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.

[pegr-834437]

Give it 2 or 3 weeks and you will get the data. 

[wootton-industries]

As a test I have put 2 items on sponsored listing the results are:

1: No sales

2: Other sellers sponsored items also showing on my sponsored item details page.

I would have thought if you were paying for sponsored adverts, you would at least have no other sellers products advertised in your sponsored ad's details section.

What is the point in paying for sponsored ads if they are allowing or giving advertising space to other sellers products on your sponsored adverts.

[designedinashed]

Because the impressions stats look good and your promoted listings will show on others adverts.

It's all BS manipulated numbers to make it look like your getting ROI 

eBays done 3 dead days this last week shocking figures roll on OCT when i can pull the plug

[juicebitz]

***** WARNING TO ALL EBAY SELLERS USING PROMOTED LISTINGS *****

Tell me who knows this:
When you now create a Priority Campaign and that Listing ID is also in a General Campaign - you are now charged for BOTH - however, on your order/sales breakdown, you will only see the General Ad Fee Deducted. It will not show "Ad Fee Priority", so be aware, this is also deducted, but will not show on the breakdown of the order details from that sale.

It did used to have this information in the past - but now eBay are "Double Dipping" - but this is not made at all clear when you create a campaign as you go through the setup process, nor on their help pages.

I have spoken two two Concierge Advisers today, who in the last couple of months - the company did state that they "DO NOT TAKE BOTH FEES".. and resources online also validated this for me... however, keep reading because this is NOT THE CASE ANYMORE and today they both said that they DO TAKE BOTH, but you cannot see it in the breakdown on the customer order page!!!

• General Campaign (or Promoted Listings Standard): This is a cost-per-sale model. You only pay a fee if a buyer clicks on your ad and then purchases that item (or a "halo" item from your store, in some cases) within a specific attribution window (often 30 days). The ad fee is a percentage of the final sale amount.

• Priority Campaign (or Promoted Listings Advanced): This is a cost-per-click model. You pay every time someone clicks on your ad, regardless of whether or not they make a purchase. You set a daily budget and a bid for each click (CPC, or cost-per-click).

How they interact

When you have the same listing in both a priority campaign and a general campaign, the platforms have a clear set of rules to determine which campaign gets credit and therefore, which one you pay for.

The general rule is that the click takes precedence.

If a buyer clicks on a Priority ad for your item, you will be charged for that click, as per your Priority campaign's CPC bid. If that same buyer then purchases the item, you do not also pay the general ad fee. The sale is directly linked to the click on the Priority ad.

The opposite is also true. If a buyer clicks on a General ad and then buys the item, you are only charged the percentage-based ad fee from the General campaign. You don't pay anything for a "click" on that ad.

So, in summary: you do not pay for both. The ad fee is tied to the specific campaign that received the last click that led to the sale. You are only charged once, based on the rules of the campaign that drove the sale."

A business needs to run with integrity - be clear and transparent about what they are doing and how they wish to conduct their business, but they are clearly not doing this.

Now on their help pages they have added this information to coincide with what they are all now singing at eBay Concierge, that they CAN and DO take both the Click Fee and the General Fee - but it is as clear as mud. I am an intelligent enough person to see that this does not say, simply: "NB: If you are creating a Priority Click Campaign, when that listing also exists in a General Campaign - you will pay for the click as well as the general Ad Fee", or words to that effect.... but no, they kind of go around the houses and only mention something like this, but not clearly within FAQ Point Number 4 (see link below).

https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/selling/listings/promoted-listings-overview?id=5295

I urge all customers to follow this up with eBay and END ALL CAMPAIGNS that exist in BOTH.

Either do one or the other and avoid huge increases in Ad Fees!

eBay is now a dirty, tarnished business in my opinion and everyone should back away from them completely and look at spending money with other platforms, or on your own website. And that is EXACTLY what we are doing.

I will be writing and complaining to eBay Head Office about this and urge all sellers to do the same, and follow up with the following:

To get results for a complaint about dishonest tactics, your best bet is to follow a formal, documented process:

1. Start with a formal complaint to eBay's Complaints Team (the postal address is eBay Commerce UK Ltd., 1 More London Place, London, SE1 2AF, United Kingdom).

2. If the complaint is about money, payments, or your account funds, escalate to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

3. If the complaint is about misleading advertising, unfair terms, or deceptive business practices, escalate to Citizens Advice (who will pass it to Trading Standards).

Always keep detailed records of your correspondence, including dates, times, and any reference numbers. This will be crucial if you need to escalate your complaint to an external body.

Also it may also be worth complaining to the Competition & Markets Authority here:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/contact-the-cma

Thanks for listening and good luck.

[gardenhomeuk]

30 days in from ending promotions and organic impressions are down 51% on previous 30 days. 

