Promoted Listings-Yep! or Nope!

[woodsys]

New-ish seller here.  I've been experimenting with promoted listings.  I definitely have way more sales when I use PL. I'm not sure about the suggested eBay ad rates though.  Do you think these suggested rates are worth using? I sometimes use them.  My sales, however, are more frequent when I go quite a bit above the suggested rates.  Yes, I want to make more money, but being new again to eBay, I feel it may be more important to get the sales to establish myself in these early days.  Any advice is appreciated.  Thank you in advance!

[meekamaye]

I don't go above their suggested rate. That's just throwing money away as far as I am concerned, but it may work for your merchandise. It depends on what you are selling. 

I do you use PLs, but it depends on the season, the merchandise I list and how long I leave it promoted. You need to look at it as a marketing tool and use it accordingly. I sell a variety of things and often have to get a new listing out there so it is seen. However,  it doesn't stay there forever. Just long enough to catch a few people that get curious. But, again, I never go over their suggested rate. That is high enough for me and many times I lower it. 

[chris13]

If you sell multi-quantity new retail merchandise, maybe. If you sell odds and ends, 'nope'.

[pereirahawk]

I've went away from promoted listings for many reasons.  I'm working on raising my sales conversion rate organically, which is hovering around 1.8 to 2.0%.  

When I promote, my conversion rate usually drops 1 point, which hurts my organic placement.  

[2013grotz]

Personally, I just pick a percentage I'm comfortable with and use it on everything, that way I can plan and control what's going to happen.  That said, on the choice of doing it or not, I can look in my sales record and see way too many PL impressions -> sales for me to think it's not helping me on some level.

Basically put, it's just doing what you're comfortable with and finding out what works well for you.  There's people like me that run 50% or more PL sales and others that claim sales here that never use it.  Just depends.