New Ad Attribution Rule Launches Today Jan 13th
The new attribution rule for ebay General Ad Campaigns launches today (first announced back in October). As of this posting , I see no formal Announcement on the Announcement Board reminding sellers about the change. However, as of today, ebay has changed the text of the Attribution info page, eliminating all reference to direct and halo attribution for General Ad Campaigns. The text now reads:
https://pages.ebay.com/sell/pl/attribution.html
"eBay will report an Attributed sale from a general campaign when a buyer purchases the same item that was featured in the ad that was clicked on by any buyer in the most recent 30 days.
The ad fee is charged when a buyer purchases the promoted item from a general ad that any buyer clicked on in the most recent 30 days. The item must be promoted at the time of click and the time of sale. The ad fee is based on the ad rate in effect at the time of the sale."
luv2dsign1964
·8 months agoHas anyone else noticed that Ebay has taken the 'sell similar' link off of active listings in the line-up when doing a search, but it remains where it used to be in the sold listings line-up? In order to access the 'sell similar' link on an active listings you now have to click on the active listing and find the button under the photos so that it counts as a 'view' for promoted listings fee charge. Ebay has caught on that some sellers will search for comps in active listings and click 'sell similar' to start their own listing, so they want to capitalize on your clicks. How petty. If you continue to pay for promoted listings now, you can guarantee that you will pay the promoted listing fee every time, for every promoted item.
valueaddedresource
·8 months ago@jasoheat_0 just to be clear Halo attribution no longer exists for Promoted Listings General ads.
Previously, sales could be attributed as Direct or Halo - but that model ended when the new model went into effect on January 13th.
As far as examples of how it has been going in other markets who have had it for over a month, check out the link I posted to the UK forum in my previous post - there are over 600 posts in that thread alone and there are other threads on that forum as well, all you have to do is search.
That being said, every seller I've spoken to or seen post in forums or across social media who have continued to use PL General after the change with same rates/amount of listings promoted as they had before they change has generally reported that they have seen a massive increase in the number of sales incurring ad fees with little to no increase in sales.
jasoheat_0
·8 months agoSO NO NA MORE SALES like the Ai statement i added , is that correct ? THATS THE REAL POINT CORRECT
my-cottage-books-and-antiques
OP8 months agoThe result , based on available anecdotal evidence, has been no real increase in a seller's overall sales volume, but a definite increase in the number of transactions that are hit with ad fees.
I would say that result is predictable. There were two changes announced.
The new rule for Priority Ads restricts the very top spot on the search page to Priority Ads, meaning that even if a seller chooses a very high rate for a General Ad, he will NEVER get his item into the top slot...which doesn't mean much to me, as a one-off seller, but is a big deal for multi quantity listing sellers. So, that change is likely to reduce sales for some sellers using General Ad campaigns.
The new attribution rule for General Ads does absolutely NOTHING to increase SALES. It adds no new features, no new ad placements, etc. All it does is dramatically increase the likelihood that ANY sale made while the item is in a General Ad campaign will be hit with an ad fee. ebay basically acknowledged this in their original announcement.
And this change will also result in at least some sellers, those unaware of the rule change, or who don't understand the consequences, looking at their Ad graphs and mistakenly thinking that ebay has actually improved ad campaigns, because suddenly they are seeing a higher percentage of their promoted items actually selling. And those sellers may decide not to end their campaigns because they will fear a steep drop in sales. I'm pretty sure ebay is not going to go out of its way to add a note on the graphs , like, "We have changed the rule governing whether we charge you an ad fee or not, and many, maybe most of these sales , are being charged a fee even though the ad had nothing to do with producing the sale. Our stockholders thank you!"
jasoheat_0
·8 months agohas anyone heard or read from someone in europe who has been in this new Halo for month , have they stated its created anymore sale ? or are sales the same and fees are higher due to the new Halo ( of course that's ad fee ) , it wouldn't bother me so much if we got something out of it ,if it helped sales , heres what Ai states
bbcardzman
·8 months agoI wonder if there is some way of protecting people from someone just clicking on all your listings every month so you always pay a fee on everything? And how do you know if eBay is really telling the truth about someone clicking on your listing? I don't promote but it was just a thought
my-cottage-books-and-antiques
OP8 months ago@bbcardzman And how do you know if eBay is really telling the truth about someone clicking on your listing?
You don't.
I wonder if there is some way of protecting people from someone just clicking on all your listings every month so you always pay a fee on everything?
ebay has claimed they have systems in place to police this sort of activity. Again, you can believe that or not, and , if you do believe it, you might still question just how effective these systems are.
rugerskick
·8 months agoThere is no way.
If ebay CS pulls up an item to review, its been viewed.
If someone researching items pulls it up, its been viewed.
If someone hires a person to view the listings, its been viewed.
