How to Deal With the Negative Impact of the Changes to the View Item (Listing) Page

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

I'm borrowing this from another thread, since it will likely be buried there. As many of you know, ebay has been adding more and more promoted listings to the View Item page (often referred to as "the listing page"). A good discussion, with dramatic toothpaste illustration, can be found here: https://www.valueaddedresource.net/ebay-thinks-100-ads-on-listing-improvement/

I'm not interested in using this thread to complain about this , or to condemn ebay for doing it....we have plenty of those discussions already. PLS isn't going away, and the listing page will continue to look like this (or worse). Instead, I'd like to see if people have any practical ideas about ways we can reduce (we can't eliminate) the negative impact on our sales. Here's what I wrote on the other thread, and I'm hoping other sellers can add to this list:

A seller can use PLs , which will increase the chance that he might make a sale when he shows up on a competitors listing, but that doesn't do much to mitigate the impact this has on the seller's own listing.

Running promotions (such as discount sales) might help, as the promotion might persuade the buyer to stay more focused on what the seller has to offer, rather than looking at all the bright shiny things from other sellers.

Not sure about this one , but a seller might design a description template and include his photos in the template, which will take up considerably more space on the page, and might help to keep the buyer focused on the listed item. (I say not sure for a couple reasons, including the fact that ebay could probably take away this option if too many sellers use it and ebay concludes it is hurting PLS performance).  

Make sure Make An Offer is enabled. While ebay has claimed they do not put identical items on the page, we know this isn't true, especially so for items that don't have a UPC or other code number. I just looked at one of my items, and see several of the same thing from other sellers, at lower prices. At least if I have Offer enabled, the buyer MIGHT decide to give me a chance to make the sale by discounting my price.

Your suggestions? 

[simply-the-best-for-you]

Oh & the reason I was suggesting @ducks2k do the test is b/c he/she sells low priced items.   So they could easily absorb a high percentage ABOVE the SAR & it would only cost them pennies if someone buys & then they can see if that gets rid of their banners PRIOR to the description, like in my listing.  I can tell you for certain that I am ABOVE the SAR, though IDK about the other 2 sellers.  

@nuclearomen  test will tell us if it's just the fact that it's an Automated campaign, but I suspect that's not enough.  I suspect your rates will need to be above the SAR, not below, if you're trying to duplicate what my listings look like.   Let us know your results though, in case I don't remember to take a look, as I'm outta here for tonight. 

Hey @chapeau-noir  are you willing to share if you use PL's?  & if so, are they above or below the SAR?  And do you use Automated PL's? 

[nuclearomen]

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@simply-the-best-for-you wrote:

@nuclearomen  Looks good if you are wanting to never exceed 5% & want to go 3.2% below the SAR (but not to exceed 5%).   That said, I have never used a minus in that field LOL.  In my category, it's always what I'm going to go ABOVE the SAR.  

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@simply-the-best-for-you yeah I adjusted that to 2% - I need to see the suggested rates to see what that would bring the rate for me to, some of them were to low so changed it - but I just ended the campaign - turns out it didn't add all my music listings to the campaign and it won't let me add the ones it left out... so I ended it and I'll create a new one in little while (giving time for the campaign to clear and make all music listings available to promote again) - when you create new listing it allows you place them into the automated campaign or will it leave it out and not allow you to add it like it does existing listings? That's a weird thing. 

[simply-the-best-for-you]

@nuclearomen  It will AUTOMATICALLY add them.  There is NO way to leave items out though.  As soon, as you create a new listing, it will add it automatically using the same percentages you have set up.  

If you're only doing this as a test, you may wanna wait & see if Chapeau is willing to answer, as her input may narrow the field, since she's one of the sellers who's listings look like mine. 

[nuclearomen]

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@simply-the-best-for-you wrote:

As for your comment that you wouldn't use Automated b/c in your category it's 10%  & that using automated would be suicidal in your case.   I am failing to understand.   As @nuclearomen  screen shot clearly shows, you can set the rates at whatever you want.  It doesn't have to be tied to SAR.  You could do 4% across the board if you wanted.  

ETA:  Not trying to convince you to use Automated, just don't want erroneous info out there about what it is.  

