No Promoted Listings for 1 Month Experiment - Results

[vintagewatchpart]

I wanted to share this with everyone in the hope it could help others increase their sales and margin on Ebay. 

Firstly, you can see what I sell and it is pretty much unique second hand items that do have some competition but not as much as those selling new goods. This may not apply to everyone, but you may find it interesting.

Will try to keep it as concise as possible!

These are my sales for last year. In April last year something happened, my organic sales plummetted compared with Jan-March (Ebay changes) and this resulted in me increasing my promoted listings percentage.

I had it set at 3.5% for ages then early last year changed it to 6.5% as it became more competative. 

In May last year I increased the percentage to 11.5% which saw my sales recover and I kept it that way until November.

The graph speaks for itself, clear patterns! But in November I changed tactics. I had listed everything as promoted all year, so if its new, get it on, and bam! Promote it!

In November I started listing new items and not promoting them, notice the organic sales increase.

Then in mid December I lowered my promoted listings percentage down to 6% from 11.5%.

I noticed that when I searched for any of my items, they only ever showed up as promoted. The only way anyone could ever buy an item from me and it not be sold as a promoted listing would be to have me saved as a seller and look at my new items. On another thread I mentioned this:

August last year was my best month, ever. 87% of my sales were promoted and 13% organic. 477 transactions so a pretty big sample.

Each and every of the organic sales came from a repeat buyer or was for an item where I had sent an offer, obviously to someone who had watched the listing more than the 31 day cookie window apart from just 1 sale. So I can't explain that 1 sale and how they found my item, we don't have that detailed a level of analytics but I suggest everyone look at their own results and see if there are any similar themes.

So 1 sale out of 477 came from an Organic non-repeat buyer.

My two months of listing new items and not promoting them seemed to create no change in sales so I turned off all promoted listings on 15th January. Here are the results:

The results:

• Impressions down a whopping 87.7% eek! But hold on...
• Page views up 2.8%...
• Click through rate went from 0.1% to 1.3%
• Conversion increased 0.1%
• My sales increased volume £££ by 21.5%
• There was a big increase in the numbers of Top 20 search spot impressions (Up around 50,000) and rest of search impressions (Up around 100,000) vs previous month.

I thought if I turned off promoted listings my sales would fall off a cliff, it turns out they don't.

My theory about search spot impressions increasing as a number is this: by me promoting at a low rate over 10% less than recommended, my promoted items were buried somewhere in the search so that the better paying % items appeared first. But by unpromoting them, they appear organically higher up than if I were to have promoted them as a low percentage. I don't have any other explanation for this unless anyone else does.

Selling costs:

My selling costs in May-Oct last year were 29.1% per month on average, the past month without anything promoted has been 17.7%. A difference of 11.4%...

It is difficult because I cannot say what my sales would have been had I kept on promoting everything and kept selling costs high at 29.1% but my sales value £££ is the same as it usually is.

But for the past month if my sales had been the same as they are now but I had promoted everything as before, my Ebay fees would be £2159 higher just for this month.

Final thought

For me it seems promoting just gives you millions of impressions, mainly irrelevant and non-search.

We do not know where the customer comes from when you sell a promoted item, do they come from a search result or from a non-search promoted placement such as within another listing? 

I'd be willing to bet they almost all come from search results based on my past month of data, because search impressions are way up and sales volume is up.

By promoting my listings, am I just allowing everything that is ever found in a search by a customer be sold as a sponsored? From what I can tell the answer is yes. 

If I were to promote everything of mine now at 1% say, would my Top 20 organic search impressions suffer and bury my items on page 17? Therefore actually hindering my sales and not helping them.

Something is not adding up. Promoted/Organic traffic to listings does not correlate between Promoted/Organic sales.

On websites, organic traffic has a conversion rate of 16% vs a 2% conversion rate for paid for traffic, so why the disparity on Ebay?

This data and pattern won't apply to everyone but its worth experimenting and exploring your options.

[luxe-deals]

If there are any site-wide factual conclusions to be drawn from this & any others' similar exercises, Ebay sure as heck won't be letting on one way or another. Talk about opaque ... and we all just want to know what our fees are really paying for, what a shower.

[nigel_paul_wright7557]

Statictics can be complicated.

Going promoted then stopping for a while might look ok because repeat buyers have increased over promoted period.

I dont do anything promoted.

I did an experiment once with one item promoted then not promoted.

The none promoted one sold.

However its difficult  to relay on one example.

The problem with paying extra for visibilty is you have to add the extra to the price of the item.

Which then makes it less attractive to buyers and just gets you more none buyer clicks.

[darth_baggins]

Interesting reading. I don't know how seasonal your genre is but don't sales typically increase in November anyway?

I am very cynical about promoted listings and don't trust eBay with their suggested rates and I do believe they manipulate the results though.

[andybrussell]

We have two selling accounts as we sell two different types of stock.

