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Promoted Listings - how are you handling it?
 

I've spent months now trying to tune "promoted listings" into something that gets me enough traffic without destroying my profit margin.

Recently I've started disabling "promoted listings general" because the recommended ad rate was creeping up towards 20%. They have no problem advising you to incrementally bump up the ad rate until you're taking a loss on every sale. A lot of sellers are being forced to eat the losses just to move inventory.

For a while I was using promoted general and advanced but with the recent changes to the pay per click model, it seems like eBay is charging for clicks even if the buyer doesn't purchase. It quickly became unfeasible for me to use both ad types. On a $30 order I would have $15 in promoted listings costs.. then I would still have to buy postage.

Promoted advanced gets the best search ranking. I've started using Promoted advanced (PPC) for faster moving items and promoted general for slower sellers. I have the per click rate capped around 25-30 cents because again with that.. eBay will allow you to compete against yourself.. advising you to raise your per click rate to a dollar or more (as high as you're willing to go, really). The marketing team at eBay seems to have gone with the same strategy as the rest of wall street - extract maximum profits at all costs.

Just curious how other are navigating this changing landscape, if there are any eBay sellers left here. :coffee:

Re: Promoted Listings - how are you handling it?
 

Unfortunately this is the only way to make decent sales nowadays. Like you, for my fast sellers I don't promote and slow sellers I'll end up promoting around 10 - 15%. It is starting to get unfeasible, I need to move away from eBay, but it has the most traffic after Amazon.

Re: Promoted Listings - how are you handling it?
 

What category are you in?

Re: Promoted Listings - how are you handling it?
 

I have the per click rate capped around 25-30 cents because again with that.. eBay will allow you to compete against yourself.. advising you to raise your per click rate to a dollar or more (as high as you're willing to go, really). The marketing team at eBay seems to have gone with the same strategy as the rest of wall street - extract maximum profits at all costs.
------------
I used to give Google $50,then $100,then $150,and get no results.
BTW,this is what Etsy is doing,and we have to pay,

Re: Promoted Listings - how are you handling it?
 

Tech Accessories, probably the most cut throat out there.
Also seasonal e.g Christmas, Halloween , and other popular holidays.
I try to delve into higher risk activities on rare occasion, which never ends well.

Re: Promoted Listings - how are you handling it?
 

try to sell something few people are selling.
I sell gold with 25% discount off spot price and do very well

Re: Promoted Listings - how are you handling it?
 

It depends on if you can source a good supplier.

Re: Promoted Listings - how are you handling it?
 

I am just joking,I do not sell gold online,buyers just want to pay you scrap value,then there are credit card fee,FVF .
If you can find some folks who own gold from way back,and offer to pay cash,they may be willing to sell you their gold.
Even goldfill items are worth good money ,12K,14k goldfill.

Re: Promoted Listings - how are you handling it?
 

My main business sells niche, I don't promote listings. My sales took a big hit after Brexit, I lost the EU market. Otherwise it's been the same for me for years. eBay have called me insisting I work with them to scale up but I have no plans to do so as it just won't be feasible for me with my personal circumstances.

Re: Promoted Listings - how are you handling it?
 

I guess it depends on the category you're selling in. As a fellow tech accessory seller, promoted listings for me means the difference between getting enough sales volume to cover the bills or having to dip into savings. Being in the US probably makes a difference also. I think it's more cut throat over here. It's certainly less regulated with more loopholes being exploited (endless shell companies run by foreign actors, postage fraud, tax evasion, etc.)


Nobody thought you were joking.. you're just lying, as usual. You've never posted anything to suggest you're even a seller. Much less anything to suggest you're in one of the highest risk categories undercutting Apmex on precious metals. Get real. :lol: I'll take all of your stock right now for 25% under spot.

Re: Promoted Listings - how are you handling it?
 

Pls donot bother promoting outside ebay.

Be very careful in reguards to the Promotion features on ebay
Otherwise, you'll end up selling without making any profit ok?

You can choose to promote 1 compettive product
and link other ebay listing to the promoted page/item

Kindly reach me via pm if, you need further elaboration.

Note; promoting every items on ebay is like selling
and giving back your money to ebay!


