Promoted Listings Advanced

[katzrul15]

Have read thru this a couple of times.  

Will this mean that PLs as we know them now will essentially be worthless/not effective?

A little concerning as we use PLs quite a bit currently.  Not certain our budget can work for the PL Advanced or that I have a "daily" budget for PL Advanced?

Thoughts?  

How Promoted Listings AdvancedBETA works

Promoted Listings AdvancedBETA is based on a cost-per-click model. You start by deciding how much each keyword and click is worth to you. Next, you bid to target placements at the top of eBay search results. Top placements show your listings to buyers right when they’re looking for your items across all experiences on eBay, including desktop, mobile, and the eBay app.

With this new type of campaign, you’ll be able to:

• Bid for the top slot in search using keyword and budget controls, and pay per click.
• Select the keywords that matter to you.
• Set a daily budget for additional control.

To set up your first campaign, go to the Seller Hub Marketing tab. You can create a new campaign within the Advertising dashboard by following these simple steps:

1. Name your campaign.
2. Choose dates and a daily budget.
3. Name your Ad Group.
4. Add your listings and keywords to the Ad Group.
5. Select a maximum cost-per-click for the keywords, displayed as “CPC bids” in the tool.

Review your campaign after you complete these steps.

Top tips

• Use features like suggested keywords and bids to help you set up effective campaigns.
• Include high-quality listings in your campaign with complete and accurate item specifics and great photos for the best chance of gaining high visibility. In addition to your bid, factors including keyword relevancy, listing quality, competition, and daily budget determine whether your ad will appear in the number one position.
• Use the daily budget feature to manage your ad spend.

You can also use both Promoted Listings Standard and Advanced together to help achieve maximum visibility for your ad placements across the eBay network, and utilize both budget approaches for your ad spend.

Coming later this month—Promoted Listings AdvancedBETA

Starting at the end of this month, Promoted Listings AdvancedBETA will be available to all eligible Promoted Listings sellers. If you’re eligible, you’ll be able to opt in to Promoted Listings AdvancedBETA to start bidding for the highly coveted top spot in the search results, as soon as it’s accessible.

All existing Promoted Listings campaigns will automatically be renamed Promoted Listings Standard campaigns, without you having to do anything. The only changes will be to the name and attribution logic.

[ittybitnot]

The PLA only applies to ebay search , not off ebay sites. 

@my-cottage-books-and-antiques 

Thanks again!  I actually DID go read the description of the PLA (twice) before I asked my previous question as well.  I must be suffering from some sort of general "senior dementia" or something for the last couple of days. 

[mr_lincoln]

@katzrul15   wrote:  If e-Bay would make MY/YOUR listings more prominent when an item is viewed and not those of our competitors, it might also connect those dots. It burns my biscuits that instead of a buyer seeing more of what I/YOU might have, e-Bay shows them 6 others, usually cheaper or whatever, of the exact same thing. Goodie. Got them to my listings and now e-Bay wants to show them the Seller Buffet selling against me/you. Yay. Not!

_________________________________________________________

Boy did you just hit on an EXCELLENT POINT!  You are right, it seems the band of other Sellers' items right through the middle of the listing (when opened) ...

[Anonymous]

Absolutely !!!  Small sellers can't afford to use PLA at any rate, it would simply eat up their profit in no time flat.

PLA is for very large sellers and businesses with advert and marketing budgets to spend and write off.

We will no doubt hear from small sellers in the forums that gave it a go and lost their behinds right away.

eBay won't care, they sucked all that money in and it did what it was supposed to.

[dbfolks166mt]

      Plan and simple the only reason for PL of any type is to increase revenues for eBay. I have never use PL and never will. I sell a few items on eBay but the majority of my sales are on other platforms/forums where I can usually list items at 10-15% cheaper than what I can post them on eBay. 

     Buyers have become a lot more savvy about searching the internet for the best bargain. COVID drove an explosion in ecommerce and vastly expanded the number of sites. They may not YET have the buyer base that eBay does but eBay didn't start with the current number of active buyers it has either. 

[nuclearomen]

---

@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

@ittybitnot The PLA only applies to ebay search , not off ebay sites. 

---

uhm, no, if a link to a promotional listing is clicked on via google, social media etc...that PL ad fee is then locked to that buyer for 30 days and if they buy you pay the ad rate you elected. It would be save to then except PLA will be no different and the per click will most likely apply...that's the whole idea of PLA. Ebay doesn't tell you this in the update, but counting towards your per click daily budget will most likely count. 

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@nuclearomen My understanding is that PL Standard can be put on Google, etc (I believe it's an opt out sort of thing, an ebay seller can opt out of off -ebay PL). But the question is about PL Advanced, and as far as I know the ONLY placement one bids on (at least, at this point) is the top slot in EBAY search.

You could be correct, but I'd suggest we try to get confirmation either way from ebay.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Here's a link to the original announcement about external PLs:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Announcements/Announcing-external-Promoted-Listings-Another-way-to-con...

