Promoted Listings Advanced help?

[redlinear]

Started an advanced promotion several days ago for 750 items.  Used one keyword that's in pretty much all of the titles, descriptions, and specifics.  Used a fairly high bid.  
I searched that keyword before I did this.  (showed two of my items on the 1st page of 60).
I searched that keyword two hours after. (showed 24 of my items on the 1st page of 60).
I searched the next morning..(2 items on the 1st page).

5 days in and I've had quite a few clicks (never met my daily $ limit though). 
Zero sales.
BUT.....I have had several of those promoted advanced items sell.

So, what am I missing?  Some are getting clicks, and some are selling.  Yet showing NO sales in promotions.
And, able to be seen one day. Then not the next day.
I'm beginning to think search is decided by a lottery method "more-so" than anything a seller can do, or pay

How does a promoted listing sell without showing up as a sale in my PL report?  It had to be clicked in order to sell....

[redlinear]

Crickets.....

From the overwhelming response 😂... and my initial test, it would appear that PL Advanced is still more of a question than the answer. 

A single keyword that's in 7,000 ebay listings.  Of which 10% are mine.
Promoted at an extremely high $. 
Still, buried in the sea of 7,000 and no closer to being seen than before.  

[dbfolks166mt]

     The eBay search engine has been less than optimal for a LONG time. As for the success of using PL there is really no way to determine that since you have no way of knowing if the item would have sold organically. PL may provide some added visibility for those selling in saturated categories but still there is no way to prove the success of using it other than to eBay who recognizes the increased revenue.

[12345jamesstamps]

Tried the promoted listings...I still have some 200 out there. It was cutting into my profits so I decided not to keep doing it. I was doing 12-15 % promoted listings. Now I just look to see what other sellers are selling the same item I am and keep my items cheaper than them. I also found listing more and more items help. Throwing in some auctions would also help. But my business plan is repeat buyers.

You're the lottery method....3 days no sale and then 3 days a lot of sales I have. And the International Sales and no Domestic sales in 3 days...might be.

I notice sellers with more than 3000+ listings appear quite a bit at the top with no promoted listings also.

And doing lowest priced items which is around .99 and then there are those $99.+ items for sale with the .99 cent items in lowest price listings. So strange.

[simply-the-best-for-you · Accepted solution]

@redlinear  Not many people here are using the PLA, that's why you're not getting any answers.  PLS is very commonly used, but PLA is really geared towards the very high volume & very tech savvy sellers.   It is the PPC (pay per click) model & it has not seen wide use amongst the masses, nor is it intended for the average seller. 

I don't know of anyone using it.  I use PLS extensively, but have no plans to try PLA.  Despite a lifetime in IT, I don't understand it & I make it a rule not to spend money on things I don't understand.   

I think @12345jamesstamps  & @dbfolks166mt  answers are just referring to PLS, not PLA.   I will page @zamo-zuan  for you.  I'm not sure if he uses PLA's, but if anyone here does, it's probably Zamo.  

Also, just a note of contention PLA refers to PL ADVANCED, there is also a PLA which is PL AUTOMATED, which I do use, but it's just an Automated version of PLS (Standard).  I wish they wouldn't have named them so the acronym is the same. 

[redlinear]

Am I not understanding the bidding on the keyword?   If I bid the highest on a keyword for one listing?  Shouldn't my listing show up 1st when that "word" is searched?
Is that not correct?

[simply-the-best-for-you]

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@redlinear wrote:

Am I not understanding the bidding on the keyword?   If I bid the highest on a keyword for one listing?  Shouldn't my listing show up 1st when that "word" is searched?
Is that not correct?

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@redlinear   I don't know & I don't want to steer you wrong, so let's wait until someone who knows PLA's hopefully shows up.  But 2 questions jump out at me in reading your question above.  1 - how would you know that you bid the "highest" & 2- what if 50 people bid the same amount?  They can't all be first.  