Regards
Wordpresguy from Rome

Re: Promoted Listings - how are you handling it?
 

(Dropshipping Model)What I've noticed is:

Absolutely no difference if I promote at 8% or 20%. The results are always the same, I just pay more...
And promoting outside of eBay is an overkill... That puts my listings in competition with websites that already have better pricing than me and are oriented around the specific product and have better SEO.

Best results I've ever had are at 4%-7%.

Re: Promoted Listings - how are you handling it?
 

I agree with both of you - promoted offsite is a massive waste of money. It turns into a hole that you're throwing money into with little to no sales increase.


My ROAS is sitting around 4 on one account and 6 on the other. I've started dropping the % I pay through promoted general a few percentage points at a time. For the things I'm selling though.. dropping from a (recommended) ad rate of 20% to 8%, I lose almost all visibility.


Pay per click ads are the biggest obstacle now that we are being charged for clicks even when the buyer doesn't make a purchase. That kind of thing can easily be exploited via a python script to increase competitor ad spend, ad infinitum.

Re: Promoted Listings - how are you handling it?
 

Yes, I'd say the majority of my listings stay at 5%, standard promoted listings...

Re: Promoted Listings - how are you handling it?
 

Quite the possibility :thumb:

Re: Promoted Listings - how are you handling it?
 

ROAS is a different metric. Return on ad spend.

Re: Promoted Listings - how are you handling it?
 

Is it worth paying for promoted listings?
Just read more people have maxed out/become delinquent in paying their cc bills,they would not be able to use their cards to buy on Ebay!

Re: Promoted Listings - how are you handling it?
 

Just read where? Lot of ppl are always delinquent with cc bills - not new...

Re: Promoted Listings - how are you handling it?
 

The % has gone up,it has been creeping up every month,not just cc but auto and home mortgage as well/

Re: Promoted Listings - how are you handling it?
 

That's what I keep hearing. Can't say that I know anyone in debt though.
Makes me feel kinda comfy to not be in debt.

Re: Promoted Listings - how are you handling it?
 

Those who are deeply in debt do not go around and talk about it/

Re: Promoted Listings - how are you handling it?
 

Are you deeply in debt?

Re: Promoted Listings - how are you handling it?
 

Hopefully you're doing ok but if you're in debt, better speak to a financial professional.

:focus:

Re: Promoted Listings - how are you handling it?
 

I know ebay has updated their advertising to comprise multiple different styles of ads, but I just stick with the OG fixed promoted listings. To me it's all about category, if the item is hot enough and the listing is sexy enough I usually just stay in my sweet spot of 2-5%. 10% if I really need to unload it. Anything above that I just take it as a sign that the category is not hot enough and I need to move on. This is for my lower ticket items (up to 50/60 or so). On my high ticket items (4-500+ or higher) I dont put ads on at all, I just price it competitively and wait for buyers to come to me.

Re: Promoted Listings - how are you handling it?
 

From my experience, the best "promotion" you could have on eBay is being/maintaining "Top-Rated Seller" status, on both global and domestic marketplaces as this pushes your listings at the top, you get the badge that gives people sense of security when purchasing etc., and it doesn't cost % off your listings, you get a FVF discount being top rated (it's a small discount, the main benefit is the boosted/free promotion).

Promoted listings benefits are marginal in my experience. I didn't make any more sales using it and it eats into your profit, whether I tuned it from single digit % exposure to double, maybe more views on the listing but didn't actually generate more sales to make it worthwhile. Also, keep in mind, if you want to remove currently listed items from the program, you must delete the listing and make a new listing as I once removed the promotion from an active listing but eBay charged me the promotion % regardless due to their amazing system.

The only other free ways I can think of promoting your listings without eBay putting their hands in your pocket is by improving your product display picture, price competitiveness, free shipping (put the shipping charge into the total value of the item instead of charging for shipping that way you get the free shipping banner) and that's it really..

Re: Promoted Listings - how are you handling it?
 

You sound like AI. If that's been true for you then it must be nice. It's probably different in the UK due to VAT (or whatever) but in the US.. listing visibility is a bloodbath.


