Is this proof promoted listings are a scam?

[adidashero]

I, along with probably everyone else, have always been sceptical on how ebay bring sales to my account via organic or promoted listings.

This scenario has happened a couple of times now so it's not a one off. I've been contacted by customers in the past asking for a couple of items, maybe as a deal or combined for postage. Sure no probs, ill set up a single listing for you so you can make the purchase.

Once this new listing has been set up I have copied the url address for the listing and sent this to the buyer. This is a direct link that they clink on taking them to the listing page. No search, and therefore, no promotion by ebay. But time and time again I have been charged a 'promoted listing' fee for this sale.

How does that work? I assumed promoted listings were charged on click through purchases on searched listings? Unless there is something else going on. There is no way to question the fee as ebay don't give any info on how click through purchases work. As above, this sale and many times before, have been by a direct link to the item sent by myself so in my eyes shouldn't have any promoted listing fee applicable 

[vintagewatchpart]

The same has happened to me and I queried this in the promoted forum but of course no response.

I was finding if it was promoted it always sold as promoted no matter what, stupidly so and now I don't promote any more because of it. 

Looking forward to finding out more about this from Ebay as I am sure more people will start questioning the legitimacy of it as they notice they are having to pay more and more for the service.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Whilst I understand what your saying, if the original query came from a promoted listing, then by creating a new listing, you are effectively trying to get around paying for it.

Which of course you should be paying for.

So I would imagine, that they have some of algorythm that monitors for this kind of thing.

[adidashero]

Hmm thats a bit far fetched tbh. Effectively saying if someone messages you via a promoted listing, and then buys another of your listings through a unpromoted link you'll be charged an ad fee. That's not how promoted listings work

[yorkshire*flower]

Agreed - I read your post about your promoted items trial for a month and I too have been trialling a month of them off then switched back on for a few weeks just to check and I found the same - Less impressions but more page views, no effect on sales and the organic views replaced the missing promo page views with more externals - Its clear to me that Ebay are not being transparent with their promos, even if I was to pay Google PPC at least you get a breakdown of keywords used, or traffic per page (listing) but Ebay have this blanket "sold via promo" and so evidence to back it up.  I have now reverted to no promos eventhough I was only on 2% and costing me £20-£25 a month thats £300 in my pocket more than Ebays for nothing extra.

I am seeing quite a few posts like this now and think people are waking up the the fact that promos are just extra fees for little return, adding the suggested 10-15+% ONTOP of the present fvf is ridiculous.

[british-ceramics-and-paintings]

When I look at our traffic stats 60 - 70% of our daily page views are organic yet literally 100% of our sales are apparently via a promoted listing. Clearly that doesn't stack up.

Ebay may as well go down the route of saying if you promote a listing and it sells you pay the promoted listing fee. The organic page views are now pointless as they don't yield organic sales.

[vintagewatchpart]

Exactly, when I realised something had to be done as my fees were through the roof my split was 85% promoted sales and 15% organic. But page views were around 60% organic and 40% promoted.

I am sorry but I dabble with E-Commerce and website design but Organic converts way better than promoted. It does not add up.

[rainbowtrax · Accepted solution]

@adidashero I'm afraid that's exactly how promoted listings work. They're referred to as halo items. If a buyer clicks on a promoted link then buys any other promoted listing of yours through an unpromoted link within 30 days of clicking on the promoted link then the promoted fee for the item sold is charged. See here: Promoted Listings Standard | eBay

So, in the example in your OP, if you hace promotions set-up to automatically apply to new listings then the moment you created the custom listing it became included in a promotion campaign. So if the buyer had originally clicked on a promoted ad for a different listing then the promoted fee will be charged when they follow your standard (not promoted) link and buy the item from the new listing. Ebay are crafty at maximising their fees. They made this amendment to the rules months ago but a lot of sellers seem to have missed it as yours isn't the only post on this.

If you want to stop it happening then you need to not have new listings automatically added to a promotion campaign.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Thank you for clarifying that.  I knew I had seen it somewhere.

But it makes sense, as Ebay have done the advertising for you.

If you then take the same product and create a new listing, then you are going to charged for the advertising.

It's not actually fair to do otherwise.

[adidashero]

Thanks for this. I really did not know that so thanks for taking the time to post the reply. 

On a separate note how do you turn off promoted listings for individual items? I've tried to turn off at the time of listing or after and can't find how to do it. They get automatically enrolled to the promo

Again, thanks for clarifying my post

[rainbowtrax]

I believe you would need to end your current promotions then create new ones using more refinements. I don't think you can edit the criteria once the promotion is already running. I've only ever done promotions where new listings are automatically included so I've not done much tinkering with different settings. Hopefully someone who's done more tweaking can add some more details for you.