Changes To How Promoted Listings Display In Search Coming Soon

[valueaddedresource]

Pravesh Katyal, Director of Product, Search Ads revealed in his segment at eBay Open that changes to how Promoted Listings display in search may be "coming soon".

Soon you will see clearly demarcated ad placements such as the top of search ad placement, middle of search ad placements as well as bottom of search ad placements. Each of these ad placements will have a number of ad slots. Ads will be shown in a continuous and clearly demarcated manner. We think that makes it much easier for buyers to identify and to interact with the ads, and more importantly it gives an ability for sellers and advertisers to target specific ad placements.

So in the future, you will have an ability to target a specific placement such as the top of search ad placement or a bottom of search ad placement. 

This sounds to me like they may be thinking of doing side scrolling ad carousels like they have on listing pages, but placing them at top, middle and bottom of search results pages as well.

They're already doing something similar in some areas - for example when you search in sneakers they insert a scrolling module in the middle, showcasing listings with authenticity guaranteed. They could easily do this same thing with PL ads.

One one hand I personally think it might be a cleaner user experience to have clearly labeled ad modules like that on the page rather than PL mixed in with organic throughout search.

On the other hand, if they go this route with ad placement in search as well, that opens up the possibility for there to be who knows how many ads in each module, which opens up a bunch of questions about how they measure impressions and what impact it may have on Click Through Rate even further, as discussed in this thread:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Finally-have-Sales-but-had-to-take-PLs-Promoted-Std-to-10-12-f... 

To be clear, I am not at all sure that's what they're going to do here - just throwing out some possibilities based on what was said in the video, which admittedly didn't give much detail.

Another important quote: 

We are also working one what we call Ad Rate Sensitivity, which is essentially making changes throughout our system to ensure that when you make some change in your bids, you see a more pronounced impact in your visibility, your ranking and your velocity on search.

Translation: the extra amount of money you're willing to pay eBay will soon play an even greater role in your visibility and ranking in search.

[wastingtime101]

I saw that. My first thought was that you'll have to pay a higher ad rate to get in the top or middle carousel as opposed to bottom of the page. Pay to play is getting stronger and sellers are becoming more frustrated.

There have been a lot of changes to PL this year and I admit to wondering how it's impacted search algorithms in general.

[valueaddedresource]

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@wastingtime101 wrote:

I saw that. My first thought was that you'll have to pay a higher ad rate to get in the top or middle carousel as opposed to bottom of the page. Pay to play is getting stronger and sellers are becoming more frustrated.

There have been a lot of changes to PL this year and I admit to wondering how it's impacted search algorithms in general.

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@wastingtime101 agree the competition will be fierce for those higher ad slots and it appears to be ratcheting up the pay to play.

As far as impact on search algorithms in general - that was my big concern with CTR in that other thread.

eBay basically defines an impression as any time your listing is displayed anywhere publicly accessible on eBay.

Impressions. The number of times your promoted listings have appeared on any eBay site.

Note it doesn't say that the buyer has to scroll to it or that it has to be actually in view on the screen, just that it appears on any eBay site.

I suspect in the example above with the listing page ads, if your ad was in slot 79, it would be counted as an impression even if the buyer didn't scroll to the right to bring it into view on the screen. I also suspect if they do something similar in search result pages, the same may apply.

If your impressions go up significantly, but click through and sales don't, that may be an indication your listings are appearing in more places across the eBay site, but are not targeted well and/or may be appearing in places less likely to actually be seen and clicked on, like in one of those scrolling ad spots or further back in search results.

We don't know exactly how much weight CTR has in ranking, but experience tells us it's likely at least a factor and it makes sense that high CTR would be seen as a positive since it could mean buyers are interested in your item and low CTR may be seen as a negative.

eBay defines CTR as:

The number of page views to your listings from eBay during this time period divided by the number of impressions. This excludes external page views. For example, if your listing gets 1,000 impressions and 5 page views from eBay, your click-through rate is 0.5%.

So just as a matter of basic math, if your impressions increase, but page views don't, that is going to lower your CTR. If these increased ad impressions lower the CTR, could that over time lower the organic ranking of your listing, resulting in a spiral where you constantly have to promote at ever higher rates just to keep getting some visibility?

I don't know for sure, but I'd love to get some insight from adsteam@ebay on these issues.

[wastingtime101]

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@valueaddedresource wrote:

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We don't know exactly how much weight CTR has in ranking, but experience tells us it's likely at least a factor and it makes sense that high CTR would be seen as a positive since it could mean buyers are interested in your item and low CTR may be seen as a negative.

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High click through rate with low sales conversion is also seen as a negative and could have even more of a negative effect than a lower CTR with higher sales conversion.

I won't pretend to grasp all the complexities. But I do believe something significant has changed with search this year based on my experiences as both a buyer and a seller. Unsure if PL is related to those changes and eBay is so tight-lipped about search.

[glasser]

A lot is going to hinge on how relevant the sponsored listings are to the search terms. I posted theis earlier that shows a Nike search brought two non-Nike items as the first two items in top 4

[valueaddedresource]

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@glasser wrote:

A lot is going to hinge on how relevant the sponsored listings are to the search terms. I posted theis earlier that shows a Nike search brought two non-Nike items as the first two items in top 4

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@glasser agree 100%! Also whether they monitor/take action against competing brands targeting trademarked brand names. Their official policy says they don't do anything about it unless brand owner files VeRO but I can't imagine this is a great experience for buyers or brands. 🤷‍

[glasser]

@valueaddedresource it's going to be a race to the bottom for sellers vying for placement and a race to the top for eBay collecting fees. In my post I suggested this is actually keyword spamming although I guess legal if eBay profits from it.

[robxznyc]

He said clearly top four slots are reserved for Promoted Listing Advanced.

EBay wants sellers to believe ads equate sales. But we all know it's false and your listings might sell just as well unprompted as promoted. There is no causation between promoted listing and sales and only correlation between promoted listing and impression. You are paying for better visibility. 

For visibility I've always questioned ad placements after, say, page 3 of search results. An organic listing might be on page 5, when promoted moved to page 10. You end up paying for less visibility. When eBay allows seller to bid on top, middle and bottom ad slots I wonder who wants to place ads on the bottom. And when buyers sort results by anything but best match promoted listings are nothing but distractions.