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.

[custom-giftsuk]

or perhaps the much heralded but never arriving integration with facebook marketplace

[valueaddedresource]

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@iceblue_uk wrote:

Something else seems to have started going on with Pay Per Click now, which we do use on occasion. Suddenly, out of the blue, ebay is repeatedly telling us that we need to increase our daily click budget on a particular item from £15 a day up to £128 a day,  because the item is not getting the coverage that it could otherwise, this is despite the current daily spend not even getting anywhere near the £15 that we have set!

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@iceblue_uk  this part ^  might be due to recent changes in the way eBay does the budgeting for Priority ads.

https://www.ebayadvertising.com/en-gb/2025/05/30/seller-announcement-introducing-monthly-budget-paci... 

Previously, they did the "budget pacing" on a weekly basis. So if you had set a target of say £10/day, the total budget for the week would be £70 and eBay would use that budget dynamically - which means on some days they could go up to 2x the daily target (£20) and then other days they would spend less than £10 to even it out, with the stipulation that you wouldn't go over £70 for the week.

eBay says that allows greater flexibility so that on days where they think your ads are more likely to get a higher ROI, they can maximize the spend better, and then not spend as much on lower ROI days which sounds OK in theory but in reality what I've heard from a lot of sellers is that eBay would just frontload the higher spend days at the beginning of the week so that by Wednesday-Thursday they would be sending warnings nudging the seller to increase the budget amount to keep the ads going.

But on June 18th, eBay changed that from weekly to monthly budget pacing - so it's basically the same deal, except instead of averaging out over a 7 day period, they are now doing it over a 30.4 day period, and you can imagine that gives eBay even more leverage to "nudge" sellers to increase the daily target budget....though going from £15 to £128 is still quite a spread no matter how you slice it!

[designedinashed]

Exactly what i've done, removed all PL's few week ago and just leaving to ride or die.
in the process of moving all listing to other platforms as sick and tired of jumping through ebays hoops to make a sale.

[valueaddedresource]

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@arksglobal wrote:

My biggest grievance with promoted listings ad fees is that if the buyer changes their mind and requests to cancel the order, while we get final value fees back, we don't get any ad fees back.

No wonder eBay made it "even easier" for buyers to cancel orders! 🙄

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@arksglobal  per the fee credits policy, you should get the Promoted General ad fee credited on a cancellation too - but if that's not happening, I'd definitely like to hear about it.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/selling/fees-credits-invoices/fee-credits?id=4128

[wholesalepack]

We tracking the % of sales ebay takes on the daily basis, we not using PPC promos ("advanced"), just the general ones. Before the change we was using rate cap in the region of 15% for all our general promotions and ending up with a total of 25-26.5% ebay fees. On Monday (before the changes) we lowered the cap to 10% and the final result for yesterday alone around midday was in the region of 31.5% ebay fees. We lowered the general promo cap even more (to 5%) and it looks like now it almost takes us back to the level of fees we were paying before that "change", currently they are at 27%, obviously needs more data, as it's still early days, but in general it looks like if you lower your general promos %, or % cap by 65-70% it should take you roughly to the same spot where you was before the "change" in terms of total ebay fees. Hope this helps and please remember that each ebay seller account is different (promoting history/performance history etc), so for each account that % will be slightly different. Please share your observations - thank you.

[stoney-racing]

I've contacted Watchdog about it today, doubt they will be interested as it mostly affects business sellers, but it does affect private sellers who use promoted listings, and it will surely have a knock-on effect to consumers with higher prices as more and more sellers realise how much extra they are being charged in ad fees

[iceblue_uk]

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@valueaddedresource wrote:

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@iceblue_uk wrote:

Something else seems to have started going on with Pay Per Click now, which we do use on occasion. Suddenly, out of the blue, ebay is repeatedly telling us that we need to increase our daily click budget on a particular item from £15 a day up to £128 a day,  because the item is not getting the coverage that it could otherwise, this is despite the current daily spend not even getting anywhere near the £15 that we have set!

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@iceblue_uk  this part ^  might be due to recent changes in the way eBay does the budgeting for Priority ads. Previously, they did the "budget pacing" on a weekly basis. So if you had set a target of say £10/day, the total budget for the week would be £70 and eBay would use that budget dynamically - which means on some days they could go up to 2x the daily target (£20) and then other days they would spend less than £10 to even it out, with the stipulation that you wouldn't go over £70 for the week.

I thought so too... but the info button says this about the ebay suggested click budget of £126 per day....

'Your target daily budget is the average amount you're comfortable spending each day over the course of the calendar month. Monthly costs won't exceed 30.4 times this budget unless changed mid-month. Suggested budgets consider listing details and competition for optimal performance and cost.'

So my monthly costs won't exceed £3830.40 per month? errr ok great!    Hilarious.

