New Changes to Promoted Listings programme - June 2025 - What a scam!

[westminster_dental_supplies]

Anyone else seen this? Just received an email detailing their promotion changes from June.

So basically, if you promote an item as a seller, regardless of whether the buyer is a lead acquired through the promotion, you will be charged the advertising fee, because someone else clicked on it within the last 30 days.

What a scam!!

Ebay squeezing yet more out of sellers.

As a user of eBay Advertising, we want to make you aware of an update to general strategy campaigns on ebay.co.uk, ebay.fr, ebay.it, ebay.es and ebay.com.au. Starting from 24 June, items promoted with a general strategy will use the following attribution definition when reporting sales and charging ad fees:

An attributed sale will be when any buyer purchases the promoted item within 30 days of any click on the ad, regardless of whether the buyer themselves clicked on the ad. The item must be promoted at the time of click and the time of sale. The seller will be charged the ad rate at the time of sale. Learn more

You’ll still only pay when your items sell, so this will remain the same. As always, we recommend monitoring your performance and adjusting your strategy accordingly.

[sandyt2123]

Thanks for that explanation. I think I understand what you're saying. It just seems to be making things over complicated and very difficult to understand as an ordinary person who isn't trying to pull the wool over anybody in this marketplace.  I agree that it can't be justified 

[sandyt2123]

Thanks - there seem to be too many things in our world today which have got "lost in translation" !!

[jonatjonatjonat]

Given they trialled this in Germany it appears the justification is ‘can’t believe they fell for it! Let’s roll it out to everyone else!’

I agreed with BPF in principle as a means of charging fees because I understood what it was (just a replacement for seller fees for eBay to make their cut on the sale)

simple delivery is OK ish but expensive but at least it’s tangible

this is literally eBay charging something for nothing.

[iceblue_uk]

With standard (general) ad campaigns, in search results Ebay displays EITHER the promoted listing which attracts the ad fee per sale, OR the organic listing which attracts no ad fee. It is one listing but there are 2 versions. What percentage of buyers see the organic listing is decided by ebay (or their algorithm), which also means that ebay can change how much you pay in fees for advertising that item by simply altering their algorithm to change the ratio of promoted vs organic listings shown to buyers. This we have seen over the years as the ratio has gradually increased in ebay's favour so that now, on average, less than 33% of sales come from our organic listings compared to over 50% when it started. This type of promotion was originally meant to give a boost to sales in exchange for higher fees on those sales, but it has never worked that way. For instance, if you normally sold say 100pcs of an item each week, promoting it may increase those sales to 125pcs, but instead of having 100 organic sales and 25 ad fee sales we would have maybe 75 organic and 45 ad fee sales, making the overall ad spend higher. So this setup was always biased in ebay's favour. Then they opened up the maximum ad percentage you could apply from 20% to 100%. For what reason??? Who in their right mind would give ebay the normal sale fee and then 50% to 100% of the sell price on top of that? It was obvious to me at the time that this would result in a bidding war between sellers and also a perfect opportunity for bigger companies to loss-lead by hogging the top of search with ridiculously high loss-leading ad fees, thereby pushing out smaller sellers who could not afford to do that, then dominating with higher prices.  Awesome for ebay's profits I'm sure, but this really hurt ebay consumers by driving up prices unnecessarily to the point where an item that once cost £5 now costs £10 only 2-3 years later, even though the supplier price has not changed.

Now, on top of all that, ebay expects us to accept an ad fee on sales that come direct from our ebay shop, which we already pay for, despite doing absolutely no additional work to bring that sale to us?? I don't think so.review

[the-nutwood-collection]

Thank you @iceblue_uk and @vinylscot for the explanation.  I had no idea that PL could be evaded.

Back in 2020, I used PL.  I had four listings, 5g, 10g, 20g, 50g that worked better when they were close on the search screen.  The 50g tended to drift away, so I would promote it.  At that time, the promoted listing was a duplicate of the original listing, and each instance carried the same view count.  The extra traffic generated from PL version would cause the non-PL listing to rise and, when it was back with its fellows, I would cancel the promotion, and the 50g listing would slowly sink down the list - and eventually I'd repeat the promotion.  The rates were low, around 3%, and it was a cost-effective way of bunching the listings.