When listing an item we get a suggested promotion rate of say 11% for example, I tried listing the exact same product, in the same catogory, same price literally everything the same but on our other account and the suggested promotion rate was 16%.

The whole promoted listings and rates is very opaque and does make me question the legitimacy of it, especially promotion plus, which is based on the number of clicks rather than sales.

[vintagewatchpart]

It isn't really seasonal no. My attitude towards promoted listings has definitely changed but something on Ebay did change back in April last year with the algorithm or something.

What is clear from my figures (for me at least) is that by promoting at a percentage lower than suggested, it made less of my items go into the Top 20 search results on a search page than if I were to not promote them at all. Promoting only gave me a tonne of impressions in "non search" positions - low converting places.

[sheba-knows-best]

---

@vintagewatchpart wrote:

I wanted to share this with everyone in the hope it could help others increase their sales and margin on Ebay. 

Firstly, you can see what I sell and it is pretty much unique second hand items that do have some competition but not as much as those selling new goods. This may not apply to everyone, but you may find it interesting.

Will try to keep it as concise as possible!

These are my sales for last year. In April last year something happened, my organic sales plummetted compared with Jan-March (Ebay changes) and this resulted in me increasing my promoted listings percentage.

I had it set at 3.5% for ages then early last year changed it to 6.5% as it became more competative. 

In May last year I increased the percentage to 11.5% which saw my sales recover and I kept it that way until November.

The graph speaks for itself, clear patterns! But in November I changed tactics. I had listed everything as promoted all year, so if its new, get it on, and bam! Promote it!

In November I started listing new items and not promoting them, notice the organic sales increase.

Then in mid December I lowered my promoted listings percentage down to 6% from 11.5%.

I noticed that when I searched for any of my items, they only ever showed up as promoted. The only way anyone could ever buy an item from me and it not be sold as a promoted listing would be to have me saved as a seller and look at my new items. On another thread I mentioned this:

August last year was my best month, ever. 87% of my sales were promoted and 13% organic. 477 transactions so a pretty big sample.

Each and every of the organic sales came from a repeat buyer or was for an item where I had sent an offer, obviously to someone who had watched the listing more than the 31 day cookie window apart from just 1 sale. So I can't explain that 1 sale and how they found my item, we don't have that detailed a level of analytics but I suggest everyone look at their own results and see if there are any similar themes.

So 1 sale out of 477 came from an Organic non-repeat buyer.

My two months of listing new items and not promoting them seemed to create no change in sales so I turned off all promoted listings on 15th January. Here are the results:

The results:

• Impressions down a whopping 87.7% eek! But hold on...
• Page views up 2.8%...
• Click through rate went from 0.1% to 1.3%
• Conversion increased 0.1%
• My sales increased volume £££ by 21.5%
• There was a big increase in the numbers of Top 20 search spot impressions (Up around 50,000) and rest of search impressions (Up around 100,000) vs previous month.

I

---

 Just to be absolutely clear...

You say that from 15 January after dumping promoted you have seen a 21.5% increase in sales in £.  Right? 

First what is the comparison with? 15Dec-15Jan?

I do agree - if I have understood you correctly this is kind of incredible especially given you have a sales decline in volumes. (I understand you havent been paying PL fees) . Not disputing, just checking I have understood you correctly.

[british-ceramics-and-paintings]

Many thanks for taking the time to post this. It illustrates many things I expected to see.

Promoted listings are a bit like a drug (for want of a better comparison). The lift in impressions they provide has a psychological impact on us as sellers, when we don't use them the drop off in impressions etc makes us think we need them and we almost become dependent on them for traffic, the problem is most of the traffic they provide is pointless.

[vintagewatchpart]

Yes that is all correct, the comparison is with those dates yes.

Vs last year it is slightly down, however my activity last year listing was insane compared with now (have a 3 month old baby and not working as much)

It is difficult to compare results for both myself and your niche as its all unique items, but I bet you (like me) can gauge roughly what you're going to achieve each month by your activities and what you do.

My volume after the day was up was actually just down a single piece.

My main takeaway isn't necessarily the volume £££ sales, its more the Top 20 and Rest of Search impressions being up significantly in number without any promotion at all. More eyes on organicly placed items that are more relevant has resulted in higher click through. Those people convert better.

[vintagewatchpart]

Exactly right.

Imagine this... All sellers on Ebay simultaneously agree to turn off promoted listings.

Imagine what would happen.

[sheba-knows-best]

---

@vintagewatchpart wrote:

Exactly right.

Imagine this... All sellers on Ebay simultaneously agree to turn off promoted listings.

Imagine what would happen.

---

I can imagine exactly what would happen, some sellers - such as myself, who have a 3 day dispatch and aren't exactly cheap - would lose a part of the algorithm where they can excel. That is what other people don't seem to understand... that PL is just one part of the algorithm, so if we all stopped using PL, we aren't all back on level ground. I can't compete with massive high volume, low price preloved clothing sellers - PL gives me a chance.

