Anyone else seeing these changes to Promoted Listings on View Item Page?

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

I know ebay has been testing various changes to the View Item (listing) page, maybe along with the Ads Team.

I also know that the Ads Team acknowledge a while ago that one of their "modules" (something like "People who views this item also viewed these items") was showing ORGANIC listings, not sponsored listings. I believe they also said that different listings show different modules at different times.

I'm seeing two things tonight that are interesting. For me, both in Chrome and Edge, I'm seeing only one, sometimes two , modules on listings---both between the above- the- fold section and the description box, with nothing below the end of the listing. I'm guessing this is a test. (Of course, it could be a glitch of some sort, as well).

Looking at the two modules, the module titles are "Similar sponsored listings" and "Related Sponsored Listings". Now, here's the thing. Each has a "See all>" option, and if I click on that, a new page opens.

That page shows 25 listings under "Similar Sponsored Items", followed by 25 listings under "Similar Items"....as far as I can figure, the 25 items under Similar Items are NOT sponsored items.

I don't know whether the items in the second group are true organic listings, or listings in a Promoted Listing campaign being shown as organic. Or a mix of both. 

But if ebay is starting to mix in organic with promoted on some of these non-search results pages, it's a pretty big shift for the Ads team. 

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@valueaddedresource @nuclearomen @mcdougle4248 

A couple days ago, on this thread I suggested:

"If they want to reduce some of the seller pushback about the crowded View Item Page, and if they want to reduce the modules to 2 on the page, they might want to consider a first module showing "similar items from this seller" organically, with a "see more" that would open with two tiers, one with organic similar items from the seller, and one below it of similar promoted listings from other sellers. The second module could be "related sponsored items" and the "see more" could be as now, with top tier sponsored , below that organic."

I'm sure this is coincidence, and it is not exactly what I had in mind, but it is a step in that direction. I'm still seeing two modules on a listing, between the top of the page and description. I just clicked on the first module's "See All" and instead of showing me 2 modules, it showed me three...the firs sponsored listings from other sellers, the last non-sponsored listings, and in between: sponsored listings from the seller of the original listing I was viewing when I clicked on the "See All"

So instead of a total of 50 on the see all page there are 75 (25 per module), but 25 of them are the sellers own listings.

I got the same result when I clicked the "See All" for the second module.

Here's a link to what I was seeing, but since its a test, I'm not sure if it will show for everyone:

https://www.ebay.com/explore?component=lex6aspects-5-items&item_id=325695571311&algos=HOMESPLICE.SIM...

And here's a screen shot of the seller's module (but note, the apostrophe is in the wrong place, isn't it?

[nuclearomen]

@my-cottage-books-and-antiques idk how you linked to just suggested page, but anyways... as usual with tests like this on listings (same thing was true when they were testing the new photo layout) it doesn't show on all listings/categories with away and depends how one is viewing, logged in not in incog, logged out etc... I was seeing the same no change for amount of ads on my own listings yesterday (didn't check today) but the lower ads did not say "sponsored" as mentioned so they must have been organic or halo adds. 

In all seriousness, i really don't care what they show or how many, likely would if I was strictly a buyer, but i'm not, more or less strictly a seller. All I care about is that my time and investment of PLS and elections are being put to work. I have done the PL since they started, they have gone through countless changes, evolutions, good and bad, caused horrid selling periods and stellar selling periods. They went from only a few sales per month having PL fee to basically every sale having the PL fee attached...and know what? I don't care. Really, I don't, not anymore. ALL i care about is that sales continue and stay steady - to whatever extent PL pushing them I don't care. I am a very calculated seller, I don't lose money or profit because I factor everything in the prices and I evaluate those prices when fees raise etc... and sometimes I make no change and swallow the extra. Past few months have been rather horrid for what is normal for me, but even then I still made sales. I'm really at the point anymore I just don't give a crud as long as making sales and my items are being seen / able to be searched etc... Go this seems every month anymore with "something ebay has done to PL..." spend time and effort trying to adjust and what ever else the circus demands - kinda sick of it. This company has horrid transparency and they cause more chaos then is necessary because of it.   

