Ebay Advertising - Wasted Money?

[vintagewatchpart]

I have been very critical of Ebay lately, mainly because there are huge unresolved faults with the platform that are being ignored that could simply be fixed to make our lives easier and increase sales.

Above are 3 examples from different days of Ebays marketing advertising being pushed back at me as I browse websites on my computer. The ads such as these normally come from cookies that I have accepted on Ebay and should therefore be targeting me with products I have looked at or would have an interest in to get me back to the site.

I have absolutely no interest in any of these products whatsoever and it is the same every time I see one of these ads. A few days ago I thought I would screenshot them for a laugh and see if anyone else gets the same type of marketing. 

Image 1 shows a Lego model, sorry I don't play with Lego any more. I have no idea what that second item is. The third item is a £700,000 watch, thats a little beyond my price range unfortunately. No idea what that 4th item is...!

The rest of the products pushed at me are more Lego, a toy model motorbike, a toy car, some jeans (it could have advertised any clothing at all at me and picked the thing I never wear) and a publicity photo for someone I don't even recognise.

These ads cost quite a lot to run, and even more so if I click on something. Is this where our fees are going? 

If so the marketing could do with a review as with my background in website development, marketing and business it makes Ebay as a company look to me like they really don't know what they are doing to market to me as a customer and get me back onto their site. At least show me products I have looked at before...

Anyone else get ads like this or is it just me who is the anomaly? 

[therenewalworkshopltd]

I would imagine, that these adverts are from the likes of Google, rather than Ebay directly.

Which will mean that they are based on the keywords Ebay are using and the searches etc that have been run on your PC.

So are you the only person on the PC?

I can see why a watch would come up, with what you sell.  🙂

But bits of clothing and suchlike, only really takes you looking at something and they will pick up on it.

Serving relevant ads is a bit of an art form and it's not always right, but it depends very much on the algorythm behind it.  Which again, will be google and not so much Ebay.

[vintagewatchpart]

The adverts come from Ebay directly who run them on Google Ads. Google only advertise themselves, not other people, Google Ads is the platform other companies use to advertise through.

It is my PC, trust me I do not look at these things, I don't have a secret Lego fetish or long for jeans into the dark hours...

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Yes, it's Ebay creating the adverts, but they are run on the Google platform.

Which in turn means that they are based upon your usage of google etc.  Not Ebay as such!

It really doesn't take much for something to be included in an advert, that you may well have inadvertantly found on a search etc.

For instance, if you search for a car, you could find Lego cars appearing in that search.  Even though it's not exactly what you searched for.

But at the end of the day, the advertising is not perfect and gets it wrong.

If you think about the ads that Ebay are placing, they must be covering just about everything in their keywords etc.  So using the same example above, they will pick up the word car, but give you a lego car.

An algorythm won't know the difference, just the keyword.

[vintagewatchpart]

These are retargeting ads designed to draw those back to a site to make a purchase when someone did not make one. You see them all the time and anything product specific will be clever enough to show you the exact product you looked at. 

I've run these campaigns and know how they work, I didn't want to start a debate over how the campaigns operate as I am aware of this already, merely trying to see if eBay is showing anyone else these ads with totally irrelevant products. 

I've previously shown evidence and results of broken features on the site and was informed that because "the results cannot be replicated by us they basically don't exist" despite the fact they clearly do exist for me. 

I wanted to see if anyone has these ads appearing when they browse other sites and if they show relevant products or not. If they are relevant then perhaps the fault with eBay can be narrowed to accounts like mine for some reason.

[the-nutwood-collection]

They can't be based on cookies, because I'm seeing the same items.  I've no idea what two of them are, so I couldn't have searched for them.  Is the main picture the Lego you mention?  To me, it looks mechanical or electrical, and there's no way I'd be searching for something like that - or for Lego.  

Is the small picture at the bottom a watch?  I haven't been searching for watches and, if I had, it wouldn't be a watch like that.  The dial looks to be wider than my wrist.

No eBay, these items are not everything I've been looking for.

[vintagewatchpart]

Thanks for this, so exactly my point it is money down the drain and the advertising is not working correctly and not just me, unless we are both victim to all of ebays issues that they will fail to replicate at their end!

