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Pay per click on Ebay is a terrible idea for sellers. Many sellers especially new sellers are gullible enough to believe that pay per click is a magic wand that will translate into sales. They don't.
What's stopping a buyer from clicking on your item and clicking on another seller's sponsored items in your listing and buying that instead?
Pay per click is most effective when you have your own e commerce website where you can 100% control the buyer shopping experience, from the moment they see your ad on another site to the moment they pay. You can't do that on Ebay.
You hit the nail squarely on the head. Promoted listings and promoted offsite ads are a terrible idea for sellers to use! As a seller you are basically paying ebay extra to bring traffic-NOT TO YOUR LISTING... but to ebay in general because as soon as someone clicks through from offsite- ebay floods your listing page with other people's promoted listings. You are being a patsy when you fall for this trick.
Part of ebays value or obligation to sellers in exchange for their fees is to bring traffic to our listings.... now they are tricking sellers into paying this obligation. Its double dipping!
And if you are paying 17 cents per click- please understand that ebay is paying google 13 cents for that same click and keeping the other 4 cents. (example- nobody really knows what the real split is because there is never any transparency with ebay- that is how you know you are being manipulated and ripped off.
Plus- as brought up before- if you use offsite promoted ads- that negates your listings from showing up in the regular spots on google.
I know a seller that tried this a couple months ago and saw fees after fees for clicks and saw very little if any boost in sale and worse yet had no idea what the fees were for or what sales they were tied to so there was no way to justify if the ads worked. Its a complete scam to separate sellers from their money
If a seller is (like me) a single quantity listing seller, ANY Pay Per Click system is a hard no.
That goes for this, and it goes for Promoted Listings Advanced.
There may be some exceptions, but the average single quantity seller should not even think about this.
And this, in particular, is an incredibly opaque system.
Now, that doesn't mean a multi quantity listing seller with some real business savvy can't come out ahead here. but it does MEAN no one should consider this unless they take the time to fully understand how this works. For exampe, seller does not decide the cost per click, ebay does. And it is dynamic, today it might be five cents, tomorrow it might be ten cents, the following day it might be eight cents. And it is entirely possible that each day, Google is seeing 3 cents of that, and the rest goes to ebay. We won't know, and we aren't told. "You will be charged for clicks on your ads based on your target budget." Which is to say, as far as I can tell, no matter what, we will be sure to spend your full daily budget.
Now, ebay recommends you run a "Continuous campaign" (non-ending). But note that if you do:
"When you choose to run a continuous campaign, eBay will calculate your total monthly budget as (30.4)*(average daily budget). Over the course of your campaign, you will not be charged more than this total budget per calendar month. However, as marketplace demand fluctuates, eBay may spend more or less than your average daily budget to capitalize on interested buyers when the demand is there on a per day basis.
For example, if your average daily budget is $10 for a continuous campaign, you won’t be charged more than $304 per calendar month. On a daily basis, though, you may be charged up to $20 or as low as $0, but the average over the course of your campaign will not exceed $10 per day.
If you end a campaign prematurely, you may be charged up to 2x your average daily budget on a daily basis. This is because the campaign may not have had the chance to average out the budget over time."
In other words, that daily budget of, say, $10 doesn't mean ebay can only spend $10...ebay can double that, as long as in you aren't charged more than the max determined on a monthly (well, 30.4 basis). So, when you set the daily budget, it's more like setting a 30.4 days budget.
Will this be worth it? Well, as always with ads, it's a question of ROI. If you set a $10/day budget on a continuous cycle, you can be certain that by the end of 30.4 days, you will have spent $304.00 Obviously, if your sales have grown by, say, $10,000, that's money well spent. If they've gown by , say, $350.00, that's not money well spent.
And remember, every click takes the buyer to your listing, but since your listing shows the buyer , what, 50 to 100 other listings, you are effectively paying to advertise ebay generally and your competitors specifically.
