Promoted Listings Changes - You Must Be Joking, eBay

[superchallenge]

Email from eBay this morning. 

If I read it correctly, from 24th June, if you use promoted listings and ANYBODY clicks on the ad one time...if the item then sells to ANYBODY ELSE within the next 30 days, you get charged as if the first guy bought it.

That means that if Bob in Scotland clicks an ad and doesn't buy, but Steve from Wales rolls in 29 days later and finds the item in search and buys it without clicking on a promoted listings ad, you get charged because Bob clicked it almost a month ago.

It's all well and good saying "You'll still only pay when your items sell" eBay, but that isn't the point. We pay for promoted listings in order to help find A BUYER, not a browser. If somebody comes in and buys an item organically, then the ad hasn't done its job and we're not paying for it.

We'll be removing all of our promoted listings campaigns later today, as this starts in 32 days, which is extremely underhanded. The reason being that there's a 30-day attribution window, so if Steve clicks on one of our ads this Sunday, on June 24th when Bob buys the item without clicking an advert, we'll get charged.

[jlovie]

I often view my own listings as it seems to be the only way to see when an item was last edited (when deciding whether to reprice).

Ideally I'd like to see a last edit date column available in listings summary page.

[lucy_farmer]

'You'd expect an organised well run  multi-national company to brief it's staff on policy changes and coach them on potential issues arising from what was sure to be such a contentious change.'

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😂😂🤣. 👍

[goodibags]

"Could be that agent had just had a gutful, could be their last day, maybe they just didn’t give a flying fig anymore? Or just a severe case of saying whatever the caller wanted to hear to appease them."

Indeed, it could even be that the CS agent was an Ebay seller and buyer too? Answering irate phone calls may not be the nicest way to find out about the latest 'developments'. 

[valueaddedresource]

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@jlovie wrote:

If I view one of my own listings it doesn't count as a page view, but will it count for for promotion?

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@jlovie  how do you navigate to your own listings to view them? Do you find them in Seller Hub and then click through to view the actual listing, go through your public facing shop page or just do a standard eBay site search like a buyer would?

If you just do a standard eBay search like a buyer would, find your item amongst all the others in the results and click on it - if it shows the "sponsored" tag, then yes, your click may be counted as a click on the ad and if any buyer purchases that item within 30 days (and that item is still enrolled in a General ad campaign at the time of sale), you could potentially pay the ad fee.

However, if you navigate to your listings from Seller Hub, your shop page or anywhere else where you are not clicking on a "sponsored" ad to get there - then your click will not be the one that counts for ad attribution.

Whether it is you clicking on your listing or someone else, there has to have been a click on the actual promoted/sponsored ad for it to count.

I know for cost per click ads, eBay has said in the past they don't count when you click on your own ad but to be honest I don't know how well that really works and/or if they have the same in place for General cost per sale ads - in the past it didn't matter if you clicked on your own General ad because you of course would never be buying your own product from yourself.

So for now, to be safe, I would assume that clicking on your own ads may end up triggering this new attribution model and suggest finding other ways to navigate to your listing pages to avoid that possibility.

Hope that makes sense!

[ett1954]

Hopefully an eBay rep. will respond to my question on post # 136; although I am still waiting for a response to my question from 10 days ago whether enhanced visibility fees for US and Canada paid for listings with only the GSP shipping offered will be refunded.  Considering they are merrily taking fees for a service they could not provide (and probably still not  provide- who knows when there is a total lack of communication) the question shouldn't have needed to be asked to a business with any moral compass.

[pillarboxred]

EBay knows exactly the search , bidding and buying of every item on the site. They know exactly. "Attributions" are often made in the Art World where other information is lacking and all that can be made is an "educated guess". Buyers then have the option of buying or not. Remember the discussions around the £500m Leonardo: intricate arguments were led on both sides giving reasons for and against. Such attributions can be deliberately false or made in good faith, yet mistaken.
Attributing a sale to Promotion by a mechanism which is easy for eBay to automatically check when the record shows one person looked at an item, one person bid on it and that person bought it is disingenuous.

