Pay per click ads.

[movieman630]

This question is more for full time large scale sellers.  I'm just curious how much do you need to make (gross) per day to justify even the smallest expenditure on "pay per click" ads? 

What would be your ratio of daily ad spend vs. daily gross sales?

For me I wouldn't even consider "pay per click" unless I could do at minimum $10 per day and for that amount I'd need to be seeing a minimum gross sales of $200-300 per day steady.  In reality a $10 per day ad run probably won't generate much.  In reality you'd need to spend more I would guess.

I'm a smart guy.  I know ebay has a cap on my earnings.  It's been that way for quite some time.  All of us have a cap to our sales figures no matter how big we are.  I'm going to be honest.  I wouldn't even consider spending on pay per click ads unless I saw that sales pattern change.

For example.  I had a great week last week.  But I knew this week would be terrible.  How did I know that?  Because that's the pattern.  You will always have a bad week following a great week because your sales "ceiling" needs to be moderated.  The Algo must find a way to re-stabilize your allowance. 

For me to invest in "pay per click" ads (when most clicks won't buy anything).  I'd have to see that pattern change drastically. 

I mean I want to see that "allowance number" DOUBLE.  I want to see the pattern I've grown used to change drastically and stay that way.  Don't expect me to change my tune after 1 week.  It needs to stay that way for months before I'll commit to any ad spend without guaranteed sales.

That's my deal.  My current "allowance income" is spoken for.  I can't afford to spend even $10 a day on ads at the level I'm at now unless my income increases.  I have a family, 3 small children to feed.  Nothing is cheap anymore.  Everything, including my business cost associated with ebay is going up.  My current level of sales is spoken for. 

Give me a raise and I'll invest in "pay per click" it's that simple.  We all know these limits exist.  I'm asking for a raise, in turn, you'll get your ad income from me.

So as a seller what are your terms for spending on ads?  And if your currently spending on ads what is your success with these ads?

In short are they worth it?  Do you notice a bump in your sales activity patterns or has your income remained about the same anyway?

[movieman630]

Some of you make some pretty good observations/points here.  I would have to agree that my kneejerk reaction to PPC is that it's not right for my kind of stuff.  I see others who sell similar items using it for their stores but offsite just doesn't make sense to me. 

The mere fact that we even have to consider these kinds of things now is kind of ridiculous and in my opinion isn't really benefiting ebay either.  I think ebays site is becoming extremely cluttered.  It's akin to ioffer back in the day.  Just over saturation with ads, sponsored listings that you see at least twice (PLs), Multiple similar items on pages, etc.  I think we're reaching that "Jump the Shark" moment here.

I personally look forward to the day when ebay either with new management or enlightened management decides to put all that stuff on the scrap heap of history and bring the site back to the basics of what made it great in the first place.  And let capitalism run it, not some algo that gives big box stores and newbies some kind of advantage.  Let people compete for sales organically.  Best price, etc.

I think it will happen.  This complicated format we see today is just too bad.

[fbusoni]

---

@redlinear wrote:

@fbusoni 
  @movieman630  thinks his sales are somehow manipulated to an extent...basically the same thing month after month no matter what he does.
You said your sales remain constant (constant is what @movieman630  means).
Mine remain constant as well.  
There have been several sellers go into detail with good evidence of this. 
No, eBay can't make anybody directly buy from you.  But they can (and do) make items more easily seen than others. 
The city can't makeme take Elm Street to work.  But they can block off all the others, leaving me no other route.

---

"Constant" to my mind means at least sale or two every day.  That's what I'm referring to.

The OPs sales are not constant.  They stop on a fairly regular basis.

I've read numerous accounts of sales caps and I do not disagree for a moment that there are such things.  

eBay whole ethos is about giving everyone an opportunity to make money here.  

But in my experience there is a way to manage one's affairs here so that sales do not stop on a regular basis.

[mflorenzano2016]

I am with you.  The general rule is 2-5% of gross revenue for an advertising budget.  The last pay per click I did with ebay I was running 13%, that means no increase in sales.  I will stick to general promoted sales and look into starting my own web page.  If I have to spend that much to advertise on ebay I might as well give it a try to draw people to my own web site.

[bashort]

I am completely done with paying ebay any extra fees voluntarily.

I will just lower the price and target buyers who know how to search lowest price first.

Also avoiding items that are saturated.

I once agreed to talk to a ebay rep about promoted listings and I listened to the speal and I let him make suggestions on what items to promote, his list of suggestions included my best sellers several of which I have no competition on, this made it clear to me  ebays goal of promoted listings is simply to increase revenue