Again, I don't doubt that there are some sellers who can make this work and who will be very happy to have this option. But judging by many posts I've seen here, of sellers who don't take the time to read the rules, etc and just jump in to things...these are dangerous waters for those who do not fully inform themselves of how this works.
Is it worth offsite ads on eBay? Can we increase sales? I need an answer.. thanks
LoL. You want a general, one-size-fits-all all answer?
A free answer?
OK, here it is: No.
But, it does depend: What do you sell? What is your average sales price? How much do you spend on promotion now? How successful is it? Have you tested sales before promotion, and after? If so, what were the results? If you didn't ... why not?
What is your sell-thru rate? What was your gross income last year? What is your current advertising budget? How much are you willing to increase your advertising budget? What are your goals?
Answer all those questions with a great deal of specificity ... send $1000 to me in bank check or money order and I will do a full analysis and feasibility study with recommendations.
I'll have it back to you within 30 days of submission.
I think you guys have it wrong. eBay was paying for ad placement in Google results if your item matched up for a query. I believe they can't afford to do that anymore and now they are asking us to pay for it. Do you ever recall your ebay listing showing at the top of the google results? Well I do, and it's been quite some time now, maybe up to a year since that has happened. It's nothing new, just eBay getting even more cheap on us.
So eBay is pushing out all of these "new" ways to narrow seller's profit margins while enlarging theirs with no communication or clarity. They just silently twist and tweak everything with the site. It's really getting tiresome. I feel my listings should have to be manicured on daily or weekly basis.
So offsite ads will not be part of promoted listings standard? eBay will need to create a restaurant style menu for me with all of their offerings of how I incur fees. Won't be long until they start charging a penny for every keystroke on their website.
I believe this is part of the Promoted Listings Advanced (CPC - cost per click) ads eBay has been talking about, it's not the regular PL (standard). Etsy has had a similar program for some time, only there they force you into it if you gross over 10K a year.
What the regular promoted listings standard is getting is the halo charges, which they tried to spin as some kind of benefit to us but they couldn't really, because there is no benefit above the regular PLS.
I believe this is part of the Promoted Listings Advanced (CPC - cost per click) ads eBay has been talking about, it's not the regular PL (standard). Etsy has had a similar program for some time, only there they force you into it if you gross over 10K a year.
What the regular promoted listings standard is getting is the halo charges, which they tried to spin as some kind of benefit to us but they couldn't really, because there is no benefit above the regular PLS.
This is separate. I posted about this a long while back (prob at least 6-12 months by now?) when it showed up on our sellers hub temporarily.
Long story short, you can opt in to paying them to promote 3rd party off of eBay. BUT (at least last that I saw unless they changed anything) if you do this, PLS will NO LONGER promote you on Google/etc with PLS. So it basically makes PLS less valuable if you pay for these 3rd party ads.
And at the time, you had NO CONTROL of how your ads were used - even though Googles statistics are top tier and far better than eBay's. Basically you have to trust giving them your money and hope for the best.
I believe this is part of the Promoted Listings Advanced (CPC - cost per click) ads eBay has been talking about, it's not the regular PL (standard). Etsy has had a similar program for some time, only there they force you into it if you gross over 10K a year.
What the regular promoted listings standard is getting is the halo charges, which they tried to spin as some kind of benefit to us but they couldn't really, because there is no benefit above the regular PLS.
This is separate. I posted about this a long while back (prob at least 6-12 months by now?) when it showed up on our sellers hub temporarily.
Long story short, you can opt in to paying them to promote 3rd party off of eBay. BUT (at least last that I saw unless they changed anything) if you do this, PLS will NO LONGER promote you on Google/etc with PLS. So it basically makes PLS less valuable if you pay for these 3rd party ads.
And at the time, you had NO CONTROL of how your ads were used - even though Googles statistics are top tier and far better than eBay's. Basically you have to trust giving them your money and hope for the best.