It might be that in the current commercial environment, eBay needs to advertise more outside the site and charge us in a straight-up manner like "this is the cost of  putting eBay out there, in press, film, TV and streaming social media (YouTube, but other channels are available)". That would be fair. As eBay is a "major`' consumer business I doubt there will be "value deals"  for them in the advertising world.

[greatgiftshampshire]

exactly that,

she took a look at the email herself and her words "oh my, yes I can see what you mean" then followed by, "this is going to cause a lot of fall out, they are having meetings regarding this change this week, so yes I will log your complaint, very unfair from what I see and from what you say regarding commissions" 

she then agreed with my statement regarding ebay maximising fees to which she agreed and advised me that my complaint was recorded so they (ebay) will listen to this conversation, she was very nice ,she listened, understood, agreed, and logged my complaint, 

for once a customer service agent from ebay that got it !

I will add I was passed up from one agent to another department  to get that response , I think it was advertising ...

[nutrafituk]

Interestingly, you will not find this information anywhere on the Selling Announcement Board...

[unwinsbooks]

I have ended all our promotions.  We have a lot of repeat buyers.  I don't see the point in paying extra fees on items sold to our regular buyers that some random browser happened to click on 3 or 4 weeks ago.

[lucy_farmer]

'she then agreed with my statement regarding ebay maximising fees to which she agreed and advised me that my complaint was recorded so they (ebay) will listen to this conversation, she was very nice ,she listened, understood, agreed, and logged my complaint, 

for once a customer service agent from ebay that got it !'

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A lot of CS staff are very very good at saying what the caller wants to hear....................... I'm a right ol' sceptic and believe you got a CS'er who is very good at calming down irate users.

[moonlight-rhapsody]

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@greatgiftshampshire wrote:

her words "oh my, yes I can see what you mean" then followed by, "this is going to cause a lot of fall out, they are having meetings regarding this change this week, so yes I will log your complaint, very unfair from what I see and from what you say regarding commissions"

She comes across to me as a genuine person with what appears to be a rare combination of commonsense and ethics.  If she gets removed from Customer Service, I hope she gets promoted to CEO, and if not, that she finds a job with another company that values commonsense and ethics.

[stephen3dcreations]

God knows ebay will hire some bot to click the ad of listings every 30 days, so convenient

[bzmotman]

Call me a cynic but why would Ebay bother to look for malicious clicks as every click has the potential to "earn" them more commission. I suggest they will enforce it in the same way as they stop a business trading as a private seller.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

That's the thing though.  They have an interest to have more clicks happen.

But at the same time, if they were found to be "ignoring" malicious clicks, they could get into a lot of trouble over it and end up with some fairly large fines.

So at the very least, they have to pay lip service to it, at least enough to keep trouble off their backs.

[prelovedjewels]

Just switched mine off for good 👿

[neil-simulant]

Like many others I have felt forced into using ads to keep sales high. So this announcement is kinda freeing for me , there is no way am I paying advertising fees for clicks from non buyers, its beyond ridiculous. All promoted listings campaigns have been ended for my businesses.

I Just fear by taking a huge loss on these Promoted listings, they will think up even more punitive fees or add on costs. It very much feels like scrambling to hoover up more money to keep growth up at ebay. Not sustainable. 

[goodibags]

It does make you wonder what's coming next. Perhaps there will be a daily signing in to Ebay charge?

About 20p per user should keep the coffers full and who needs any sale transactions?

[myretrostore-uk]

Who is running this show at eBay?! So many crazy decisions over the past few months and they keep going from bad to worse. 

Just cancelled a few promotions I had running. 

[honeymonster007]

Just curious, but can a promoted listing fee (or percentage off) be claimed back at the end of a tax year?. Only asking as I'd see it as a business expense. 

[barginzbazaar]

 Effectively all sales will have this charge applied there will no longer be any organic sales whilst using promoted listings. Ultimately the loser will be the customer as prices will have to rise in step with the percentage you choose.