My accounts have always been top rated plus (at a huge cost thanks to free returns) but I get no visibility without promoted listings. The baseline for visibility with the things I sell is like 8% promoted general or $.25 per click promoted advanced. With all the tweaking I've done since MP, the only way to keep a cash flow of $1k/day or more is giving eBay 30% of the sale (between normal transaction/listing fees and promotional costs).

Re: Promoted Listings - how are you handling it?
 

It's how I've learnt to communicate with them and online generally lmao..

Well yeah, in the UK, returns are mandatory regardless of explanation and you as a seller have to pay for the return label as well, it's such a disgusting policy against sellers really.

And yeah that makes sense - I also feel like we give so much to eBay through FVFs that it tilts me to give them a further % of a sale.

Greedy buggers

Re: Promoted Listings - how are you handling it?
 

It is what it is. Control of the market has been consolidated so that a few platforms control almost all online sales. Now those platforms are able to dictate the pay to play rate.

It follows the same pattern as almost every other profitable American company recently. Private equity groups takeover and try to maximize profits. The goal becomes short term stock growth at absolutely any cost.

I'm just curious how far it can go. Back in 2013 when I was starting out I would factor in a 12% fee when creating listings.. now I assume a 35% ad rate before even factoring in the cost of shipping. :(

Re: Promoted Listings - how are you handling it?
 

Are you an active seller on eBay, hello?

Re: Promoted Listings - how are you handling it?
 

Niches not needed. Unless you're trying to get people not searching your product to see it. Which reduces even more probability of conversion. Personally to me the best reason to use ads on eBay is when many sell the same or similar thing that you do, and you want to be the first or one of the first listings the customers sees.

People buy off emotions. They don't want to click through 20 pages to find yours if thats where its located. Thats why higher search is obviously so powerful which helps with ads but dependent on what you're selling.

Paying for ads to reach new buyers not searching your exact niche is best for a website IMO. People on marketplaces I presume have an idea in mind of what they want most of time. At least on eBay.

Re: Promoted Listings - how are you handling it?
 

I mean I understand it to a degree, but the way they treat their best sellers, I'm talking metrics with 100% positive feedback, top rated, years of seller activity without any issues or eBay having to step in, one time I had a scammer with barely any eBay history return fraud a high valued item, swapping my item out for cheap rubbish and eBay sided with them, its unjustifiable really... but then I learnt they make profit either way with this scheme

I finished with the acc, didn't pay it back, in their response email they said something along the lines of "we couldn't verify how this has happened so we've decided to refund the buyer in full and take it out of your balance", luckily I don't keep my money in the MP, disgusting how they treat their sellers, but it comes back to what you mentioned

Re: Promoted Listings - how are you handling it?
 

yep so far running 3 accounts, have been running them for a few years now as early as 2021

Re: Promoted Listings - how are you handling it?
 

I am pretty sure that the new Hello guy is jamesnorth under new user name , I am wondering if the moderators allowed him to come back or if it is his own initiative?

I guess we are getting a new account seller here in a few months time and a new moderator in the near future

Re: Promoted Listings - how are you handling it?
 

According to whom?

Re: Promoted Listings - how are you handling it?
 

From what I can tell there has only ever been a handful of account sellers. They always dispose/rinse/repeat whenever customer service becomes too much to handle. It's the only way to keep an account selling business going since most buyers have no idea how to run the accounts they're buying. Everyone knows elmo became beautiful.. for example.

Re: Promoted Listings - how are you handling it?
 

Yeah well I've met some invaluable members here on this platform, literally wouldn't be able to take stealthing as far as I have without Aspkin forums that's why I've got the urge to try helping out with any recent knowledge I have troubleshooting against eBay's ass system

To answer your question @murdered_by_ebay - I'm not James although I've spoke to him in the past was quite helpful and didn't have any issues with him, that being said our last convo was many moons ago

Re: Promoted Listings - how are you handling it?
 

More power to you man. :thumb:

Re: Promoted Listings - how are you handling it?
 

Cheers! :d

Re: Promoted Listings - how are you handling it?
 

That's a prettu rough assumption hmm

Re: Promoted Listings - how are you handling it?
 

Idk how he came up with that one lol.. How did James North get banned anyways?

He was like one of the biggest vendors at the time right