[pal_version]

well into a month of not promoting anything now. it does seem we have been sold a lie somewhat as my sales have stayed the same (if not a little better). organic views and impressions have stayed the same. off site views have actually increase.

the only obvious change is promoted impressions and its becoming more and more obvious that impressions mean absolutely nothing.

the best thing about not having promoted listings is i have more confidence in the final sale fees now. as a seller that gives me more confidence to sell items cheaper and accept more offers than i used to.

[555njp]

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@triple512 wrote:

It takes a leap of faith but the best way to solve this is if everyone stops promoting. 
You can’t all be best placed, promoted or not 🙂

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I did a search just now for a collagen food supplement and immediately below the listing amongst others were the following ‘sponsored’ ads: A cement mixer, various DIY tools including power saws, screwdrivers etc. a desk lamp, other food supplements, a scaffold tower, some vehicle parts and toothpaste! Admittedly I have searched for some of those before, but not all.

If you promote in congested categories, eBay can only put a few on page one so they seem to slap the ads anywhere in the vague hope someone buying a food supplement happens (in this case) to also want a cement mixer!

I’m sure if you sell niche and search only pulls up say 50 results, promoting will get you towards the top (pointless though as buyers should find you anyway). However, if the same search reveals thousands of results then surely a lot of those promoted listing sellers will be disappointed as they’ll still be pages down the pile but will possibly appear on less relevant searches below the description? And even that can run to pages & pages depending on the product.

[jlovie]

"in the vague hope someone buying a food supplement happens (in this case) to also want a cement mixer!"

That strategy seems to work for Lidl & Aldi!

I agree promotions can be a lot less effective when selling niche items when there's little competition.

[pidgeun1]

Don't do social sharing if you are promoting. Its a complete waste. Sale will be classified as promoted and you will have to pay the ridiculous PL fees even though it was sold organically

[stephenjames_1234588]

Hi guys, its slightly off topic but im just wondering if i can ask if you all promote "all listings" or just use the "recommended" ones ebay state when using the general campaigns, 

im trying to figure out the best way forwards with this new change with the options being increase prices, suck it up and make even less, stop promoting and hope for the best.

But my first option is to go from instead of promoting everything at a set fixed rate just using eBay's recommendations and hope it doesn't have too much of an effect and drive down some of the promoted sales. Does anyone have any experience with trying this? 

Thank you

[nutrafituk]

Interesting fact: you stil get 'organic' sales registered as such when an order is placed. However, after 5-6 mins evry order gets updated and 'Sold via Promoted Listings' overides a standard transaction. 

[valueaddedresource]

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@nutrafituk wrote:

Interesting fact: you stil get 'organic' sales registered as such when an order is placed. However, after 5-6 mins evry order gets updated and 'Sold via Promoted Listings' overides a standard transaction. 

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@nutrafituk  that's been true for quite some time - Promoted Listings policy pages and reports have said for several years now that eBay may take up to 72 hours to reconcile attribution.

So that's not something specific to this change in attribution model, but you can definitely expect to see it happening more often now under the new policy.

[jlovie]

I just came here to post about this.

I'm getting promotion fees applied a day or two after the sale date on some orders.

[planet78]

My sales, even with PL turned on, have been fairly lacklustre recently, so I feel I have little to lose by pausing my campaign. I've just done it but I assume that any listings that have been clicked on in the last 30 days will still attract their fee if a sale is made?

[nutrafituk]

Correct. We are in a process of testing what it is like to close a listing and re-list it. in terms of placement. Obviously it is a shame to lose all the watchers and the purchase history but that does put it to an end when it comes to 30-day back-dating. When we do, no marketing is applied. Too early to make any judgement yet.

[tribalgiftsuk]

The new standard promotion guidance reads that an item has to still be promoted at the time of any sale to attract a fee within 30 days of the last promoted click.  So if the item is no longer promoted and it has sold it should not be classed as a promoted sale.

Im waiting to see if any of my recent sales change but all promos are offf now so according to the new change i should not be getting any promoted fees. Which is good as ive just had a returning customer buy something that was promoted up till the 23rd. 

My impressions are way down but my click through rate is up. Sales slow but i think thats a general trend at this time of year and with the current financial climate.

[ventexclutches]

I promote all my listings using both PLP and PLG. Upon looking at the campaign dashboard today it looks like my prediction was sadly correct.

Since the 24th June half of my sales (every sale linked to a PLP click) are being attributed to TWO campaign types (PLP & PLG), and as a result are attracting both ad fees.

[redspartantoys]

It's a little greedy for sure and just as a show of solidarity I've also cancelled all of our Promoted listings. Naturally I've delayed the action but I finally have justification to build a second retail channel (probably shopify store). 

As a business seller i offer free shipping, pay Final Value Fees, pay for a shop and compete against private sellers who pay no fees only to get kicked in the face. If you don't diversify ultimately it's like kicking yourself in the face.

Anyway thanks for sharing and great to see the community sharing it's feelings.