Yes, that's what I recall. It's not part of the standard promoted listings but part of the advanced PPC, and the way it's similar to Etsy is the lack of control for third party dissemination.
I believe this is part of the Promoted Listings Advanced (CPC - cost per click) ads eBay has been talking about, it's not the regular PL (standard). Etsy has had a similar program for some time, only there they force you into it if you gross over 10K a year.
What the regular promoted listings standard is getting is the halo charges, which they tried to spin as some kind of benefit to us but they couldn't really, because there is no benefit above the regular PLS.
This is separate. I posted about this a long while back (prob at least 6-12 months by now?) when it showed up on our sellers hub temporarily.
Long story short, you can opt in to paying them to promote 3rd party off of eBay. BUT (at least last that I saw unless they changed anything) if you do this, PLS will NO LONGER promote you on Google/etc with PLS. So it basically makes PLS less valuable if you pay for these 3rd party ads.
And at the time, you had NO CONTROL of how your ads were used - even though Googles statistics are top tier and far better than eBay's. Basically you have to trust giving them your money and hope for the best.
Yes, that's what I recall. It's not part of the standard promoted listings but part of the advanced PPC, and the way it's similar to Etsy is the lack of control for third party dissemination.
@chapeau-noir just to clarify, the Offsite Ads program is a pay per click model, but it's technically a separate ad product from Promoted Listings Advanced with its own separate process for creating campaigns and monitoring performance.
It's honestly sickening. Guess that's my reward for 26 years of selling and making them thousands & thousands of dollars. Guess they want it all now! Also first time in 26 years I had to claim a loss. It was amazing when I broke it all down and saw how much they took! Can someone please make a new, let's call it, fairbay! Our slogan, where sellers are appreciated and not depreciated!
The reason sales are down is because ebay reduced or stopped paying for some google ads. They want their sellers to pay for their google ads via "Offsite Ads" In the past your monthly or yearly store charges and the selling fees paid the google ads.
So you now have to pay for promoted listings or your items may not be seen. Promotions are 10-15% and that keeps going up. So promoted listings plus your selling fees you are pay comes to 20-25% of a sales item. This new Offsite Ads is another money-making idea to squeeze more out of their sellers. They think we are all stupid and can't see through the smoke screen and see the big picture.
kh-vince
·1 year agoHi everyone,
Due to the age of this thread, it has been closed to further replies. Please feel free to start a new thread if you wish to continue to discuss this topic.
Thank you for understanding.
getting.it.sold
·2 years agoYup! And you're just going to be paying for clicks when other sellers click on a link to figure out use and pricing information. RIP OFF
simba6
·2 years agoThat 0.17 per click. Think about that the next time your cat is slapping the mouse around on your desk for attention.
kenneth686321
·2 years agoPay per click on Ebay is a terrible idea for sellers. Many sellers especially new sellers are gullible enough to believe that pay per click is a magic wand that will translate into sales. They don't.
What's stopping a buyer from clicking on your item and clicking on another seller's sponsored items in your listing and buying that instead?
Pay per click is most effective when you have your own e commerce website where you can 100% control the buyer shopping experience, from the moment they see your ad on another site to the moment they pay. You can't do that on Ebay.
siamjane8
·2 years ago@kenneth686321
You hit the nail squarely on the head. Promoted listings and promoted offsite ads are a terrible idea for sellers to use! As a seller you are basically paying ebay extra to bring traffic-NOT TO YOUR LISTING... but to ebay in general because as soon as someone clicks through from offsite- ebay floods your listing page with other people's promoted listings. You are being a patsy when you fall for this trick.
Part of ebays value or obligation to sellers in exchange for their fees is to bring traffic to our listings.... now they are tricking sellers into paying this obligation. Its double dipping!
And if you are paying 17 cents per click- please understand that ebay is paying google 13 cents for that same click and keeping the other 4 cents. (example- nobody really knows what the real split is because there is never any transparency with ebay- that is how you know you are being manipulated and ripped off.