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@simply-the-best-for-you and @zamo-zuan actually - you can do this with the simple also, though it's set up tiny bit different, you can do ad rate cap etc... on simple I just never have done it with those options on simple. 

[simply-the-best-for-you]

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@nuclearomen wrote:

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@simply-the-best-for-you wrote:

As for your comment that you wouldn't use Automated b/c in your category it's 10%  & that using automated would be suicidal in your case.   I am failing to understand.   As @nuclearomen  screen shot clearly shows, you can set the rates at whatever you want.  It doesn't have to be tied to SAR.  You could do 4% across the board if you wanted.  

ETA:  Not trying to convince you to use Automated, just don't want erroneous info out there about what it is.  

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@simply-the-best-for-you and @zamo-zuan actually - you can do this with the simple also, though it's set up tiny bit different, you can do ad rate cap etc... on simple I just never have done it with those options on simple. 

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Yes, that's true.  It's just that Zamo has both in here & in another thread made it sound like you don't have that flexibility with Automated, so I wanted it to be clear that you do.  You also have that flexibility with basic PLS, like you pointed out.  

[nuclearomen]

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@simply-the-best-for-you wrote:

@nuclearomen  It will AUTOMATICALLY add them.  There is NO way to leave items out though.  As soon, as you create a new listing, it will add it automatically using the same percentages you have set up.  

If you're only doing this as a test, you may wanna wait & see if Chapeau is willing to answer, as her input may narrow the field, since she's one of the sellers who's listings look like mine. 

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@simply-the-best-for-you it doesn't... the ad banner above description is the same on the automated as is with simple, just one banner above the description...know some have 2 but i as well have no idea why and what determines that. 


I am running 2x PLS campaigns - 1 for each item category - all new - just started them all - but music I haven't recreated one for yet - also campaigns always went live immediately before, now they say "scheduled" - waiting for them to say "active" - I already checked the automated with the PL ads on listings - so I'm going back to simple campaign for music just raising the rate by 1% like did for the automated. 

[chapeau-noir]

@simply-the-best-for-you   I use automated PLs on everything but tech, DVDs and bike parts at an average promotional rate of 3%.

Incidentally, my promo click-through has really dropped, though organic impressions have stayed steady and my sales are up quite a bit.  This may be an anomaly, though, because I was listing very little in August but have been listing steadily in September so attendant uptick in sales by 230%. So views are down but sales are up. ?

[nuclearomen]

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@chapeau-noir wrote:

@simply-the-best-for-you   I use automated PLs on everything but tech, DVDs and bike parts at an average promotional rate of 3%.

Incidentally, my promo click-through has really dropped, though organic impressions have stayed steady and my sales are up quite a bit.  This may be an anomaly, though, because I was listing very little in August but have been listing steadily in September so attendant uptick in sales by 230%. So views are down but sales are up. ?

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this is a glitch within the campaign - usually your impressions will fall drastically - if that happens there is something wrong with the campaign and to correct it is only you can do is end and create a new one - i'd keep eye on the impressions the next day or so, if the Promoted fall down to organic it's campaign death. 

[chapeau-noir]

@nuclearomen  Now I recall that I've actually heard that from a couple of other sellers but never investigated it, so I'll keep an eye on it.  Thanks for the reminder!  I usually just put the campaign together and let it run along until pretty much everything I've been promoting has sold and start a new one, which is kind of lazy.

[nuclearomen]

@chapeau-noir it happened to me just the other day, ebay made some kind of change recently (last week) with PLs, sometimes when they make changes to PLs (whatever they maybe, no one knows cause they don't give you any speck of info at all - some say it's algorithm changes but idk) anyways, had to start a new campaign due to it....see the graph. It happened on the 6th, that drop would have been all the way down to the bottom with Organic impressions - I just ended and started a new campaign before it got that far - since I already know what was happening I didn't wait. 

[chapeau-noir]

@nuclearomen  This is what I looked at.  I just started a new campaign.  Either I can't figure out the changes (my old one was from May) or am just missing something, but the category selection didn't work, and I was stuck promoting everything, which means I have to change a few prices.

