Promoted Listing impressions in the tank with no explanation

[2011jleach31]

I was wondering if anyone else is having an issue with promoted listing impressions recently? I normally have about 40K promoted listing impressions a day and about 13k Organic. All of a sudden on around the 13th of July the promoted listing impressions are gone, down to about 3k a day and nothing has brought it back. I have spoken to the promoted listings department and that achieved nothing (was told it may be because of the change in the way they count views back in April). I even ended every one of my almost 500 listings and relisted as sell similar and started a new campaign and still nothing.  This is killing my sales as most are via promoted listing. Out of Ideas at this point. 

[the-hook-and-the-loop]

What rates are you promoting at? I get the feeling eBay isn't happy with 12.9% in FVF's so they also want at least 12.1% in PLF's.

[2011jleach31]

I usually do 10% but bumped it to 20% just to see what would happen (nothing so far). Ebay customer service knew less about promoted listings and how they function then I do so that was a lost 30 mins. Cannot wait to see what their next cash grab will be. PLA is an even bigger scam and hopefully it will go away soon.  

[rainbowranchmom]

I noticed the same thing so I canned all the promoted sales and initiated market promotions. I won't pay eBay more for not showing my items in the first place. Been selling since 2005 and it is rare to see my items in a search. Only list about 600  at really low prices and list new every 3-4 days or more so I am just chummp change to eBay.

[zamo-zuan]

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@2011jleach31 wrote:

I was wondering if anyone else is having an issue with promoted listing impressions recently? I normally have about 40K promoted listing impressions a day and about 13k Organic. All of a sudden on around the 13th of July the promoted listing impressions are gone, down to about 3k a day and nothing has brought it back. I have spoken to the promoted listings department and that achieved nothing (was told it may be because of the change in the way they count views back in April). I even ended every one of my almost 500 listings and relisted as sell similar and started a new campaign and still nothing.  This is killing my sales as most are via promoted listing. Out of Ideas at this point. 

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Would it be possible to share the promotions graph of what you're experiencing? I'm trying to see if there's any common denominators that could be found in what people are experiencing. 

[stainlessenginecovers]

No noticeable difference here. About 80k 'impressions' a day, about 50/50 (Org vs Prm) but the real number that matters is

Views. 

Impressions can be when your item is on page 3,499 when a 'search' is done. 

My views average about 350 a day (vs 80,000 impressions so again, impressions mean nothing)

[simply-the-best-for-you]

I had a bit of a lull from the 18-22, nothing major or out of the ordinary though.  Down to 134K to 126K, but that's not a big drop for me & the graph has some peaks & valleys, but nothing unusual except for a huge spike on the 10th to 206K. 

My Organic is almost a straight line for the whole month (like it usually is) of between 15-20K. 

[laststopgeneralstore]

We need more context here. What percentage were you promoting your listings at? How many listings were you promoting? Did a campaign end & you forgot about it etc... Also delisting & relisting items as sell similar will do absolutely nothing so don't expect that to make a huge difference in your store & don't get mad at eBay when you do-do it and nothing happens. Second, you aren't selling anything that ALOT of people would NEED or want & with everything going on in the world right now, most people probably aren't purchasing old/vintage maps with whatever money they have left. Lastly, please post some screenshots off your charts over the past 90-180 days showing this massive slowdown & show us the past promoted listing campaigns that you ran in the last 90-180 days as this will help exponentially more in diagnosing exactly what is going on here but I can assure you that it most likely has nothing to do with eBay & everything to do with the seller. If your impression/views are down like this over the past day, week, 2 weeks or month then I don't know why you would even worry about it as that is normal. My impressions & page views go up and down daily sometimes by way more than the previous day(s). If this is happening consistently over the past 3, 6, 9 or 12 months then I would start to worry. I would suggest getting into a different category but that is all dependent on what your goals are. Good luck.

[laststopgeneralstore]

How long have you had it bumped to 20% for? You cannot get any decent data unless you do it for at the very least 30 days, comparing to the prior 30 days only promoting at 10% and remaining exactly how you were(listings, sales, coupons etc...). If your comparing to a few days or weeks then you'll be kicking yourself. Lastly, lets just say over the course of 30-90 days you had the promoted listings bumped up to 20% from 10% and your sales didn't increase like you though they should have; THAT IS NOT EBAYS FAULT. That is your fault. You are selling stuff that people don't want & no matter how much you promote those listings, if the buyer doesn't want them they that's that! I'm getting sick and tired of all of the sellers blaming eBay for their own problems. Yes eBay has its flaws but that doesn't mean every time you change something and it doesn't work the exact second you change it that it's eBays fault. I used to be like that until I took an entire year and compiled data for myself and realized that it had everything to do with me & nothing to do with eBay when it came to slow sales, traffic, page views etc... Good luck.

[2011jleach31]

You can literally view your organic and promoted listing counts for every single day so why you have to run a campaign for 30 days? I was running a campaign at 10 percent on 500 items which consistently generates around 40k promoted impressions  then on July 13th it dropped like a rock. Nothing change, I list 5-10 a day, top rated plus, promote everything 100% Feedback. Nothing changed. I have always received a huge new listing bonus when ending my listings and doing sell  similar and I know how promoted listing work. I do not need a critique on my items as I know what my store does and what is not normal. It is ebays fault that my listings are not being promoted as I pay them to do so. 

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@simply-the-best-for-you  Pretty much same here. I see nothing unusual in my graph. 

[simply-the-best-for-you]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

@simply-the-best-for-you  Pretty much same here. I see nothing unusual in my graph. 

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I even expanded mine out to the year so far & all looks totally normal.  There's some fluctuations that are from known things, but nothing stands out & my Organic line is surprisingly static for pretty much the whole YTD. 

[simply-the-best-for-you]

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@2011jleach31 wrote:

 I have always received a huge new listing bonus when ending my listings and doing sell  similar and I know how promoted listing work.  

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Yup, so do I.  I don't understand the comment that it does nothing.  It absolutely does something & for me, it's a huge boost that I always get sales from.  Just had one today.   It may have to do with the type of items being sold.  For people who sell multiples of commodities, it does NOT help & in fact, can hurt them b/c they lose all the data that goes along with their listings.  For those of us who sell one-offs, it's a huge boost.  I have not looked at your items, so IDK what category your stuff falls in.  But it absolutely can help if you sell one-off's.   I wish I could do more ending/sell similar, but I just have too many items to be able to do it with the regularity I'd like. 

[the-hook-and-the-loop]

So there's the solution, "take a year and compile data".

LOL!

[retromaxgaming]

When they did the update to 2% minimum ad rate on 7/11, it changed something. Maybe they messed something up, or could be the pool of promoted listings became more aggressive... Possibly both. I went from averaging 750k PL impressions to around 40K. This was on a 5% ad rate. I tried 10% and it did not yield better results. There are a lot of users with the same complaint within the same timeframe. Support is useless in these situations. All they are going to tell you is they will make a report and send it to the back office team. You will get no correspondence from anyone who can actually help you.