[nuclearomen]

---

@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

@nuclearomen My understanding is that PL Standard can be put on Google, etc (I believe it's an opt out sort of thing, an ebay seller can opt out of off -ebay PL). But the question is about PL Advanced, and as far as I know the ONLY placement one bids on (at least, at this point) is the top slot in EBAY search.

You could be correct, but I'd suggest we try to get confirmation either way from ebay.

---

@my-cottage-books-and-antiques 

For search placement, obvious that ebay can't control a search placement from external sources, google etc... but any click into that PL, being ebay internal or web external seller still get charged the ad rate of that PL if visitor buys. Therefore, any click into a PLA, cost per click will be applied to the sellers budget. Where things change is with PLA if seller has a listing on PLS and on PLA (From the latest seller update)
For example:

• If your listing is clicked in a Promoted Listings Standard ad and then clicked and purchased through an Advanced ad, the sale will be attributed to the Advanced ad. This means you will only pay for the click on the Advanced ad.
• If a buyer clicks on an Advanced ad, and then later purchases your item through a Standard ad, the sale will be attributed to the Standard ad, and you will pay the Standard ad fee. Please note: you will still be charged for every click on an Advanced ad.
•  

From the link you posted: 

What sellers need to know about external Promoted Listings:

External Promoted Listings come at no additional cost to sellers. The Promoted Listings ad rate works the same on and off eBay. If a buyer clicks on a promoted listing and purchases that item within 30 days of that click, the seller pays the ad rate determined at the time of the click.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@nuclearomen 

Here's how I'm reading this:

What sellers need to know about external Promoted Listings:

External Promoted Listings come at no additional cost to sellers. The Promoted Listings STANDARD ad rate works the same on and off eBay. If a buyer clicks on a promoted listing and purchases that item within 30 days of that click, the seller pays the FVF ad rate determined at the time of the click. PLS has no per click charge, only an FVF for a sale. And PLA has no FVF charge for a sale, it has only per click charges. 

And here's how I read this:

For example:

• If your listing is clicked in a Promoted Listings Standard ad and then clicked and purchased through an Advanced ad, the sale will be attributed to the Advanced ad. This means you will only pay for the click on the Advanced ad.  But, if I'm correct and PLAs do not appear externally, this simply means in this case you will not need to pay an FVF, but you will pay for any clicks on ebay. That's true whether the PLS was clicked on or off ebay: no FVF in this case. 
• If a buyer clicks on an Advanced ad, and then later purchases your item through a Standard ad, the sale will be attributed to the Standard ad, and you will pay the Standard ad fee. Please note: you will still be charged for every click on an Advanced ad. So, if the last click is on a PLS (on or off ebay), you will pay the FVF AND any clicks associated with the PLA. But again, if the PLA ONLY appears on eBay, and does not have an external presence, then it is only clicks ON EBAY that are counted.

So, the question is: is there such a thing as an external PLA?  We know that ebay only recently created external PLStandards, before that, there was no such thing as an external PL.  I still see nothing in the ebay info that indicates that PLA has an external component.  I have asked about this on the Fall Update Board...hopefully we'll get a definitive answer there.

[flyingmvp]

---

@dbfolks166mt wrote:

They may not YET have the buyer base that eBay does but eBay didn't start with the current number of active buyers it has either. 

---

The buyer base on other platforms is growing, according to Q2 2021 report, Ebay's active buyers cadre is in decline, but the active sellers number is growing. (Hello Sri Lanka 😃 !!!)

Buyers are looking elsewhere.

Remember the days when Ebay was a community and buyers were the sellers and sellers were the buyers?

The sellers from China or Sri Lanka don't buy, only sell...

We'll see how the "Advanced" will do...

[orionware]

PL already made it easier for the low rung, poor quality sellers to get a leg up on the ones with consistent quality customer service and sales numbers.  This has hurt Ebay overall with buyers and I can't tell you the number of people we have told me in conversation that they no longer use eBay because of scam sellers.

PL + will effectively eliminate the low-cost item sales.  this about it like this. If you sell a $10 item that typically has a 3% sell-thru rate, you have to get 97 views before you get that sale. If you bid 5 cents a click, that's nearly $5 in PPC fees before it sells!    Now, the cheaper the item the lower the bids will be. But even if you're getting clicks at 1 cent apiece, that's 97 cents or about 10% of the sale price putting your total feels over 22%.  That's outrageous.

The ones who will be able to afford this are the Chinese sellers who already have a leg up on price and shipping costs.

[nuclearomen]

---

@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

@nuclearomen 

Here's how I'm reading this:

What sellers need to know about external Promoted Listings:

External Promoted Listings come at no additional cost to sellers. The Promoted Listings STANDARD ad rate works the same on and off eBay. If a buyer clicks on a promoted listing and purchases that item within 30 days of that click, the seller pays the FVF ad rate determined at the time of the click. PLS has no per click charge, only an FVF for a sale. And PLA has no FVF charge for a sale, it has only per click charges. 