So, I would *guess* that your interpretation is not correct, just b/c logically it doesn't really make sense to me.  Whatever KW you chose, we can logically expect that many other users will use the same KW.  Even amongst those who use PLA, KW's are just not that unique typically.  I don't see how they could possibly guarantee anyone is going to be first.  I will try paging one other person who I know is very knowledgable @wastingtime101 though IDK if he knows PLA's?   Sit tight though, I am sure Zamo will check in, in the next day or two & he is probably our most prolific PL poster & has a large enough business that he may use PLA's.  

I did find this document:  https://www.ebay.com/sellercenter/growth/promoted-listings/promoted-listings-advanced .  I'm not sure it's still valid, since it's Beta & I don't think the program is Beta anymore, but it only refers to "premium" placement.   It doesn't seem to guarantee anything.  

Sorry I can't help more, it's just not something I know much about & honestly my eye glazed over in reading the document above.  Which brings me back to, if I don't understand it, I'm not paying for it.  I'll try to do some more digging, but it won't be today. 

[simply-the-best-for-you]

Ok, I did find this (below) in the FAQs of the document I posted above, so it would appear that I am correct & there's not any guarantee.   This makes sense to me from a logic standpoint b/c at any given time I believe there may be a number of users promoting the same KW at the same rate.  They can't all be #1.   These are worded pretty generically.  

Will my listings automatically win a premium placement when I advertise with Promoted Listings Advanced?

No. Each time a buyer searches for a product, we will determine which listings are shown in premium placements using factors like listing quality, keyword relevance, your bid amount, other sellers’ bids, and a reserve price (the minimum amount we've determined a click is worth, taking item quality, competition, seasonality, and marketplace thresholds into consideration).

Follow these best practices to improve item quality and relevancy:

• Write a clear and concise title with correct spelling and no more than 80 characters.
• Add an accurate description, using product details from the eBay catalog wherever you can.
• Use high-quality photos, taken from every angle, and show any flaws or scratches. You can include up to 12 pictures for free.
• Add item specifics, such as make, model, size, color, and style.

How does eBay decide which listings will appear in premium placements?

Placement and ranking are influenced by a variety of factors, including your bid, item relevancy, listing quality and a reserve price (the minimum amount we've determined a click is worth, taking item quality, competition, seasonality, and marketplace thresholds into consideration). Just having a high bid doesn't necessarily guarantee you will win premium placement, as eBay has strong quality and relevancy measures in place to ensure a good buyer experience.

It’s important that you also optimize your listings for Best Match to increase the likelihood of performing well in Advanced campaigns.

[zamo-zuan]

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@redlinear wrote:

Am I not understanding the bidding on the keyword?   If I bid the highest on a keyword for one listing?  Shouldn't my listing show up 1st when that "word" is searched?
Is that not correct?

---

Thanks @simply-the-best-for-you , yes we do use PLA.

So you would think bidding more on the keyword shows up in 1st (or the first 4 spots) for that keyword. But I'll be honest with you, it seems like there's a "baseline" you have to invest before you start showing up at all. We've spent time finding items that clearly don't have any PLA competition and moved up 5 cents at a time, and until around $0.50, it just doesn't get any impressions.

Beyond that baseline, it seems to give the first spot placement based upon investment. And if you're not hitting your "limit" for more than a few days, that means you're not investing enough to get an adequate amount of impressions yet.

I also recommend checking the reports and being careful. For some reason eBay ALWAYS sends our items to boat listings, and it feels like wasted potential for traffic that is just generating poor statistics.

Honestly, I'm a bit confused about how you mentioned in the OP that it did NOT count as a PLA sale. I believe it's supposed to if within a month of clicking or something along those lines? Sounds a bit strange to me, but hey, the payments are per click anyway. It's best to keep your own ROI statistics calculated from your actual sales.

With that said, PLA does help get impressions. Sometimes eBay's system seems to consider Promoted traffic in Organic rankings and seem think there's more "interest', so more traffic from any source is better for your store! 