PL transformed my business back in 2018/9.

I now use PL to curb my sales every time I go to close to the VAT threshold - ie I turn them off. And they work completely reliably (unlike many of ebay's other tools) in bringing sales down and yes, to be completely clear, i don't just see a small sales volume decline but steady sales in £££ - when I turn off PL, sales plummet and profits go with them. And i have experimented with the adjustments.

Having said that, I have been working hard - with a new system - of keeping 25% of my listing on either no PL or very very low PL immediately after the 'sell similar' boost and that is bringing total ebay fees down to 18% (vs 2023's 24%). But it is... laborious.

If all this sounds like a dismissal of your findings it isn't. I am intrigued. I suspect my market is just too competitive (whereas yours is more niche) but thank you for a great post anyway. It certainly gives hope that PL can be controlled.

[british-ceramics-and-paintings]

24% down to 18% is substantial, you have done well there.

[plumbinggear2012]

Excellent post and I agree with your theory about search spot impressions.

[vintagewatchpart]

Another week has gone by without anything promoted, no reason for any concern still. Numbers all going in the right direction.

Selling costs 16.7% last week.  Thats 12.4% lower than if I had promoted at the same rates as last year.

On my sales £££ that equates to nearly £500 less in Ebay fees than if I were to have made the same volume of sales with everything promoted at those rates. £500 extra per week in the bank and not on Ebay fees, sounds like a dream!

[tribalgiftsuk]

Thanks for this experiment. You inspired me last week to not automatically add new listings to promoted standard and i have unpromoted a lot of items and lowered rates across the board on the others to see how things go. So far i can't see any major impact.

I have already sold one of the new items listed without promotion so i have already made a fee saving. I will keep creeping those rates down and see what happens over the coming weeks and take more items off promotion.

In some areas i have huge amounts of competition but i am thinking i would rather offer the customer a slightly lower price than keep paying such high fee's. But with all the changes going on it won't always be possible.

But i appreciate so much everyone sharing what they are doing with this and i thank you all for my first saving, may the savings be with you 😀

[forwardlife]

When I turned my promoted listings off sales tanked perhaps sales 70% down.

I think it depends on what you sell, single unique items, I dont promote, and they do fine, but if they are the same item but with many copies to sell, these need promoting.

[vintagewatchpart]

45 Days into this and everything is still ok. Have done a bit more analysing now and have seen something interesting.

I took data from 3 time periods of 15 days - one where I was promoting at 11.5%, one promoting at 6% and one with no promoting at all.

15 Days Promoted at 11.5% (Selling costs 28.2%)

Top 20 Search Slot Impressions - 352k

Rest of Search Slot Impressions -  997k

15 Days Promoted at 6% (Selling costs 21.2%

Top 20 Search Slot Impressions - 205k

Rest of Search Slot Impressions - 657k

15 Days Not Promoted At All: (Selling costs 16.7%)

Top 20 Search Slot Impressions - 259k

Rest of Search Slot Impressions -  807k

My thoughts on this are quite clear, promote at a lower rate and Ebay prioritises those promoted higher than you in search so your Top 20 and ROS slot results are bumped down onto lower pages.

Promote at the rate they want and they shoot you to the top, obviously!

But, with not promoting at all, I get more coverage and higher sales than if I were to have promoted at a lower percentage because the items are being shown organically and are selling well.

My theory is that if I promote everything again at a very low percentage such as 1% that Ebay will hide my Top 20 and ROS impressions will plummet. I may do this if I can afford to for a period but not now.

[modelrealm]

Great read, I appreciate the time you've spent on this. I made some changes recently, like stopping promotions and opting out of competitive dispatching due to the flawed Estimated Delivery Dates (EDD) system. Since then, I've noticed significant improvements overall. Sometimes, stepping back from certain promotional activities or competitive aspects can indeed lead to better outcomes, especially if it helps you focus on providing quality service and products to your customers. Thank you again

[vintagewatchpart]

It's now two months into the experiment and I have another full months worth of data.

Traffic (This is compared with the same period for the previous month, so the month where I had turned off promoted)

Impressions - Up 15.7%

Page Views - Up 3.5% (External site were up 18.4%, Ebay up 2.2%)

Top 20 Search Slot Impressions - Up 5.5%

Rest of Search Impressions - Up 11.5%

Conversion rate - Up 0.1%

Sales (Compared to previous month)

Sales Volume - Up 25.6%

Selling Costs - 17%

QTY Sold - Up 15.8%

Compared with last year I was down slightly (6%) but that February last year was exceptional with some very high value items sold which I obviously don't have to sell this year.

If I had had this exact same volume of sales for these two months at the level I was promoting at last year, I would have spent an additional £5,573 in Ebay fees on promoted listings. 

[british-ceramics-and-paintings]

Thank you for posting all of this, it is both helpful and interesting.