[nutrafituk]

We are 60 days in, still a handful listings being promoted due to the stock nature. Results? We have over 90% of organic sales each day, savings hundreds of pounds on advertising that would make very little difference in terms of profit. The sales have come down big time but it has been over a week now since they have started picking up every day - obviously compared to the previous 30 days. It seems we are back in control now whilst launching our own website instead of pumping funds into ebay's bottomless pockets.

[andy_multimediaman]

I'm not sure how true this is, with regards to getting charged for promoting your item, but here goes. I was having a few drinks in the pub, and a friend of a friends friend, told me this. As soon as you click "promote my item" eBay sends a link to trained monkeys sitting in cages with laptops, and the monkey then clicks on your item, almost straight away, so no matter if you sell your item 2,3, or 4 months later, you will still be charged for promoting your item. 🤔🤔 Could be true, but I'm not sure 😂😂 have a great day 👍🏻

[eyewear247]

watchers mean noting on eBay - the majority are people just tracking an item to see what it sells for. its almost as if they have never heard of the "sold for" search option.

Absolutely . Watchers are like trebles in darts, they look good but it the sales (doubles) that count.

A listing is said to go stagnant  after 90 days without a sale and it is then that I end and sell similar.

[valueaddedresource]

There is one in which Watchers absolutely do mean something on eBay and it's even relevant to this topic.

If someone sees the Promoted version of your item in search and clicks the heart icon to add your item to their watchlist without ever actually clicking through to the view item page, that still counts as an attributable click for ads and under this new attribution model that means if anyone ends up buying it in the next 30 days from that click, you will be charged the ad fee (assuming the item is still enrolled in an active ad campaign at the time of purchase).

[eyewear247]

But if you end that listing with the watcher/s and then list it again as a similar item then nobody will be able to click on the original item/ listing and buy it with the associated promotional fee. If someone wants to buy that exact same item it will be on a fresh listing with a different item number and hopefully it would be an organic sale. 

[pegr-834437]

Thought I'd just drop this screengrab, I posted another another 6 weeks back showing an account that stopped all promos and relisted everything with additional item specifics and pictures. EBay then said due to them being new listings they would all start fresh and that was why they were showing so bad, that bad run went on for 10 weeks or so and the account then started 300 or so of them again but promoted with a few hundred not promoted, the process takes a few days to a week to relist everything and then to their shock organic impressions jump. So the feedback they received from eBay saying the poor impression were as suspected is clearly false as they have jumped within 2 weeks of the promo being added back on.

I don't know the exact figure but I know its low single digits, in both the low impressions and new high impressions the account has been part of an eBay funded coupon so really that shouldnt effect organic impressions. It really does seem like if you don't pay you don't play, I know eBay wont say anything on here about it though as they cant discuss accounts but the figures show if you arent promotion your organic impressions are 90% lower than if you do. I'm going to the open event with the account holder so will be interesting to see what they say to them when presented with all the evidence in person.

[nutrafituk]

Go to Performance-Traffic-Listing Views and check out your organic ones. That is what really matters.

[pegr-834437]

Its not my account so can only go off what they've told/shown me but its gone from a solid 5k a week to 6.5k 2 weeks then 8 and 9k. I know views and more importantly sold is what really matters but impressions are the first point which should lead to views then to sales and they are all lower when not promoting and then jump when promoted. That goes agaisnt what eBay have told them in emails, they blamed it on being new listings with no history yet these new listings the figures didnt drop and have grown. 

[nutrafituk]

The thing is ebay can throw any number up in the air and make it look great. It is already difficult and confusing the way the stats are shown. What we really want is to know how many organic views we get and again how many of those are turned into sales. Then any marketing decision should be made if needed. 

Now it seems if you stop advertising you lose millions of views, thousands of potential transactions and so on. And that is the case however sooner or later it does come to the point when you realise that all those number do not really matter as they are not always applicable to your account as such. Conversions - sure, impressions - not really as such.

[pegr-834437]

Fully agree the impressions mean very little but when you are told the drop is not down to you stop paying but starting the listings fresh it seems slightly strange that once you start paying those numbers return and views go up too. All this just organic views/impressions by the way nothing to do with promoted views. 

It all just seems very unethical or maybe illegal as just this one accounts stats look to a novice like me as if you don't pay we don't show, the excuses eBay used when the numbers dropped are not backed up with any evidence from eBay and all future evidence shows the complete opposite. It'll be interesting what they say at the Open event as unlike on here or on phones they cant exactly give management words and then go silent when they are sitting opposite him.

I can't be sure on their sales as it seems a little too personal for me to ask how much you making but I'm pretty sure they've been posting more in the last few weeks than previous when they were not advertising either. Like most businesses I'm sure they dont mind paying but its the half truths and smoke and mirror stories that annoy people, be honest if you dont pay we wont show even organically as much and let people decide. 

[spei-36]

That’s completely wrong — they just want to make additional profit from our sales, which is ridiculous.