One final piece of advice, is that I don't view PLA the same as PLS in terms of use case. PLS is pretty much a requirement to get traffic. PLA might not necessarily gain you many more sales, but seems like a very strong tool in determining the exact type of items in your inventory that do sell. If you have a large stock of items you want to liquidate, or if you have some very high profit margins, those are the perfect use cases for PLA. As one sale will be worth the investment.

It's getting a bit late so I didn't read through every single post in the thread, if you have any specific questions, please feel free to send me a reply and I'll check it tomorrow!

[redlinear]

@zamo-zuan 
I'm just testing PLS right now. 
You did some testing and moved up to .50 cents.  I've got 150 listings at $4.00 
(200 listings at $1.00) (200 listings at $2.00) (200 listings at $3.00) (150 listings at $4.00) (One listing at $10.00).   
Daily Limit set at $50 and hasn't been reached yet.    

Basically that's 750 listings that only an idiot would promote to that degree$$ (I'm that idiot, but, just trying to seek some insight into what needs to be done to be SEEN more than the competition).  
If I search my KEYWORD in a manner that must be done in order to find these items.  I see 7,000 total results (750 of those are mine).  That's significant.
I just thought with over 10% of that market, I could buy my way to the top with PLS.  (from what @simply-the-best-for-you  has posted though?  It appears I'm mistaken).  Looks like an eBay disclaimer pushing it back on "make sure your listing is good".  Mine listings are good, even though I think it's mostly the picture that gets you the CLICK.

 These are items that do sell.  Just not as fast as they used to sell. 
With no promotions, My research shows that I sell about One out of every Seven of these items that have sold.  (yet I'm the cheapest, like or better quality, top rated, ship fast, 100% feedback). 
With no promotions, It's as if one day eBay lines up customers in front of my store.  Then the next day, they pick somebody else's store, then the next day...somebody else.

I do plenty of PLA and sell through that.  But, I just don't know if those items would have sold at the same speed without PLA. 
Selling is not the issue.  Speed is.  It all comes down to if my items are on that 1st page, they sell.  When they are not, they don't. 
Just looking for some advantage.  Thought I might be able to buy that advantage, but it's not looking good.

I can explain this keyword thing and make it obvious. But I'd have to tell ya what it was, and I don't want y'all going and clicking on all of em 😂 
 

[zamo-zuan]

Well, for PLS, some peoples mileage may vary. But for us, it's like a "switch" that can be on or off. If you invest past a certain amount that "switch turns on". If you're below that amount, the switch turns off.

The reason I say a switch, rather than a bar that moves up or down, is once that switch is "on" further investment doesn't help. This is something we've tested many times. 

Throughout the week we've added an extra 2% PLS on thousands of listings, and it didn't really have any results that are significant, if anything we've just slightly dropped since then:

So for PLS, if you have similar results, all I could recommend is to find that "baseline" and build around that. You'll see a significant drop if you're below the baseline. But investing super heavily has never been worth it for us. (this may vary by category, so please don't take my word for it and ALWAYS test for yourself!)

You can do some testing and figure out what other sellers are using PLS and PLA based on placement. If they are using PLS, your listings will be fairly equal with theirs and scattered around the Sponsored results. If they are PLA, they will tend to float around the top of the results/higher than PLS. The effectiveness can vary from item to item based on if there's competitors spending or not.

Yup, I get it, speed is the issue. It's all basic mathematics built around the traffic. Once you get impressions, it becomes a formula where your impressions are the foundation. Then PLS will give you better placement, which gives you a better variance in that formula. 

What you explain, with eBay cycling through sellers, that happens even with PL, it's just more consistent with PL.

There's also eBay's limits. I know, I know, it's a hotly debated subject. But eBay had admit to them in the past, despite trying to retract those statements. In my conversations with eBay supervisors and leadership they have indicated that these things are true. And the more sales you get, the more noticeable it is.