Plus- as brought up before- if you use offsite promoted ads- that negates your listings from showing up in the regular spots on google.
I know a seller that tried this a couple months ago and saw fees after fees for clicks and saw very little if any boost in sale and worse yet had no idea what the fees were for or what sales they were tied to so there was no way to justify if the ads worked. Its a complete scam to separate sellers from their money
my-cottage-books-and-antiques
·2 years ago@siamjane8
Rule of thumb:
If a seller is (like me) a single quantity listing seller, ANY Pay Per Click system is a hard no.
That goes for this, and it goes for Promoted Listings Advanced.
There may be some exceptions, but the average single quantity seller should not even think about this.
And this, in particular, is an incredibly opaque system.
Now, that doesn't mean a multi quantity listing seller with some real business savvy can't come out ahead here. but it does MEAN no one should consider this unless they take the time to fully understand how this works. For exampe, seller does not decide the cost per click, ebay does. And it is dynamic, today it might be five cents, tomorrow it might be ten cents, the following day it might be eight cents. And it is entirely possible that each day, Google is seeing 3 cents of that, and the rest goes to ebay. We won't know, and we aren't told. "You will be charged for clicks on your ads based on your target budget." Which is to say, as far as I can tell, no matter what, we will be sure to spend your full daily budget.
Now, ebay recommends you run a "Continuous campaign" (non-ending). But note that if you do:
"When you choose to run a continuous campaign, eBay will calculate your total monthly budget as (30.4)*(average daily budget). Over the course of your campaign, you will not be charged more than this total budget per calendar month. However, as marketplace demand fluctuates, eBay may spend more or less than your average daily budget to capitalize on interested buyers when the demand is there on a per day basis.
For example, if your average daily budget is $10 for a continuous campaign, you won’t be charged more than $304 per calendar month. On a daily basis, though, you may be charged up to $20 or as low as $0, but the average over the course of your campaign will not exceed $10 per day.
If you end a campaign prematurely, you may be charged up to 2x your average daily budget on a daily basis. This is because the campaign may not have had the chance to average out the budget over time."
In other words, that daily budget of, say, $10 doesn't mean ebay can only spend $10...ebay can double that, as long as in you aren't charged more than the max determined on a monthly (well, 30.4 basis). So, when you set the daily budget, it's more like setting a 30.4 days budget.
Will this be worth it? Well, as always with ads, it's a question of ROI. If you set a $10/day budget on a continuous cycle, you can be certain that by the end of 30.4 days, you will have spent $304.00 Obviously, if your sales have grown by, say, $10,000, that's money well spent. If they've gown by , say, $350.00, that's not money well spent.
And remember, every click takes the buyer to your listing, but since your listing shows the buyer , what, 50 to 100 other listings, you are effectively paying to advertise ebay generally and your competitors specifically.
Again, I don't doubt that there are some sellers who can make this work and who will be very happy to have this option. But judging by many posts I've seen here, of sellers who don't take the time to read the rules, etc and just jump in to things...these are dangerous waters for those who do not fully inform themselves of how this works.
sunwave_shop
·2 years agoIs it worth offsite ads on eBay? Can we increase sales? I need an answer.. thanks
chariot_badges
·2 years agoLoL. You want a general, one-size-fits-all all answer?
A free answer?
OK, here it is: No.
But, it does depend: What do you sell? What is your average sales price? How much do you spend on promotion now? How successful is it? Have you tested sales before promotion, and after? If so, what were the results? If you didn't ... why not?
What is your sell-thru rate? What was your gross income last year? What is your current advertising budget? How much are you willing to increase your advertising budget? What are your goals?
Answer all those questions with a great deal of specificity ... send $1000 to me in bank check or money order and I will do a full analysis and feasibility study with recommendations.
