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.

[shalinoth]

Interesting! And yet the internal linking does still function, using edit html mode or by copy-pasting a linkable word / image into the description.

I don't recall seeing anywhere on the listing process not to link to your own other items.

Many huge sellers have a shop link as part of their description templates, or an embedded sliding gallery of links to their similar products.

Perhaps the rule not to do it has been slipped into a TOS update, but I hadn't seen that anywhere except here, today, from your kind self.

I suspect it's going to be one of the many unenforced rules which annoy some and convenience others.

[charmkeyrings]

Considering some of the feedback I get, I would agree people don't read descriptions or don't read at all.  Still Shalinoth  made a positive suggestion..  

[valueaddedresource]

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@shalinoth wrote:

Interesting! And yet the internal linking does still function, using edit html mode or by copy-pasting a linkable word / image into the description.

I don't recall seeing anywhere on the listing process not to link to your own other items.

Many huge sellers have a shop link as part of their description templates, or an embedded sliding gallery of links to their similar products.

Perhaps the rule not to do it has been slipped into a TOS update, but I hadn't seen that anywhere except here, today, from your kind self.

I suspect it's going to be one of the many unenforced rules which annoy some and convenience others.

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@shalinoth yep that's exactly why I asked for clarification after the initial response in the chat - all the help and policy pages still say it's ok to link to other eBay listing pages but some users say they've had listings blocked for doing so.

I personally won't believe it 100% until they actually update the policy pages but in the mean time, that answer directly from eBay staff is the best we have to go on.

[jiffybagtackle]

Done the same and sales have been better since switching off all my promoted listings.

[tribalgiftsuk]

Thank you so much @valueaddedresource for confirming our suspicions.

I had a feeling by the delay in revealing the answer that is was going to be a charge for all items sold on multi listings after 1 promoted click within the 30 days on promoted standard. A dire straits song comes to mind 😊

Thanks dave@ebay  for obtaining and sharing the answer. With just 19 days to go not much time to decide on the strategy going forward. The initial communication should have been clearer with regards to this, i hope you can feed that back to the relevant department.

[valueaddedresource]

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@tribalgiftsuk wrote:

Thank you so much @valueaddedresource for confirming our suspicions.

I had a feeling by the delay in revealing the answer that is was going to be a charge for all items sold on multi listings after 1 promoted click within the 30 days on promoted standard. A dire straits song comes to mind 😊

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You're welcome @tribalgiftsuk . I would assume you're talking about some Money For Nothing though at this rate I do believe eBay will have us all singing the Poor Boy Blues. 😉

[lucy_farmer]

'I would assume you're talking about some Money For Nothing'

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Ebay do appear to be turning into The Sultans of Swizz.....

[oceanartsnorthdevon]

When I look at some of my listings and the counter, a few have zero views but it may have a watcher or two (not quite sure how that works?) Is that counted as a click on listing?

[superchallenge]

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@jonatjonatjonat wrote:

I think you are VASTLY over estimating the number of people who click through to descriptions.

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In all honesty, a lot of them barely manage to make it to the end of the title, let alone bothering with the description.

[tabletop-hobbies]

You can watch an item without an actually going into it (by tapping the heart icon in search results) so this probably doesn't result in a 'click' being recorded.

[superchallenge]

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@oceanartsnorthdevon wrote:

When I look at some of my listings and the counter, a few have zero views but it may have a watcher or two (not quite sure how that works?) Is that counted as a click on listing?

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I wouldn't have thought so. You can add something to your watch list from the search results without clicking through to the listing by clicking the heart icon on the picture, so that may be why you have watchers with no viewers. I don't think the heart icon appears on items in the promoted listings section anyway, just in the regular search results.

[pidgeun1]

Absolutely! 100% counts as item click. Even quickview of the item or clicking on the arrows for browsing item images or clicking on any icons on the item image counts for Ads attribution. 

[custom-giftsuk]

"except that Marco has confirmed that links of any kind are no longer allowed in listing descriptions, even if they are links to another eBay listing."

Yeah I wouldn't hold my breath for eBay removing anything like that. I've seen listings with links, graphics, text to other items, other sites and nothing ever gets done. Hell I saw one last week which says "find us on our facebook page for more items" which is as obvious as possible. 

[triple512]

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@superchallenge wrote:

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@jonatjonatjonat wrote:

I think you are VASTLY over estimating the number of people who click through to descriptions.

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In all honesty, a lot of them barely manage to make it to the end of the title, let alone bothering with the description.

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……and I complained to eBay about this. Partly it’s because people use their phones to buy so finding the full description takes several clicks. BUT the biggest problem (which I complained about and which irritates buyers) is SPONSORED ADs which are plastered all over the sellers listing, trying to make the buyer click on something more lucrative to eBay!