And here's how I read this:

For example:

• If your listing is clicked in a Promoted Listings Standard ad and then clicked and purchased through an Advanced ad, the sale will be attributed to the Advanced ad. This means you will only pay for the click on the Advanced ad.  But, if I'm correct and PLAs do not appear externally, this simply means in this case you will not need to pay an FVF, but you will pay for any clicks on ebay. That's true whether the PLS was clicked on or off ebay: no FVF in this case. 
• If a buyer clicks on an Advanced ad, and then later purchases your item through a Standard ad, the sale will be attributed to the Standard ad, and you will pay the Standard ad fee. Please note: you will still be charged for every click on an Advanced ad. So, if the last click is on a PLS (on or off ebay), you will pay the FVF AND any clicks associated with the PLA. But again, if the PLA ONLY appears on eBay, and does not have an external presence, then it is only clicks ON EBAY that are counted.

So, the question is: is there such a thing as an external PLA?  We know that ebay only recently created external PLStandards, before that, there was no such thing as an external PL.  I still see nothing in the ebay info that indicates that PLA has an external component.  I have asked about this on the Fall Update Board...hopefully we'll get a definitive answer there.

---

@my-cottage-books-and-antiques 

PLS only has the PL elected rate - of course - PLA has the cost-per-click - Neither PLS or PLA go by FVF, FVF is of course separate fee entirely and will be charged what ever the FVF percentage is for the category of the item along with the PL ad rate elected (i.e. 1% - 2% - so on and so forth). PLA is pay-per-click, however, need to check, there may also be a elected percentage to PLA as well. The pay-per-click maybe just one component of PLA where seller pays to have that listing shown at top of search on ebay, yet another part of PLA they did not make clear on the seller update...so kinda good you brought it up...idk. 

PL as well as PLA will be as any PL - it will show on google and ebay - seller can link that PL or PLA to their social media or whatever and any click on that link that brings a viewer to that PLA listing seller will be charged per view of that listing. PLS has an advantage because there is no cost per click/view no matter where the traffic comes from to that listing. Reason why I say PLA would be just as PLS is because ebay created this for a huge money grab, knowing easily they can rake in cash for nothing, not even a sale, so of course, they want those PLA's to be shown via google and not rely on ebay search alone... especially when many don't even use ebay search these days but rather reach an ebay listing via google search or social media link. Can I be wrong, sure, but it makes complete sense looking at in ebay's perspective. If it is not correct then that is good news for PLA users, maybe able to actually save some money from non-sale clicks then.  

So yeah, idk, all good questions, let us know if you hear an answer. Interesting all the things we can come up with, but not be made clear by ebay with releasing on the seller update. 

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@nuclearomen OK, my bad on the FVF thing. You are right, technically the PLS percentage rate is not an FVF....I just think of it as another FVF because, like FVF, it is a percentage rate applied to the sale. But your term is better---the PLS "elected rate" is really what I was talking about when I was talking about the FVF. 

I see no reason to believe that PLA includes an "elected rate". I suppose we could also ask for clarification on that as well.

Hopefully, I'll hear something back from the question on the Fall Update Board, if not, I'll probably try again at Weekly Chat.  In the meantime, I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on whether PLA has an external component or not. I certainly think ebay could add that in the future, but I just don't think it's there now. But obviously I could be wrong. I agree, when ebay releases these updates , they often end up raising more questions than they answer. Clear communication has never been ebay's strength LOL

[frugality_inc]

It's eBay's way of raising fees, while destroying the quality of the platform. 

Executives that have been made aware of this problem do not perform any meaningful changes. Too busy chasing short term profits to boost the stock price. Can't blame Elliott Management influence anymore, as they dumped the stock in February. Management is clearly at fault for the lack of quality on the platform.

From 2019 when I brought this issue up seeing the writing on the wall at that time.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Ask-Me-Anything-Jordan-Sweetnam/Promoted-Listings-are-Ruining-Quality-...

"Conversations on this topic are underway - I can't commit to a specific date or change - but don't be surprised to see us testing some things in the new year and announcing changes by Q2."

All we got was below standard sellers can no longer use promoted listings. @jordan_sweetnam did not resolve the issues described.

Summed up nicely in the Marketplace Pulse article:

https://www.marketplacepulse.com/articles/ebays-plan-is-more-ads

"However, as eBay becomes a pay-to-play marketplace, it squeezes sellers’ profit margins. It also abandons product recommendations for “Similar sponsored items” and “Sponsored items customers also bought” (just like Amazon did). Thus eBay has found a short-term plan to grow revenue but still has no answers for declining market share."

Sinking ship. Promoted listings and service metric scams must be abused to fund life rafts. Enjoy the managed decline. Better get diversified if you haven't already.

[forward-motion]

I guess we will wait and see. In my opinion the automatic promoted listings is new and I'm still getting used to that. It was working good for me. Cost per click would kill me. I sell mostly in ebay motors, I'm not sure how many sellers would do this in that category.  But I use the other listings for a reference how to list mine and I know many other sellers do this. The cost per click thing would end up paying for a lot of tire kickers. I have been a ebay cheerleader on here, and been accused of being paid by ebay. Sorry to disappoint those folks, but I'm not on board with this change and I feel it is designed to kill the little guy.