listings by allowing your listings to surface when your keyword is included as part of a search phrase, not just an exact match.
For example, if you bid on the keyword ‘red shoes’:
- Exact match only allows your listing to appear for that exact keyword, so if the buyer’s exact search is ‘red shoes’.
- Phrase match allows your listing to show if the buyer’s searched phrase includes other words before and/or after your keyword, such as ‘size 6 red shoes’.
- Broad match means your listing could appear if ‘red shoes’ is anywhere in the search query, so if the buyer looks for ‘red running shoes’.
When adding keywords as part of your campaign set up, you’ll be able to decide how specific you’d like to be by choosing whether to bid on each keyword as broad match, phrase match or exact match.
Negative phrase match targeting
On top of this, eBay will also be expanding to negative phrase match targeting capability to give you more control and help your listings only appear for relevant searches.Currently, you are able to set negative keywords that you don’t want your listings to show up for, however this is only available for exact match. For example, if you marked ‘red sandals’ as a negative exact match, those exact keywords would have to be searched in order for your listing not to show.
With negative phrase match, you can choose specific phrases that you don’t want your listings to appear for. This prevents your listing from showing even if a buyer’s search includes additional words, as long as the negative phrase match keywords are in the same order. For example, if a buyer searches for ‘red sandals size 6’, your listing would still not appear.
Ads Academy
You can now also access Ads Academy straight from your Campaign Manager. Ads Academy is an e-learning platform, designed to help you get the most out of Promoted Listings through interactive courses. Whether you’re new to cost-per-click advertising or are searching for information on a specific feature, this resource is available to you at any time to help you along the way.