Then I got an eBay email to say that, in line with their no duplicates policy, in future only the promoted listing would be shown.  I don't remember it saying anything about the listing switching between PL and organic.  eBay started pushing PL, recommending listings to be promoted (all of them) and offering one-click setup.  A blizzard of PL emails.  The rates increased and, when I stopped the promotion, the 50g listing immediately sank several pages - no gradual decline as before.  It was obvious that I was being punished for depriving eBay of revenue.

I could see what eBay was up to - search visibility would only be available to sellers that promoted which, in my case had risen to 13.5%.  That would mean that, with the VAT, 30% of each sale would go to eBay.

Nice try eBay, but wrong guy.  I shut the shop, reduced the listings, built a website and educated myself on Google Ad Words.

So ... you can see why I was confused by these posts.  My understanding of PL was ahead of the game by a couple of years.  The day has now finally arrived when all PL sales will generate extra fees to eBay. 

Jacqueline, the oracle.  I'll gaze into my crystal ball and let y'all know what changes I see coming in the future.   

[pauuk.35za36]

The other issue is what counts as a view? A view from an actual person logged into their Ebay account or any random bot searching the web for possible Vero hits... I find that promoted items are more likely to get hit with them.

[the_book_seekers]

The other issue is what counts as a view? - Now it is anything that makes ebay money.

[housingtreasures]

I’ve just started using it more and at a slightly higher percentage but I’ll be bung back through the current 2,000 listing I have and will be removing the promotion 

it’s a joke that they can charge so much and pay per click, I’ve never had a sale so won’t be using that. I’ve just come back from a car boot and sold more there than I have this whole week on eBay!

[housingtreasures]

I’ll be taking all my promotions off of my store. My sales have been so bad since Feb and barely able to afford my fees. I’ve reduced the shop front now and now the promotions will be going.

Ive just sold more at the car boot today than I have on my eBay, I will be looking to reduce my stock and then closing down my store. There’s hardly any profit in it anymore

[tackle3d]

This change is ridiculous and damn right out of order. Why should eBay take a cut from a sale that was not supported through a click on a promoted listing? Soon it will be any add any item... Item Z was clicked so you give us a cut of Item A's Sale!

Just because Bob clicked my AD does not mean Cecil who did not should cost me and line the pocket of eBay. I am all for paying if the buyer has clicked my ad but not if they have not. This is laughable! 

I am really hoping that the office intern was asked to write this email and he made a mistake....

[wakeson]

I run a website as well as eBay, i have 2 shops on eBay and noticed a large different with the PPC promoted listings.

Keyword one bid ranges = Google (0.50 - 1.20) Ebay Shop one (1.50 -2.00) Ebay shop 2 (2.20 -3.00)

So not only are they scamming on the promoted listing advanced, but also the keywords are much larger, so there making extra profit off the top of every keyword you use.

my advice is find correlating keywords, it cost money at first but its a cheaper PPC.

example 

Leather boots might be 0.50-1.00, but brown leather boots in phrase match might be 0.20-0.50 so a cheaper PPC, use a keyword research tool to locate these keywords and run a test, start bidding low and check the impressions against the clicks and the average price paid per click.

you will see some keywords bidding at 0.80 -1.50, but a bid of 0.60 might get good impressions and click values of 0.20.

but also monitor these keywords as i got stung last week when my daily profit was £200 and the ppc campaign took £168.

just some advice that eBay wont tell you.

but on the note of the discussions, i am lost as to what eBay are thinking as its becoming increasing untenable to sell on eBay, i manufacture my products and i have high margins, so how some people make money on here is beyond me, as i am struggling to make decent profits, i get good sales but with increasingly high fees.

on a plus not my website is improving all the time, cost a fortune for all the seo etc but its staring to pay off.

[national-deal]

The listing is the listing, you are correct but there are organic placements (or, there was) where buyers could come across the listing naturally outwith the paid for on site slots. This change is effectively ensuring that any sale is a paid sale if the item is in a PLP campaign. 

Likely means I will focus on just using PLP for slow sellers only, PLP for revenue drivers.