eBay

nutnutte · ‎10-02-2021

Has anybody tried the the new advanced promotions that you pay for each click no matter if buyer buys it or not like to know people's feedback thanks

coastaltechsolution · ‎10-02-2021

No I have not but for now I'm not wanting to pay for people clicking on my listings and now buy

If you want to try just budget you're advertising and prey that the clicks might end up in sales at some time

The PPC needs way much more time in the field to prove the price the paid

laststopgeneralstore · ‎10-02-2021

Yes, just got done testing to see what it would be like and it seems like a giant scam. I've spent $130 and didn't even get a single sale from the promoted advanced. I definitely will not be using it again. I know that seems like a lot to spend on it but I wanted to actually spend a decent amount to see if would actually work instead of very little. I would highly advise against spending money on it in my own opinion.

coastaltechsolution · ‎10-02-2021

@laststopgeneralstore

Thank you for you're input on this

my-cottage-books-and-antiques · ‎10-02-2021

Since this was announced, I've posted repeatedly (as have others): this tool, by ebay's own admission and simple analysis of the math, is not really for sellers of one off listings (especially lower dollar items). If you need further convincing to stay away from it (as a seller of one offs, as opposed to multi-quantity listings), go to the ebay Ads Academy which provides an online "course" in how to use this. It should become clear that the value in this tool is for those who either sell expensive one offs (and even then, I would hesitate to use it) or for sellers who sell new multi-quantity listings. Those sellers, especially those who take the time to develop a real strategy, can indeed benefit from this. But the seller of one offs (like myself) should not throw money away on it.

duncanvr · ‎10-02-2021

Its a tool to generate traffic not sales and can cost you a lot of money for no actual sales. Your paying for views and clicks on your ads. You may or may not get a sale you pay either way. And who is to say some bot doesn't click your ads multiple times just to rack up a huge bill? I don't see this a useful tool for average ebay sellers. Maybe for the bigger stores who have money to spend on the program. Stick to regular promoted listings.

my-cottage-books-and-antiques · ‎10-02-2021

@laststopgeneralstore I agree with your basic advice, at least for sellers like you and me, sellers of low to moderate priced one off listings: stay away from it. But a "giant scam"? Not at all. This is primarily designed for sellers of new, multi quantity listings, and those sellers CAN profit from it.

I have said repeatedly, ebay's invitation to use this should come with a disclaimer: that it really is NOT designed for sellers like us. I'm not saying ebay should prohibit us from trying it, because someone might figure out an effective strategy even though he's a seller of one offs. BUT...ebay really should discourage us.

I didn't experiment with this because I saw no need.

gjs_16 · ‎10-02-2021

@laststopgeneralstore wrote:
Yes, just got done testing to see what it would be like and it seems like a giant scam. I've spent $130 and didn't even get a single sale from the promoted advanced. I definitely will not be using it again. I know that seems like a lot to spend on it but I wanted to actually spend a decent amount to see if would actually work instead of very little. I would highly advise against spending money on it in my own opinion.

Very good, thank you for doing that, even thou I figured as much in terms of results I really appreciate this. Reminds me of the days of PPC search engines, great traffic so long the money flowed but the instant the funding was cut so was the traffic, I mean not even any residual!

gjs_16 · ‎10-02-2021

@duncanvr wrote:
Its a tool to generate traffic not sales and can cost you a lot of money for no actual sales. Your paying for views and clicks on your ads. You may or may not get a sale you pay either way. And who is to say some bot doesn't click your ads multiple times just to rack up a huge bill? I don't see this a useful tool for average ebay sellers. Maybe for the bigger stores who have money to spend on the program. Stick to regular promoted listings.

My fear is affiliate links, while not necessarily "bot" traffic per se but it's awful close.

