Strange ... My Promoted Listings Campaign Unexpectedly Ended On New Year's Eve.

[kawartha-ephemera]

Late in the evening on New Year's Day I looked in on my traffic stats and was surprised to find PL impressions virtually non existent for the day ... odd. Upon further investigation I found that my one and only PL campaign that had been running continuously since last May had suddenly ended just as 2020 expired. I've launched a new campaign of course but momentum seems to have been lost, PL impressions today are still very low today.

Have others had this happen? If so, any idea why?

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@kawartha-ephemera wrote:

Late in the evening on New Year's Day I looked in on my traffic stats and was surprised to find PL impressions virtually non existent for the day ... odd. Upon further investigation I found that my one and only PL campaign that had been running continuously since last May had suddenly ended just as 2020 expired. I've launched a new campaign of course but momentum seems to have been lost, PL impressions today are still very low today.

Have others had this happen? If so, any idea why?

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I just checked 4 random promotions and they all seem to be running as normal. Maybe a glitch. Maybe the egg timer at eBay central broke at midnight? Hmmm? It is interesting to see how Ebay's  Suggested Ad Rate can vary for very similar items. 

-Lotz

[ricarmic · Accepted solution]

Mine are all running, I put no end date on them so they show as "continuous"......

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

Almost like clockwork I get a weird spike in page views on the 15th of each month.
-Lotz

[kawartha-ephemera]

@ricarmic 

Thanks, your comment sparked a dormant brain cell back to life! 

Just checked that campaign again, apparently I at some point thought it a good idea to set 12.31.2020 end date. No clue as to why. My newly created campaigns are continuous which is apparently the default choice, never even thought about that aspect when launching them.

Edited to add that it is taking much longer than one would imagine to get PL impression numbers back to normal. Looks like I've basically sacrificed an entire day by having them end like that. We shall see how long it takes to return to "normal". 

[kawartha-ephemera]

Any chance you have a lot of listings ending, relisting at mid-month? 

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@kawartha-ephemera wrote:

Any chance you have a lot of listings ending, relisting at mid-month? 

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Maybe a few more. Nothing substantial. I've always observed a few more sales at the beginning of  and middle of the month, compared to the rest of the time, when they straggle in. Has anyone been ever able to confirm Sell Similar/Relist vs GTC causes any kind of spike?

-Lotz

[kawartha-ephemera]

Recently, might have been the last day of November, I had a lot of free listings available that were about to expire and with no expectation that the Promotion would be repeated I decided to end several hundred listings early and relist. My reason for doing so was solely to extend the life of those listings on ebay servers. Time was short so I relisted them immediately all in one shot.

The following day I was somewhat surprised by a definite surge in sales. I assumed the flurry was due to the relists appearing in newly listed searches ... no proof that was the reason though, might have been just a coincidence.

[femmefan1946]

I see you discovered the problem and corrected it. Good for you!

There was a suggestion that PL campaigns stopped working after a bit, and it was worthwhile to end them from time to time and start a new campaign.

I've done that and I think I saw a pickup in Views.

But as I have mentioned before, using a 1% rate, I get more Views on the PL items yet the increase in sales is on non-PL items. Which is fine by me.

[recped]

My promos which started in June also ended on Friday morning at midnight but that is because that is the end date I used when I set up the promotion.

[recped]

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@kawartha-ephemera wrote:
Recently, might have been the last day of November, I had a lot of free listings available that were about to expire and with no expectation that the Promotion would be repeated I decided to end several hundred listings early and relist. My reason for doing so was solely to extend the life of those listings on ebay servers. Time was short so I relisted them immediately all in one shot.

The following day I was somewhat surprised by a definite surge in sales. I assumed the flurry was due to the relists appearing in newly listed searches ... no proof that was the reason though, might have been just a coincidence.

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Monday November 30th was "Cyber Monday" which has been the number one sales day online for the past few years. It was not quite as big this year because the entire Thanksgiving / Black Friday sales werre substantially an online thing rather than the normal B&M zoo.

November 28th was also "Small Business Saturday", lots of promotions about buying from small retailers leading up to that weekend.

[kawartha-ephemera]

Time of year might have been the reason although I wouldn't think ephemera items would be too popular.