Trending Rate VS Recommended Rate - Question for EBAY genius: What is the Difference?

[acem4]

I noticed on the promoted listings that the wording was changed from trending rate to suggested rate.  What is the difference in these rates?  ie Is the suggested rate above or below the trending rate or are they the same?  I will consider the EBAY executive who can answer this question to be a genius.  Any takers? 

[chapeau-noir]

From what I've read they've revamped the data logic behind the program.  Rather than just promotional rate averaging (who is paying what in a certain category), it supposedly also includes performance, item specifics, recency, etc., as well as competition. So they renamed it.

[robxznyc]

Trending rate was replaced by suggested rate because trending is inaccurate. If you consider the relation between ad rates (Y) and numbers of seller (X) to form a curve on an XY axis, trending rate suggests the ad rate at the peak of the curve (most number of seller). But because eBay considers other factors to promote a listing the rate suggested to each seller should be different and not fall on the peak of the curve. Suggested rate is more neutral and accurate than trending rate.

[acem4]

So far, my question has not been fully answered.  Here again, is my question:   "Is the suggested rate above or below the trending rate or are they the same?"

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

When the suggested rate was first announced I had a number of listings listed at trending rate. The suggested rate for those listings was less for some, and more for others.  So the answer is: No, the suggested rate is not the same as the trending rate. In some cases it is higher. In some cases lower. Since ebay no longer provides a trending rate, it is basically a moot question at this point. 

The suggested rate is , of course, a suggestion only, and sellers are free to ignore it and choose whatever rate they want. Or, of course, not use PL at all. 

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

I'll add: the suggested rate fluctuates. I currently have some items at the suggested rate, and if I look at my active item list I can see both my current rate and the new suggested rate. Again, sometimes the new suggestion is below, sometimes above, the suggested rate I had previously applied. As a couple other posters explained, ebay is considering many more factors now than when it was just the trending rate. 

[farmalljr]

Sometimes suggested rate is above trending, sometimes below. It depends on the category. I've seen it both ways. 

My best GUESS is that the suggested rate is where most sellers in the category are using promotion rates. 

The majority of the time, suggested and trending are the same rate. 

[acem4]

That is what I thought.  Nobody really knows.  The people at EBAY who made up the suggested rate apparently do not wish to tell us the to answer this question.

[inhawaii]

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@acem4 wrote:

So far, my question has not been fully answered.  Here again, is my question:   "Is the suggested rate above or below the trending rate or are they the same?"

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Trending rate: What most sellers are choosing.

Suggested rate: What ebay recommends/suggests/wants you to go with.

Ask the car dealer, what is the average selling price of this new car.

Then ask the car dealer, what they suggest you pay for it.   😉

[acem4]

Is there a place you can go to look at both rates at the same time?

[tdrake]

If the majority of sellers are choosing the Suggested Rate, doesn't that pretty much then become the Trending Rate?

Of course we have no way of knowing if the majority indeed chooses the Suggested Rate...

... and then there's all those sellers that choose 1% because they're not sure if promotion is effective but don't want to be left completely out of the promoted listings...

... so maybe with the 1%ers the Trending Rate is a bit below the Suggested Rate...

... and maybe the now "Suggested" Rate is eBay's way to raise the Trending Rate to offset the 1%ers LOL it boggles the mind...

... but we can pretty much assume that the change makes more money for eBay... 

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

acem4,

"Is there a place you can go to look at both rates at the same time?"

Again, Suggested Rate has REPLACED Trending Rate. You cannot compare the two because one has replaced the other. ebay provides a Suggested Rate INSTEAD of a Trending Rate. The ONLY time to make a comparison was to do it when the Suggested Rate was first announced, and as I explained above, that is exactly what I did, by looking at existing listings where I had used the trending rate and comparing them to the new suggested rate. Some new rates were higher, many were lower.

The Suggested rate continues to fluctuate because it is a dynamic number determined by Machine Learning. If you use Seller Hub, it is easy to see this by looking at your Active Listing list. There is a column entitled "Promoted Listings" That will tell you whether your item is a PL or eligible to be a PL. If it is already a PL, it will tell you what ad rate you currently have on it, and will tell you the current Suggested Ad Rate (whether you have PL on it already or not). Taking a glance at my list, I see some  where the SAR is higher and some where it is lower. 

In my experience the Suggested ad rate is a big improvement over the Trending Rate, which relied on data determined by the rates sellers were setting. This was inevitably somewhat skewed, since many sellers choose a low number, such as 1%, and flatly apply it to all their PLs, and many others choose a very high number under the mistaken impression that it guarantees them a top slot in search results. Also, it had little granularity, as it was based on the category or sometimes the subcategory, which is too broad. It gave you some idea as to what rate your competitors were using, but not whether the rate was bringing them much success. 

"Suggested Rate" is not just a name change. It's an entirely different approach. 

[luckythewinner]

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@acem4 wrote:

So far, my question has not been fully answered.  Here again, is my question:   "Is the suggested rate above or below the trending rate or are they the same?"

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You did not get an answer because none of the three options you offered is accurate.

"The suggested ad rate replaces the trending rate and is a personalized recommendation based on historical and predictive data. While the trending rate was designed to give you a sense of how other sellers were setting their ad rates for similar items, the suggested ad rate can help you find your optimal ad rate for each item and achieve a balance between performance and cost. ​"

The suggested rate is not always above the trending rate, not always below it, and not always the same.

They use completely different logic and there is not a constant relationship between the two.

[acem4]

ie You have no idea.  Obviously, the trending rate would be the average of of all of the promotional rate users.  So, what is the mathematical equation for the suggested rate?  I really don't want a sugar coated non answer.  I would like an actual real answer.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Actual real answer:

eBay used machine learning to develop an algorithm to provide an item-level suggested ad rate which helps balance cost and performance.

How It Works

Feature Engineering and Model Training

To estimate the probability of an item getting a significant visibility boost with a specific ad rate, eBay built an Xgboost classification model via Krylov, an internal machine learning platform. “Success” is defined as an item with significant improvement in impressions by showing in a more competitive slot (higher rank) compared to its organic status in major channels, including the search result page and view item page. The model evaluates the item’s features (count of historical impressions, clicks, transactions, number of competing promoted items in the same leaf category, price, etc.) over a set of reasonable ad-rate candidates and then generates the corresponding probability score.

Computing the Optimal Ad Rate 

Next, the model assesses all the ad-rate candidates and their probabilities for success to recommend the optimal rate which maximizes the formula:

      (price - final value fee - ad fee) * score

where “price” is the item’s price, “final value fee” represents the normalized eBay fee paid per transaction by the seller, “ad fee” equals the Promoted Listings ad rate multiplied by the item’s price paid on top of the final value fee, and “score” is the probability computed using the Xgboost model described above. The resulting suggested ad rate is designed not only to boost visibility, but also to help balance visibility with cost. This ad rate is then shared with the seller as the suggested item-level ad rate.