Affiliates are not very discerning in how they send the traffic, if you get my drift, eaby gets paid per click, sellers pay per click, affiliates think they get paid per click (although in actuality they probably get shafted too and it's just eaby pocketing all the cha-ching! while the seller pays for it all).

duncanvr · ‎10-02-2021

Very true and one thing for sure is I won't use beta but I wonder how many sellers used it got no sales and lost a few hundred in ad fees. Many just don't understand that the program will not gauruntee sales. Its to increase store traffic and placement in the search results. I think we pay enough to ebay already and the traffic should be automatically generated without having to pay extra for it. Makes you wonder if they deliberately slow traffic down on sellers.

Anonymous · ‎10-02-2021

Unless you are a huge seller or company selling here, you should stay far, far away from it.

IT WILL EAT YOU ALIVE, for the hope of traffic, not sales.

It is absolutely not for smallish sellers.

It is for those who have marketing budgets to burn.

We're already hearing from small sellers who tried it out and it cost them hundreds for no return.

Still waiting to hear from sellers it completely obliterated.......coming soon to a thread near you.

my-cottage-books-and-antiques · ‎10-02-2021

The very first thing to understand is this does NOT provide multiple placements. PL Standard does that. PL Advanced provides ONE placement: the top slot on the search results page.

So, the first thing to ask yourself is: how important is the top slot placement to my business model?

I sell one offs, mostly long tail stuff, some of it very long tail. If a buyer uses a fairly narrow search term, my item will generally appear on the first page of search results, not because I'm such a wonderful seller, but because there just aren't that many of most of my items listed. And my buyers are likely to scroll through at least the first part of the search results page, because there are likely to be condition variations, etc in the listings. So, while it IS true that , statistically, overall, a large percentage of buyers will buy the first item on the search page, that statistic means little or nothing for my kind of stuff.

So, even if my PLA bids win and I get the top slot, I've simply bid on something I don't need. Top slot, slot # 5, slot #10....it just doesn't matter much. So, no, I'm not even going to experiment with this.

NOW....let's say I sell multi quantity new items, and I know this particular item is pretty popular, because I already have my sell through stats etc....my item IS the type of item buyers will buy if it is in the top slot...and I know my clicks convert well because I already have a sales history. Fine. NOW I have the sort of business model that can really benefit from winning the top slot. NOW it's worth experimenting, because the return on my ad investment might be very good indeed.

So, no, this isn't a scam, and yes, sellers can benefit from it. If they have the right business model. MY business model is NOT the right one for PLA, and so I can safely ignore it.

valueaddedresource · ‎10-03-2021

To add to what @my-cottage-books-and-antiques said - since PL Advanced only has one placement (top of search), that also means the only way someone can access your listing in a way that would cost you money for the click would be if they clicked on that specific top sponsored listing on the eBay search page itself.

@gjs_16 mentioned affiliate links, so I think it's very important to understand that not only does eBay not currently link to these cost per click ads externally, but anyone else linking to your listing externally as well would still not cost you anything for that click, even if you have opted that listing in to PLA.

If you simply share a link to a listing on your social media pages, or for example you're selling a popular collector item that gets shared in a Facebook group or on someone's blog etc - a regular link is not going to lead to the sponsored "promoted listings advanced" version of your listing.

Currently, the only link that will cost you money if someone clicks on it is if/when your PLA sponsored listing shows in the top spot of onsite eBay search results.

eBay could certainly decide to change that in the future and go more in the direction of what Etsy has done but I'm not going to speculate about it. If/when that happens there will definitely need to be a whole other discussion about affiliate and external links but for now at least, that's not part of the equation when evaluating eBay PLA.

sextons-sweet-deals · ‎10-03-2021

so wouldn't it just be logical on eBay's part to add "most viewed" under the drop down tab "best match"?

Great posts here! Just don't understand eBay's though process here!

rogers*records · ‎10-03-2021

No and don't plan to. I have no way of controlling costs with PPC. Especially when a significant number of the clicks are from other sellers checking pricing at garage sales, consignment shops, etc. We're told to write comprehensive titles that catch one's eye, do market research on listings, solds, etc. eBay is encouraging sellers to run up their costs. You have no control over what charges you may incur.

No -- not for me and I suggest other sellers to weigh the pluses and minuses -- and if you can post what pluses might offset the amount of clicks you might see on 2,000 items listed.