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.

[glasser]

@zamo-zuan agree with much of what you say. Good old fashioned write a good title and description and provide CS was the backbone of eBay. It does still work to a degree.

As eBay works on its Amazonification of the platform, the models seems to be create a vanilla experience, down play the seller, focus on product/price and shipping time. One of eBay's actual strengths is that it is a person-to-person buying and selling platform.  This is critical in what In sell since I sell to collectors who often have questions and confidence in the seller is a component of the transaction. 

eBay is tinkering with revenue creation and sees sellers as a source of revenue beyond FVFs.  There is a symbiotic relationship between buyers, sellers, and eBay on the platform.  Finding the harmonious convergence of those elements is actually the key to greater success. Creating hurdles, and increased selling expenses is a hurdle, bad CS by eBay is a hurdle, too many choices or lack of confidence in search results by a buyer is a hurdle,  breaks that confluence of interests.

Remember, despite the PR spin, Pierre did not create eBay to sell Pez dispensers. He created eBay to rationalize markets and bring buyers and sellers who would not cross paths otherwise together in place where sellers could compete to be the best they could and buyers would have access to competitively priced goods or goods they may not have access to at all where they live.

Core to that was a level playing field. Meaning if I sell 10 items a year and you sell 10,000 the opportunity is exactly the same.  And guess what, it worked brilliantly.

[nuclearomen]

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@mr_lincoln wrote:

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@katzrul15 wrote:

@nuclearomen 

@mr_lincoln 

@my-cottage-books-and-antiques 

But it is not being marketed that way.  There is a HUGE banner atop my Seller Hub telling me to try it out, take it for a test spin!

e-Bay is marketing it to the average Seller and that is wrong.

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I see the same thing ... if it is NOT intended for the cats I am in then I should NOT be seeing that announcement ... its not a message to read about it, it's clear they want Sellers to use it ... so when Sellers blow their "budget" the first week and have nothing to show for it we'll start to see the complaint threads ...

I "get" what it is about ...

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doesn't matter what type of seller it's intended for, their mission to sucker as many into it as possible, even they shouldn't be using it or understand it etc... 

[nuclearomen]

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@katzrul15 wrote:

@nuclearomen 

@mr_lincoln 

@my-cottage-books-and-antiques 

But it is not being marketed that way.  There is a HUGE banner atop my Seller Hub telling me to try it out, take it for a test spin!

e-Bay is marketing it to the average Seller and that is wrong.

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yeah, well that banner changes everytime enter sell hub... ebay trying to market various things at once. Last week I was getting save 50% of FVF by sending offers. 

[nuclearomen]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

To which I've been saying: This whole thing should come with a disclaimer of some sort. In fact, I'll go further, not only should it have a disclaimer, it really should REQUIRE that any seller who wants to use it MUST first "attend" the "Ads Academy" ebay provides, and ebay should have a test at the end that a seller must pass in order to start a campaign. But OK, that's never going to happen. LOL But maybe something like : Use only as directed. This tool might not be for you. Side effects can include loss of money. LOL Whatever.

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I think the one good thing out of it is ebay was quick to understand they need a "seller school" for PLA, how good it is and how much in depth it goes idk, but something is better then nothing. I think many sellers, especially experienced sellers understand what PLA is but to say they are designed the same as say google did etc... likely not, so the school is something i actually do applaud ebay for doing, since they rarely explain things to sellers and help pages are typically useless. I have no plans to use PLA, while I do have the inventory for some titles it's just not worth me investing in it, it would actually be a better investment for me to invest in PLS with some higher election rates and see how that converts to sales. 

[nuclearomen]

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@valueaddedresource wrote:

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@glasser wrote:

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@nuclearomen

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just wait for PLA Auctions ...if not already released...it's coming.

Wow that's going to be a nightmare.  In categories I sell in people favor overpricing items to auctions 🙂 

That said, eBay would have to, and I think they should for all PL as well item specifics, show some data that proves the investment is it worth it. I have an auction know with 550 views, 49 watchers, and 27 bids. Doesn't see, PL  would provide any benefit.  And I understand the new category realignments search will be come even more important. I assume 98% of people find my listings via search. Not sure increased paid click throughs by drive by window shoppers would help my bottom line.

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@glasser  @nuclearomen  PL Express for Auctions is already active for some sellers (in the mobile app and only for sellers who don't use Seller Hub).

The really interesting thing for PL Express for auctions is it's not even pay per click, it's literally just an upfront flat tiered fee for the promise of maybe having your listings shown in ad spaces across the eBay network. 😲

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Promoted-Listings-Express-For-Auctions/td-p/32299373

So it goes like this - Promoted Listings Standard you pay only if you make a sale, Promoted Listings Advanced you pay for clicks but at least there is still some action required that might possibly lead to a sale, Promoted Listings Express you pay upfront just for visibility alone, no action on the part of potential buyers needed.

It will be interesting to hear what sellers think of PLExpress once it is rolled out fully.  It's not clear exactly what the fees are - apparently the option to promote is offered only after you create the listing and then it is a flat fee based on category and length of auction. There is no publicly available chart of what the fee tiers look like, you just have to wait and see what it shows you in the app when it gives you the option to promote.

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@valueaddedresource idk, seems to me to pay a upfront charged fee of $5 on an auction, for spots seems a waste...but like anything else we talk about, it guess, it still comes down to category and item, if it's listing in something that is already congested with a lot of listings/pages through search that is where Express may help, other categories with no to only few listings for same thing why bother using it? The point is to have the top slots and more visability - no point if there is none to near no competition. Plus, and idk, but seems many people start their auctions out with quite low price, seen many start at $1 or less just to see people fight over it i guess... is the $5 fee worth it? guess that's up to the seller and the item in question. 