Whats more, this happens to those listings that are already promoted too!

After all, people paying from PLs can’t all be at the top of search so their ad’s end up plastered everywhere, often in totally irrelevant searches which just drives buyers away.

[oceanartsnorthdevon]

Since they announced these changes to promoted listings where you pay if anyone clicks on the listing and item sells, you pay the promoted fee over that month, I have slowly reduced the promotional fee on listings to an average of 5% (a few slow burners at 9% and better sellers taken off, but majority are all promoted) . The result - sales have flatlined, died, dead as a dodo!  Is it the case now, unless you are selling niche items, have a big budget, survive on tiny profit margins with higher promotional rate, then nothing will sell or be seen unless it is promoted at a higher rate or you ppc? Is this the new way forward? Now guaranteed to get this fee surely any promotion fee they get from us is a gain? So I assume unless it is set to the minimum "recommended" fee this is the future of selling on here? Items use to sell well even at low promotional percentages and had more visibility than not promoted, it now seems pointless to set at a low rate as this is as good as not being visible.  Surely if there is no visibility below a certain percentage why have it on there?

I do also offer multi buy discounts and the public discount offer promotions run by ebay but not much point if nothing gets seen, either that or I am not alone and it is a site issue waiting to be fixed and sales will resume again (in my dreams!)

[therenewalworkshopltd]

I would advise that you stop promoting completely.

It does take a little while for things to balance up again, but I would be willing to bet, that you get the same (if not more), organic views over time.  Give it a month and you should see this.

the problem is that many try dropping promotions, but only leave it a few days to see the abyss instead of giving it enough time to bounce back.

I don't promote at all now and haven't done for quite a long time.  Yet I still get sales and get just as many views etc as I did when promoting.  And this is in one of the busiest categories on the site....

[superchallenge]

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@triple512 wrote:

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@superchallenge wrote:

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@jonatjonatjonat wrote:

I think you are VASTLY over estimating the number of people who click through to descriptions.

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In all honesty, a lot of them barely manage to make it to the end of the title, let alone bothering with the description.

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……and I complained to eBay about this. Partly it’s because people use their phones to buy so finding the full description takes several clicks. BUT the biggest problem (which I complained about and which irritates buyers) is SPONSORED ADs which are plastered all over the sellers listing, trying to make the buyer click on something more lucrative to eBay!

Whats more, this happens to those listings that are already promoted too!

After all, people paying from PLs can’t all be at the top of search so their ad’s end up plastered everywhere, often in totally irrelevant searches which just drives buyers away.

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I couldn't agree more. Even without the ads, having the item description hidden behind a click and so far down the page is ludicrous. The condition description not being visible on mobile is just as bad.

I used to put my item condition notes in the Condition Description area - which I thought made logical sense - only for a customer to accuse me of trying to rip people off by doing that and not putting it in the main item description. I thought he was just trying it on, but then I noticed that the Condition Description doesn't seem to even exist if you're using the app. Such poor design.

[valueaddedresource]

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@tabletop-hobbies wrote:

You can watch an item without an actually going into it (by tapping the heart icon in search results) so this probably doesn't result in a 'click' being recorded.

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@oceanartsnorthdevon  @tabletop-hobbies  @superchallenge  - since January 2025, eBay's Marketing Terms have said "a click includes (without limitation) any interaction with your Ad (e.g. add to Watchlist, add to basket, quick view or other interactive functionality)."

So yes, a click on the heart icon in search results to add an item to Watchlist counts even if the person never actually clicks through to  view the full listing page.

[valueaddedresource]

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@custom-giftsuk wrote:

"except that Marco has confirmed that links of any kind are no longer allowed in listing descriptions, even if they are links to another eBay listing."

Yeah I wouldn't hold my breath for eBay removing anything like that. I've seen listings with links, graphics, text to other items, other sites and nothing ever gets done. Hell I saw one last week which says "find us on our facebook page for more items" which is as obvious as possible. 

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@custom-giftsuk completely agree, but at this point all we have to go on is what Marco said and the fact that some sellers say they have had listings blocked or removed due to the link policy and the only links they have in their listing is to another one of their listings.

[oceanartsnorthdevon]

Several months ago I did try removing promotions but done it slowly over several weeks as not to get too much of a shock, like you said sales just dropped when they were more or less all finally stopped so I bottled it and put them all back on but have to admit since lowering the % instead of removing completely seems even worse if that is at all possible!  If sales do eventually increase after a few weeks to a normal level after promotions are removed surely we are being duped with promoting our items and paying an additional fee?