If a competitor or malicious actor wants to make sure you pay more, they can do it.
my-cottage-books-and-antiques
OP8 months agoOne thing I am wondering---will we see fewer "sponsored" listings in search results and maybe even on listing pages, etc?
Since ebay doesn't provide clear terminology, here's mine:
Not in an ad campaign:
Organic listings: listings that are NOT currently in an ad campaign.
The two types of listings in a General Promoted Listing Ad Campaign.
Whenever you put a listing into an ad campaign, ebay can CHOOSE to show that listing as one or the other of these:
Sponsored Listings: Listings that are in a General Promoted Listing Ad Campaign and are shown to the buyer as "sponsored" to clearly identify them as ads.
Non-Sponsored Listings: Listings that are in a General Promoted Listing Ad Campaign but are NOT shown to the buyers as "sponsored". These are identical to Organic Listings from the buyer's view. ebay refers to these as organic listings, creating endless confusion, which is why I prefer to distinguish them from true organic listings by calling them "non-sponsored listings"
So, under the new rule , it is obvious that if a buyer clicks on a SPONSORED listing and buys it, the seller will pay an ad fee.
But also under the new rule, if ANYONE clicks on the SPONSORED listing and does NOT buy it, that click covers ANY purchase of that listing made by ANYONE within the next 30 days, even if the ultimate buyer purchases it from a NON-SPONSORED listing.
Remember that, to the buyer, a true organic listing looks exactly like a non-sponsored listing. The difference is, purchasing the true organic listing results in no ad fee for the seller, but purchasing the non-sponsored listing can (and probably will) result in an ad fee.
So, ebay has made it very easy to collect a fee from listings that LOOK like true organic listings, but are , in fact, non-sponsored listings.
This means, ebay can now---with this new rule---REDUCE the number of times they SHOW your ad listing as "sponsored" and they can still collect fees on most of the sales made from Non-Sponsored listings. Once that first click has been made, ebay could theoretically show your item as non-sponsored for up to 30 days and still collect an ad fee.
So, if over the next few months, people start saying: "Hey, I think ebay has finally started cutting back on all these promoted listings---they are showing a lot more organic listings now....."
Nah, probably not. They are just showing a lot more non-sponsored promoted listings, which LOOK like organic listings.
(Yes, I know all this can be confusing. I suspect that is deliberate on ebay's part.)
Anyway, I'll be watching the overall "sponsored listing" situation over the next few months...
lakefor94
·8 months ago@my-cottage-books-and-antiques
I liked your definitions and explanations concerning Non-Sponsered Listings and Organic listings.
Took a minute for full grasp on my part;) Makes sense.
my-cottage-books-and-antiques
OP8 months ago@lakefor94 Thanks. I really wish ebay would make the effort to provide clear terminology, but they never have, so I see no reason to think they'll start now.
lakefor94
·8 months ago@my-cottage-books-and-antiques
I have been on the bench eating those hotdogs since the end of the year as planned while ebay kicks off the new PL's.
Still kickin' around the idea of promoting the~700 single quantity listings.
Please let us know when you start seeing results from sellers here or overseas.
Would like to know, of course, how much their PL inflicted percentage of sales increased with the new scheme.
And who knows, I might get a wild hair a start one.....
valueaddedresource
·8 months ago@lakefor94 there have been several threads in the UK and Germany communities about this where sellers shared their experiences, though curiously I noticed a lot of them have now been archived and are no longer publicly viewable. 🤔
Here's are a couple that are still accessible:
New attribution model went live in the UK June 24th.
https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Chat-with-the-eBay-Community/Weekly-Chat-with-the-eBay-Community-Team-09-07-25-2pm/m-p/7888064#M5659
And this thread has a few examples too:
https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Business-Seller-Board/Promoted-Listings-Changes-You-Must-Be-Joking-eBay/m-p/7878033#M335218
The new model went into effect February 26 in Germany and here's a screenshot I had saved from one of the now archived threads showing how the first week went for one seller:
I expect we'll be seeing posts with charts just like this here over the next week or so.
goldwing2
·8 months agoAnother way the greedy sobs at ebay take advantage of us hard working sellers! But you can always turn off promoted or reduce your promoted amounts to compensate for this money grab. I just reduced my promoted rate by half as I have read that several sellers in Europe experienced a 50% increase in their promoted fees after ebay made the changes there. The only reason I even do promoted is defensive since just slightly more than half of the sellers in my categories promote!
lakefor94
·8 months agoThat is ~about~ what I was guessing.