The limits are a bit more noticeable for us the last couple weeks in the current algorithm. Check your sales/31 days in the morning and evening, grab a screenshot of it daily. Every single morning we're -0.5%. Throughout the day once we go to +1%, things very obviously slow down, regardless of waht time of day we get there. The further ahead we get, the more we slow down. If a big day falls off the 31 day chart you can be guaranteed the next day is going to be a big day. If a slow day falls off the chart and you become ahead of 1%, suddenly you have an extremely slow day. It's "pacing" your store. 

So you have to keep that under consideration. There's only so far that promos can push you. They can make you slowly trend upwards. You can push the "ceiling" a little higher if you're investing high. But it's not overnight success or suddenly "buying your way to the top". eBay prevents that from happening. 

It's good to do, but it's a marathon and not a sprint. Don't go so crazy with the promos that you can't sustain. 

[redlinear]

@zamo-zuan , So as to not type another novel 😂,   Thankyou! 
And yes.  I'll be the 1st tell a person that the way to sell is to sell.  In order to sell more, sell more.  (reading that causes brain cramps...lol).

Quick question:  My inventory locations are basically "dates".  If I list 30 basically unrelated items today, most of those are put in a location marked (3/24/23).  Which is right next to (3/23/23) (3/22/23). 
I expect a few of those items to sell next week.
And I'd bet money that somewhere around 90 days, I'll be pulling several items out of those locations to ship in one day.
That would be the second day eBay is lining shoppers up in front of my store. 
I think DATE is one of most important factors in the whole mix of search results.  
And the only way to Jive with that is to list items Every day, every day, every day, every day.

[the-hook-and-the-loop]

Here is my $0.02 on advanced. The keywords that you choose should be what you think a buyer would type in. It could possibly be a commonly misspelled word. You could set a high amount on the words "car" and "auto" and probably see more traffic. If you are choosing words that are in your titles, buyers may not be typing in those keywords and your listings would appear anyway without PLA. So what I'm trying to say is, to think like a 12 year old with keywords(car, motor, engine, tire, wheel, hose, door, window, etc). If you apply X amount of dollars or cents to those keywords on all of your listings, they will show up when buyers type in their search. I'm sure all buyers looking for parts start off with their year, make, model of vehicle. Having $0.25 on those variations of keywords would be a good idea. Good luck!!!

[redlinear]

Yes, I thought that thru a little bit.   Taking sort of the opposite approach though.
I think Car would be bad (I sure wouldn't want those clicks).

Datsun would be bad. (sure don't want Pay Per Click on everybody looking for Datsun stuff...Don't really care to be seen with that search).
300Z would be bad, but....better. (Still, LOTS of 300Z parts....it would have be a really low Click Amount). 
240Z though?  I like that one.  (gotta type in 240Z if you want to find 240Z parts, and....moderate amount of available results.  Should be something that a big $$ per click rate could be set. Only on the more expensive listings though).
  That's basically what I've done.  I have a lot of listings live in market "niches". 
I have nothing super rare, but....anybody that searches MUST type in ONE certain word in order to find what they want. 
I wish I had super rate stuff....(super rare stuff, needs no promotion)  😂

[zamo-zuan]

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@redlinear wrote:

@zamo-zuan , So as to not type another novel 😂,   Thankyou! 
And yes.  I'll be the 1st tell a person that the way to sell is to sell.  In order to sell more, sell more.  (reading that causes brain cramps...lol).

Quick question:  My inventory locations are basically "dates".  If I list 30 basically unrelated items today, most of those are put in a location marked (3/24/23).  Which is right next to (3/23/23) (3/22/23). 
I expect a few of those items to sell next week.
And I'd bet money that somewhere around 90 days, I'll be pulling several items out of those locations to ship in one day.
That would be the second day eBay is lining shoppers up in front of my store. 
I think DATE is one of most important factors in the whole mix of search results.  
And the only way to Jive with that is to list items Every day, every day, every day, every day.

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Interesting, we hadn't noticed any correlation on dates before, but we hadn't explicitely tested for that either. Our stock has predetermined locations per part number (unless if it's full then we create a new one).

I'll keep an eye on that and post if I have any findings!