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@valueaddedresource  The absence of a fee chart for PL Express leads me to wonder whether there is going to be a chart, or will the fees be like the suggested fees for PLS (only mandatory)? That is, subject to change daily, and you won't know what you will have to pay until you create the listing, at which point you can look at the fee and decide whether you want to pay for PLE or not. I sincerely hope not, but the whole PLE thing is so opaque to those of us who haven't been able to actually use it....

Also, it seems pretty clear (but who knows?) that PLE doesn't impact search results placement....this only involves placement on other listing pages. 

I don't know....I'd probably be willing to experiment with it once it is available to me (if that day ever comes)...but at this point, I'm not exactly trembling with anticipation.  It could be a very good tool, but the devil, as always, will be in the , for now, unknown details.....

[blacktopautoparts]

I agree with you on a lot of what you have said, and the Automated Promoted Listings just do not work. We did some testing with these and our impressions dropped terribly, and not quite sure why that would be the case since eBay can ultimately control the promoted listing fees with this option.

I even tried for a few days at a 20% flat rate PL fee on all of my items. While the impressions did spike, there was an issue with conversions.

I'm not sure if you saw my previous example, where now non-related category items are appearing at the top of categories that I have checked to see if my products are appearing. I think a lot of this has to do with the new PLA, causing all kinds of weird issues in the search.

As the one poster said above, he researches before he buys anything on here. In the parts and accessories category, there are customers that do not research at all and do not even read titles, listings, or review pictures so it is even worse with the types of returns we get. There is a lot of buyer error and the worst part is when they try to even pinpoint the issues back on the seller.

[katzrul15]

@my-cottage-books-and-antiques 

@nuclearomen 

@mr_lincoln 

Here is the Banner - This really should have been promoted SO very differently:

[nuclearomen]

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@katzrul15 wrote:

@my-cottage-books-and-antiques 

@nuclearomen 

@mr_lincoln 

Here is the Banner - This really should have been promoted SO very differently:

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yes, well people read that and say "oh, if i get top search slot i may sell something since haven't sold a thing in weeks" or "i need to bid on search slot!? better do it or no one will see my items now!" - ebay gains a sucker every minute they say. 

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Yes, I've seen the banner. And yes, as I've said multiple times, it should have a disclaimer because too many sellers will never really think this through, they'll just go ahead and jump in. 

[mr_lincoln]

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@katzrul15 wrote:

@my-cottage-books-and-antiques 

@nuclearomen 

@mr_lincoln 

Here is the Banner - This really should have been promoted SO very differently:

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@katzrul15, @my-cottage-books-and-antiques , @nuclearomen 

They also sent an eBay message (September 20th for me) ... It was deleted so I never opened it ...

[mr_lincoln]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

Yes, I've seen the banner. And yes, as I've said multiple times, it should have a disclaimer because too many sellers will never really think this through, they'll just go ahead and jump in. 

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Not the smart ones @my-cottage-books-and-antiques , there is only so much Dale Carnegie wording that can be used to disguise paying ad fees up front with no guarantee of a sale instead of paying ad fees ONLY IF an item sells.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@mr_lincoln , The smart ones will recognize if this isn't designed for them and they won't use it. Others will dismiss it out of hand, and so they won't use it, and that's probably for the best, because the odds are they aren't the target market for this anyway. The other smart ones will recognize that it IS designed for their type of business, and will recognize the value in paying the ad fees , and will profit from it.

As I said above, I've already seen sellers posting on Facebook groups about how this has boosted their sales. But they've all been the type of sellers for whom this tool is designed, and I think they all have had experience with CPC programs elsewhere.  So don't kid yourself....this IS a useful tool, but , as ebay has said, it isn't really for everyone. I think one advantage experienced CPC users will have here is not just their experience, but also the fact that many of their competitors, who really SHOULD try it, will dismiss it out of hand, and so they won't even be in the competition. 

[flyingmvp]

This banner is so cynical and deceptive, it is designed to mislead and eat the gullible and hopeless.

They decided to stop focusing on being a commerce platform and turned into a trading house who is hoping to make more of the commission off the sellers who will hopefully eat each other to pay for more visibility.

it is much easier then working and developing the platform and the actual product sold by the sellers.

This will get very interesting, very fast.

[glasser]

eBay really runs the risk a major disaster. Even now, from a buyers perspective, PL don't work very well. For example, I sometimes search for watches. Since the same exact model can have varying price points, I usually sort at some point from lowest price. Well what is mixed in? Higher priced PLs. It feels a bit sleazy as a buyer to see this higher priced items.

Because eBay benefits as well, I think another risk is what happens on Amazon. There are so many promoted listings that often there are items that don't match your search at all. I frequently by shipping boxes on Amazon, sometimes I don't even see a match to the box size I have put in till way down the list. How can the help the consumer? Of yousearch for a certain size TV and see all different sizes mixed. Amazon search is horrible

Now with pay per click, eBay's incentive is to throw as many PLs in search result no matter the parameters put in by someone searching because every click is revenue. 

Search initial search results should always be based on the exact parameters first and the match for PL should be at least a 90% match with those parameters. Otherwise buyers will be turned off. 

The purpose of search is shortest number of clicks to what you want.