 

[nuclearomen]

@chapeau-noir I would end it and create another new one... while that graph isn't showing sudden total crash in PL impressions, if you ended and created a new one and the impressions are still falling instead of raising something is glitched. I noticed this happening a lot when creating new campaigns, since the last seller update - not sure why or what happens within them (just call it a glitch) but when you create new campaign impressions should raise, if you elect the same or higher especially. 

The vortex marks are days you added new inventory and got more views/or sold more those days on PLs. The low dips are days no new inventory add and few or no sales/views on PLs. Large drops between 5K impressions seem to be more common as of late, mine has experienced the same. See by both graphs (yours/mine) how wonky things have been as of late with PLs and impressions, these large up and downs should be running more consistent but they aren't. You can see on both graphs how this started Aug 28th

[chapeau-noir]

@nuclearomen  I looked at that downward trend and just started another campaign. I've sold a lot of the stuff on my old campaign, anyway, and really should check each month to make sure it continues to be effective.  I spent all of $13.50 promoting items this month - it just wasn't that big of a bite! Many of my sales are not from promotions, either, but some are.

I agree the dips and peaks are listing days - I listed little in the last month and it was only in the last week (you can see the broader peak) that I started listing regularly again.  Oddly, despite the few listings I had running (sometimes only about 130 or so), my sales continued steady, just slowly, with drop-outs of maybe a few days, but never longer. For a clothing seller who wasn't listing, that's not bad. Obviously, there is exposure.

[zamo-zuan]

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@simply-the-best-for-you wrote:

@nuclearomen  Looks good if you are wanting to never exceed 5% & want to go 3.2% below the SAR (but not to exceed 5%).   That said, I have never used a minus in that field LOL.  In my category, it's always what I'm going to go ABOVE the SAR.  

@zamo-zuan  I agree that it would be helpful to know what we have in common, though I suspect we are all paying high rates, since we all sell in clothing.  I 'know' both of the other sellers (one personally, one on-line, but for well over a decade) & both are exemplary sellers (me too) who have been selling in the same category for over a decade at minimum.   Keep in mind, that was a simple quickie 5 minute look only with sellers who happen to be on my Saved list.  If I did a deep dive, I'm sure I could find many more.

As for your comment that you wouldn't use Automated b/c in your category it's 10%  & that using automated would be suicidal in your case.   I am failing to understand.   As @nuclearomen  screen shot clearly shows, you can set the rates at whatever you want.  It doesn't have to be tied to SAR.  You could do 4% across the board if you wanted.  

ETA:  Not trying to convince you to use Automated, just don't want erroneous info out there about what it is.  

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Using automated for our items with a limit under 10% would basically ensure all of the listings are going to be at maximum at all times.

If we're going to set our own rates anyway, I rather apply a strategy as I had described in my post, focusing the efforts and investment on listings that need it most.

I'd also worked on trying to assist many users with large drops over the years, and I'd noticed a very large percentage of them used automated rates, afterwards recommending some strategies for manual rates things had improved. So it seems the automated systems "glitch" every once in awhile as well.

[zamo-zuan]

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@chapeau-noir wrote:

@simply-the-best-for-you   I use automated PLs on everything but tech, DVDs and bike parts at an average promotional rate of 3%.

Incidentally, my promo click-through has really dropped, though organic impressions have stayed steady and my sales are up quite a bit.  This may be an anomaly, though, because I was listing very little in August but have been listing steadily in September so attendant uptick in sales by 230%. So views are down but sales are up. ?

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As @nuclearomen had alluded to, PL campaigns can get buggy quite often. One thing that I've noticed is ending campaigns and starting a new one, even if it's identical, often results in a drop. It seems campaigns build "momentum" over time, and deleting one loses that moment.

In our testing I've found the best way to avoid a drop when changing campaigns is doing smaller changes at a time. Rather than doing a large bulk of your inventory at once, separate your listings in to batches and do it a little at a time. Whether you're moving items from campaigns, or adjusting rates, I've found it to work best as a rule and avoid the drops we get when we do bigger changes.

On rare occasions, we have had campaigns bug out in the opposite way, where they didn't get many impressions until being remade. But this has seemed to be the exception rather than the rule in our own experience!

Either way, it would be best to do smaller portions of your inventory at once to determine if it's helping or hurting!