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@nuclearomen  I was an early adopter of PLS, and still use it...but I'm doing more experimenting with it, and that's one reason I try to keep up with what ebay is actually doing with it. I don't hate PLS as some seem to. I think it can be useful. But for me, it's useful to understand it. 

But I see your point---you sell in a tight niche, and that is very different from selling a variety of unrelated stuff.

Most of my stuff has nice margins, so I usually have wiggle room whether it is to pay a higher PLS fee or to accept a lower offer, or whatever. But most of my stuff doesn't sell quickly, and so I need to consider that even strong margins can't make up for poor sales velocity. 

Anyway, at this point I'm just hoping ebay will eventually respond here. It would certainly save me some time and effort. LOL

[nuclearomen]

@my-cottage-books-and-antiques I don't so much "hate" PLs, but it definitely changed the game of selling here more and more as time went on, can't argue that! I don't elect their insane rates, but I don't do minimal either, and I don't mind paying them as long as sale happen. 

It would be nice when they make major changes to give at least a heads up they are testing something completely new and will effect certain things, at least then don't have to run around post all day long trying to figure it out. 

[simply-the-best-for-you]

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@mcdougle4248 wrote:

@my-cottage-books-and-antiques 

My PL impressions are much higher today.  I am still seeing two modules of promoted listings above the item specifics and 25 "You May Also Like" listings that appear organic below the feedback.  I really have no idea what is going on, just thought I would share.

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Interesting.  I just checked mine & it's up slightly, but still hovering around 1/2 of normal.  

Thanks @valueaddedresource  at the reminder of how to find the Halo items, I couldn't remember either.  I checked the last 3 months & I get typically 1 per month.  Though almost all my items sell via PL or what they call "direct". 

[nuclearomen]

@simply-the-best-for-you same, mine reached just shy of 14K yesterday, bit better but still like half

[mcdougle4248]

@my-cottage-books-and-antiques 

I am not seeing the same display as your screenshot when using the link you provided. It looks like this is another test or it may be possible that different users are being shown different modules depending on their previous search history (just a guess).

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@mcdougle4248  Agree. It could be a test, or ,as ebay confirmed previously, different users are shown different modules as part of the regular operation.

[valueaddedresource]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

@valueaddedresource @nuclearomen @mcdougle4248 

A couple days ago, on this thread I suggested:

"If they want to reduce some of the seller pushback about the crowded View Item Page, and if they want to reduce the modules to 2 on the page, they might want to consider a first module showing "similar items from this seller" organically, with a "see more" that would open with two tiers, one with organic similar items from the seller, and one below it of similar promoted listings from other sellers. The second module could be "related sponsored items" and the "see more" could be as now, with top tier sponsored , below that organic."

I'm sure this is coincidence, and it is not exactly what I had in mind, but it is a step in that direction. I'm still seeing two modules on a listing, between the top of the page and description. I just clicked on the first module's "See All" and instead of showing me 2 modules, it showed me three...the firs sponsored listings from other sellers, the last non-sponsored listings, and in between: sponsored listings from the seller of the original listing I was viewing when I clicked on the "See All"

So instead of a total of 50 on the see all page there are 75 (25 per module), but 25 of them are the sellers own listings.

I got the same result when I clicked the "See All" for the second module.

Here's a link to what I was seeing, but since its a test, I'm not sure if it will show for everyone:

https://www.ebay.com/explore?component=lex6aspects-5-items&item_id=325695571311&algos=HOMESPLICE.SIM...

And here's a screen shot of the seller's module (but note, the apostrophe is in the wrong place, isn't it?

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques that link for me currently brings up 2 "Similar Sponsored Items" sections and 1 "Similar Items" section for a total of 75....with lots of duplicates between the different sections.

I didn't check to see if some of those were from the same seller or not, but there wasn't a dedicated "Seller's Other Sponsored Items" section.

eBay used to have one of the modules on the View Item page as Sellers Other Sponsored Items and it was actually a big reason some sellers begrudgingly used PL - it was one way to reclaim at least some of the real estate on the listing.