I'll have it back to you within 30 days of submission.
dbfolks166mt
·2 years agoOnly if you choose to do so.
unequivocalfruition
·2 years agoI think you guys have it wrong. eBay was paying for ad placement in Google results if your item matched up for a query. I believe they can't afford to do that anymore and now they are asking us to pay for it. Do you ever recall your ebay listing showing at the top of the google results? Well I do, and it's been quite some time now, maybe up to a year since that has happened. It's nothing new, just eBay getting even more cheap on us.
the-hook-and-the-loop
OP3 years agoSo eBay is pushing out all of these "new" ways to narrow seller's profit margins while enlarging theirs with no communication or clarity. They just silently twist and tweak everything with the site. It's really getting tiresome. I feel my listings should have to be manicured on daily or weekly basis.
chapeau-noir
·3 years agoThey sent a message out a month ago with information, and that this would be implemented on March 30.
the-hook-and-the-loop
OP3 years agoSo offsite ads will not be part of promoted listings standard? eBay will need to create a restaurant style menu for me with all of their offerings of how I incur fees. Won't be long until they start charging a penny for every keystroke on their website.
chapeau-noir
·3 years agoI believe this is part of the Promoted Listings Advanced (CPC - cost per click) ads eBay has been talking about, it's not the regular PL (standard). Etsy has had a similar program for some time, only there they force you into it if you gross over 10K a year.
What the regular promoted listings standard is getting is the halo charges, which they tried to spin as some kind of benefit to us but they couldn't really, because there is no benefit above the regular PLS.
zamo-zuan
·3 years agoThis is separate. I posted about this a long while back (prob at least 6-12 months by now?) when it showed up on our sellers hub temporarily.
Long story short, you can opt in to paying them to promote 3rd party off of eBay. BUT (at least last that I saw unless they changed anything) if you do this, PLS will NO LONGER promote you on Google/etc with PLS. So it basically makes PLS less valuable if you pay for these 3rd party ads.
And at the time, you had NO CONTROL of how your ads were used - even though Googles statistics are top tier and far better than eBay's. Basically you have to trust giving them your money and hope for the best.
Found my old post on it: https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/We-had-to-start-testing-Promoted-Listing-Advanced-Now-eBay-wants/td-p/33107202
chapeau-noir
·3 years agoYes, that's what I recall. It's not part of the standard promoted listings but part of the advanced PPC, and the way it's similar to Etsy is the lack of control for third party dissemination.
valueaddedresource
·3 years ago@chapeau-noir just to clarify, the Offsite Ads program is a pay per click model, but it's technically a separate ad product from Promoted Listings Advanced with its own separate process for creating campaigns and monitoring performance.
chapeau-noir
·3 years ago@valueaddedresource OK, thanks - I guess I see it as part of the same campaign style (i.e., PPC) but yes, it's a different actual product.
vintage_attic_treasures92
·1 year agoSo, yeah, eBay will take about 45% of your sales if you use all the ______ now! Just bend me over now. I'd buy some loob, but can't afford it anymore.
 
vintage_attic_treasures92
·1 year agoIt's honestly sickening. Guess that's my reward for 26 years of selling and making them thousands & thousands of dollars. Guess they want it all now! Also first time in 26 years I had to claim a loss. It was amazing when I broke it all down and saw how much they took! Can someone please make a new, let's call it, fairbay! Our slogan, where sellers are appreciated and not depreciated!
brazztazz
·2 years agoThe reason sales are down is because ebay reduced or stopped paying for some google ads. They want their sellers to pay for their google ads via "Offsite Ads" In the past your monthly or yearly store charges and the selling fees paid the google ads.
So you now have to pay for promoted listings or your items may not be seen. Promotions are 10-15% and that keeps going up. So promoted listings plus your selling fees you are pay comes to 20-25% of a sales item. This new Offsite Ads is another money-making idea to squeeze more out of their sellers. They think we are all stupid and can't see through the smoke screen and see the big picture.
unequivocalfruition
·2 years agoyeah, exactly.
mike_jayroe
·2 years agoPlease do not give e-bay any ideas.