If 50% of my previous sales were hit with a PL fee, it would go to 80% under the new scheme.
brandonsvsu
·8 months agoWell, I just went through all my listings and turned off the (already low 2 to 3 percent) promoted rates. Hopefully this doesn't completely kill my sales, but there's no way I'm paying an extra fee if Person A clicks on a promoted listing, doesn't buy, but Person B clicks on a non-promoted link and makes a purchase.
funfactorychannel
·8 months agoLook at the bright side everyone. At least when buyer clicks on Seller A who has a 9% rate and then clicks on your listing which you have a 2% rate. Ebay isnt charging you 9%! Thats Next years change.🤣😄🤣😅/
kibble-net
·8 months agoEbay's justification for this is that any click to an item boosts its views in the algorithm. I can't say I agree, but I've added a 50 cent handling fee to each order so it's the customer who will ultimately pay the price for ebay's greed.
You can be mad, it's okay - but at the end of the day you have to react accordingly and keep your business running.
meme6253
·8 months agoCan you bulk edit adding a handling fee??
valueaddedresource
·8 months ago@meme6253 the handling fee is under shipping settings, so if you use business policies, you can set it in your policy and it will apply to all listings assigned to that policy.
meme6253
·8 months agoThanks for the info.!
gurlcat
·8 months agoNothing to be mad about, any more than there is about this:
If people are willing to pay more for advertising, that's their right as consumers!
But here's the real problem: when Dr. Pepper pays for advertising, they know exactly when and where their ads are supposed to show up: as TV commercials on certain shows, in certain magazines, on certain billboards, etc. -and if those entities fail to show them all the times/places they agreed to, then it's an obvious deal breaker!
But what @my-cottage-books-and-antiques is talking about in message 12 is this: when we set ad rates, we pledge to pay for advertisement with NO agreement on how many times or places it will show up (and that has always been the case with General promotions) ..... but now there is even less incentive for them to give us any real increase in visibility. Think about it: since all they need to "count" the promotion as "redeemed" is one buyer view in the past month .... why would they keep putting a listing in sponsored slots after it gets that one sponsored view? Why not focus on showing other listings that haven't gotten one yet?
Up to this point, the chosen ad rate was the only factor in whether a listing had better odds of winning the 'slot lottery' for each sponsored slot, each time a buyer goes to any page on eBay. The higher the ad rate, the more lotto balls in the bowl for that listing. But now ... will a listing with a 10% ad rate and one established view actually have a better chance than a listing with only 2% ad rate but no views yet? Guess it depends on how likely that 10% one will sell in the following 30 days. In a twist of irony, the sooner after listing an item gets the first click, the more desirable it probably is, so I could see them throttling sponsored visibility on an obviously 'hot' item after the first sponsored view, because it will probably keep getting lots of views from regular search results, and probably get sold in under 30 days.
The chance to do this corruptly, or at the very least the utter lack of transparency here .... it is so grotesque ..... I normally roll my eyes when people come here talking about starting lawsuits, but I really wouldn't be surprised if some lawyers take a nice hard side-eye at this new model.
jimw1776
·8 months agoPlease translate this into people-speak and not legalese. TIA
caldreamer
·8 months agoEBAY changed the rules and now, if your "promoted item" sells, EBAY will charge you "promotion fee" if ANYONE clicked on your item (doesn't have to be the person who purchased your item). Just another greedy tactic by EBAY to get more money from the Sellers.
wildwalleye
·8 months agoEbay is really getting good at squeezing money out of both buyers and sellers. I was on chat for 20 minutes today with an eBay Agent arguing the fact that they are illegally taking some fees from both buyers and sellers.
It's been several years since I sold on eBay, and I was a bit surprised to see them add the shipping onto my final sale value fee. Especially when the shipping goes to them directly from my printing one of their labels.
But more concerning was the sales tax issue for BOTH buyers and sellers. On the seller side, they add the sales tax to the total that they charge the final sale value fee from. When I told the agent this was not only just wrong, but it was illegal in my state to charge someone a "fee" to collect sales tax. He didn't care and basically told me to deal with it since THEY NEED to be compensated for collecting sales tax and sending it to each state.
On the buyer's side, every state that collects sales tax does it a bit differently, and in my state, we don't collect sales tax on staple food items (not really relevant to eBay), clothing, or on Services such as shipping. Well, eBay charges sales tax on clothes AND shipping costs to the buyers. I told them this was also illegal. My state considers it fraud if you collect sales tax on items the state does NOT collect sales tax on.
When I mentioned that someday, someone(s) might end up rightfully suing them and it would most likely end up as a class-action lawsuit, I got transferred to another guy who simply was NOT going to hear anything about it LOL. He basically told me to go ahead and sue eBay, as it doesn't come out of his pocket LOL.
While it may just be "pennies on the dollar" here and there, but all added up in a class action lawsuit, eBay would be on the hook for literally tens of millions of dollars and even more as time goes on.
I hope some bored attorney does end up doing it. I would laugh my backside off. As well as participating in it LOL.