There is no way that any business would intentionally choose these items to push to a customer via advertising and hopefully someone at Ebay can pick up on this to make better use of our fees and perhaps actually get people onto the site to buy our items and see our sales increase.

(On another note, I get retargeting ads all the time, I look at furniture via a furniture company and see adverts for them with the very products I viewed, same with DIY company items, garden center items, Ebays main competitors A and E they all show products I have been interested to get me back and to get me spending. They are inentionally set up to capture people who showed a certain amount of interest in a product by browsing for a long time but who did not complete the checkout process, anything else would be more money wasted)

[vintagewatchpart]

The ads came up again so I clicked on that "Lego" model - it is a construction kit with a hilarious poorly translated title, located in china, with zero sales.

It says the item has been viewed 399 times in 24 hours so these are all obviously clicks from the advert. A campaign like this would probably cost in the region of at least 20p to 30p per click. 

The photograph of the female actress is located in the USA, has been looked at over 1000 times in the past 24 hours. 

Similar story for the other items that are being thrust infront of me, seems everyone is getting the same poorly set up marketing which is costing Ebay thousands and thousands. None of the items are located in the UK.

These ads do not convert and are a waste of money or our fees.

[watchfan700uk]

There will come a time when 90% of the space on our item pages is stuffed with ads like this.

[the-nutwood-collection]

Having clicked on it, you will now be haunted by construction kits, glue and little pots of paint for the next month.

When targeted advertising was first introduced, I was approached by someone who asked if I could fix his computer (that was my job at the time) because he was being followed by underpants everywhere he went on the Internet.

Today, I went on Amazon to buy some toothbrush heads.  A suggested accessory Amazon thought I might like was a cordless vacuum cleaner.  I'm trying to puzzle out the connection between the products.  They both have batteries?  Answers on a postcard please.  

[leadhills_scot]

I never see ads as I use and ad blockers and have done for years. If a site asks to to turn it off I just shut them down.

Also I search in incognito mode, I certainly don't want to be profiled by anyone.

[nigel_paul_wright7557]

I find adverts just wash over me as I have become immune to them.

If its on TV I go make a cup of coffee.

[vintagewatchpart]

Just giving this thread a bump as there is talks of the marketing by Ebay in the other threads and thought this one was more revelant.

I am getting bombarded with video ads on Youtube for car parts, textual ads in my email for car parts and ads on websites for car parts. There is also a coupon currently for car parts only so I think it is fair to say that Ebay may be trying to push itself as the place to buy car parts.

The thing is though I have absolutely no interest in them and have never expressed any interest in them so who in the marketing team thinks that pushing these ads onto me is a good idea based on my cookies? It seems to be a blanket promotion to anyone and everyone so this is a total waste of money and needs to be targeted. I don't get why Ebay wants to waste its money and our fees when it can spend less and target those who are interested in the subject matter.

It is a repeat of the issue originally mentioned in this thread. 

I also keep getting pushed this on the home page:

OOTD, under £25

Fit check? Sorted. Shake up your style with the latest finds.

Refresh your look

OOTD? Fit check? Shake up my style? Refresh my look? Oh my word I am in my 30s but this ad does absolutely nothing for me and I didn't even know what OOTD meant until I googled it!

[bojangled]

@vintagewatchpart yep have the same OOTD nonsense, along with 'slay all day' offers (doesn't sound like something I want to do).

Jo

[vintagewatchpart]

Just did the above Google search, eBay are paying a premium now to appear above the actual brand name as the number one search result, clicking just opens the eBay app.

This is just throwing a large amount of advertising budget away and whoever came up with the text needs speaking to, talk about a missed opportunity to advertise the announcement from yesterday which may actually have people interested.

[vinylscot]

I think some people are crediting eBay and/or Google with rather more intelligence than they merit.

I am receiving the same adverts as OP - I have seen all eleven of the individual products in his screenshots in the last couple of days, and my eBay/Google activity wouldn't suggest I would have any particular interest in any of them.

Currently I am getting similar ads for fur-lined leather flying jackets, which again, are of no interest to me.

I don't know the mechanics of it, but these are generic, crude, scattergun adverts, completely untargeted. And if that's what you get by paying for them, I am very glad I don't.