They stopped doing that late last year and now some of the ads may be the seller's own items but it's no longer guaranteed, so it's interesting to see that they may be testing that idea again in a slightly different way.

[mcdougle4248]

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@nuclearomen wrote:

@simply-the-best-for-you same, mine reached just shy of 14K yesterday, bit better but still like half

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My PL impressions shot up to almost 54,000 yesterday, which is very unusual for me. I did not make any adjustments to the PL campaign, so I have no idea if this sudden increase in PL impressions is a display issue, reporting issue, or something entirely different.

[nuclearomen]

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@mcdougle4248 wrote:

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@nuclearomen wrote:

@simply-the-best-for-you same, mine reached just shy of 14K yesterday, bit better but still like half

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My PL impressions shot up to almost 54,000 yesterday, which is very unusual for me. I did not make any adjustments to the PL campaign, so I have no idea if this sudden increase in PL impressions is a display issue, reporting issue, or something entirely different.

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@mcdougle4248 i don't think so, usually, when something is a glitch in stats you can cross check that with other stats, charts etc... I did that, went to Performance and Sales and the figures there for each bar were showing me the same daily totals as the PL graft. Whatever happened wasn't a glitch, it was intentional internal change, but what that involves completely no one knows, all guesses. 

[nuclearomen]

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@valueaddedresource wrote:

eBay used to have one of the modules on the View Item page as Sellers Other Sponsored Items and it was actually a big reason some sellers begrudgingly used PL - it was one way to reclaim at least some of the real estate on the listing.

They stopped doing that late last year and now some of the ads may be the seller's own items but it's no longer guaranteed, so it's interesting to see that they may be testing that idea again in a slightly different way.

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yup, that was why I originally used them also, however, many of many of my listings still show majority my listings on that first row of Sponsored ads, that goes back to how many items in a category a seller has in the pool - but it's not "random" like use to be in selection, it seems to pulled those selections from title keywords. So many of my listings you'll notice the band name and album title, then variant/edition and format, then I cross reference many of those with similar bands, those are typically the ones that appear there on that first row after photos/price.  

[mcdougle4248]

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@nuclearomen wrote:

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@mcdougle4248 wrote:

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@nuclearomen wrote:

@simply-the-best-for-you same, mine reached just shy of 14K yesterday, bit better but still like half

---

My PL impressions shot up to almost 54,000 yesterday, which is very unusual for me. I did not make any adjustments to the PL campaign, so I have no idea if this sudden increase in PL impressions is a display issue, reporting issue, or something entirely different.

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@mcdougle4248 i don't think so, usually, when something is a glitch in stats you can cross check that with other stats, charts etc... I did that, went to Performance and Sales and the figures there for each bar were showing me the same daily totals as the PL graft. Whatever happened wasn't a glitch, it was intentional internal change, but what that involves completely no one knows, all guesses. 

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Yes, I crossed checked the Traffic graphs and the Advertising Dashboard and the PL impressions data is the same on both. You are right, all I can do is guess about what happened yesterday. It will be interesting to see what today brings.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

An interesting variation: I looked at one of my own listings. I have a PLS campaign going on now, but not all my listings are in it (about 500 are). ebay did show me the "Sellers' Other Sponsored Listings" but showed me only 3, not 25....apparently, though the title doesn't say the items must be related or similar, it appears the algo wants some relationship.

Unfortunately for store sellers, there is an inevitable tension that arises : does ebay take a listing-centric approach (which PLS certainly is), or do they take a store/seller approach (helping sellers build their "brand", a repeat customer base, etc). Perhaps ebay is finally trying to strike more of a balance by recognizing that a heavily listing-centric approach undermines a seller's ability to build his business. It's kind of like asking: Is eBay WalMart, a store with a lot of different brands being sold in the store, but basically a business that is about selling items, or a mall , where the mall is about helping the stores succeed, but the mall itself isn't selling the items in those stores. ebay is somewhere in between, but, especially with PLs, has been leaning heavily to being more WalMart than mall....

[nuclearomen]

Still not yielding normal, yesterday ended at just shy of 16K on PLS, better then was, makes me wonder if what ever they actually did that there will be a new (lower) impressions daily result normal.