Promoted Listings General Attribution Changes Coming To US & Canada January 13, 2026

[valueaddedresource]

It's official, the Promoted Listings General ad attribution changes rolled out to UK, EU, and Australia earlier this year are coming to US and Canada January 13, 2026.

https://pages.ebay.com/sell/pl/attribution.html

Starting January 13, 2026, for items listed on ebay.com, ebay.ca, and cafr.ebay.ca (and currently for items listed on ebay.co.uk, ebay.de, ebay.com.au, ebay.fr, ebay.it, and ebay.es): eBay will report an Attributed sale from a general campaign when a buyer purchases the same item that was featured in the ad that was clicked on by any buyer in the most recent 30 days.

The ad fee is charged when a buyer purchases the promoted item from a general ad that any buyer clicked on in the most recent 30 days. The item must be promoted at the time of click and the time of sale. The ad fee is based on the ad rate in effect at the time of the sale.

[femmefan1946]

What makes a "buyer"?

Is it anyone looking at the listing?
Or is it someone who purchases from the listing?

If the PL works in that it attracts an eyeball, does the seller pay the fee if someone entirely different buys it?
This is opaque. 

I believe I have a copy of "Plain Language" on another account. It was written  by the Government of Canada in an attempt to get public servants to use simple clear words rather than jargon and obfustication in responding to the citizenry. 

I could take it down and ship it to eBay headquarters if it helps.

[valueaddedresource]

@femmefan1946  yes, a buyer would be anyone looking at the listing - they really should have said "eBay will report an Attributed sale from a general campaign when a buyer purchases the same item that was featured in the ad that was clicked on by anyone in the most recent 30 days."

If any person (potential buyer, other seller doing research or sell similar, accidental click, malicious click from competitor etc.) clicks on the ad and then any person (regardless of whether they even saw the ad) buys the item within 30 days, the seller will be charged the ad fee as long as the item is still enrolled in an active General campaign at the time of sale.

[ericsells75]

This is absolute insanity. Imagine selling a house and a  realtor sends you a potential buyer. That buyer does not buy. A few days later someone completley unrelated comes around and buys your house and now the realtor wants a cut??? That is what is happening here. 

I know it's ebay's house, so it's their rules, so all i can say is someone please buy my highly discounted inventory off me so i can hurry up and be finished with this platform. I already had my last straw a little while ago but this is a whole nother level

Edit: In fact this weekend I'm just gonna start pulling inventory that hasn't sold and just donate it to ensure i am done quicker. I can't even form the words for this blatant, pure, money grab. 

[valueaddedresource]

The full announcement is now posted and it looks like they are also copying what they did in the other markets by making the top spot in search exclusive for Priority ads - meaning Promoted Listings General ads will no longer be eligible to appear there, but if there is not a Priority ad to be shown for any given search, your listings may still appear in the top spot organically.

"Only listings promoted with a priority campaign strategy are eligible to show in the first ad slot position of eBay search results. Listings promoted with a general campaign strategy are not eligible to show in the first ad slot position of eBay search results. If no relevant priority listings are available, a non-promoted listing will be displayed instead, ensuring buyers always see the most relevant results."

https://community.ebay.ca/t5/Announcements/Seller-Announcement-Updates-to-eBay-s-Promoted-Listings-a...

[widgetc]

Well...to me a buyer is someone who purchases not someone who browses. If they do this I will Just remove all promotion.

[aviatorsparadise]

I will take a wait and see approach on this - It is hard to believe they would charge a promoted listing fee for any sale of the item if anyone views it but that said - there is absolutely no way of tracking this from our end so there was really no way to know that they were not doing this already to some degree. 

Something changed in the backend around Oct. 15th though as I saw a jump in impressions from promoted listings since that date. 

[widgetc]

"d - there is absolutely no way of tracking this from our end so there was really no way to know that they were not doing this already to some degree. "

I rather doubt they would do that because it would leave them open to a huge class action case. 

[intimewithmusic]

Thank you for clarifying the word "Halo"!  I rec'd the eBay email & dismissed it. Just goes to show you have to read and understand every word.

If I understand it correctly, if you go to your "Seller Hub/Listings/Views Column" which retains 30 days of data, every promoted listing with one view or more is a snapshot of potential extra PL fees if purchased by anyone before the item leaves the "Views" column. (Starting Jan 13) 

Sort your listing by "Views". Everything in the column with more than zero views is subject to your PL% amount if purchased by anyone iin the next 30 days.

[intimewithmusic]

Clarification:  .......will be subject to your PL% amount in effect at the time of purchase if purchased by anyone iin the next 30 days.

[patphotog]

Greed is the

excessive and insatiable desire for more wealth, power, or possessions than is needed

[patphotog]

If only ebay sellers could have a platform to influence all ebay seller not to use promoted listing anymore...that will be the dream. Your sale will be driven by your asking price, your shipping fees, the quality of your listing/photos and product...the way it used to be.

[flipistics]

I'll definitely be reducing my promoted rate to compensate for this. This change is absolutely ridiculous.

[intimewithmusic]

@patphotog 

"If only...  "  yes,  Roxanne, my favourite Steve Martin movie

"It's not a big dream, it's just a little dream. My dream - and I hope you don't find this too crazy - is that I would like the people of this [Ebay] community to feel that if, God forbid, if there were a [potential sale] fire, commissioning the fire department [Ebay] would actually be a wise thing to do. You can't have people whose houses [businesses] are burning down saying, "Whatever you do don't call the fire department!" [Ebay].

[edubb101]

Hello,

From my perspective the PL was to random.  It always felt like a cash grab to me.  That being said I hope people read the below.

If you are a buyer / collector / someone who likes to shop then the best deals and merchandise are found when you dig deep into the search pages.  Ill take a look at page 1 but the real value and cool merchandise is found on Page 8 or 9 or even page 41 depending on what you are searching for.  I still collect and source inventory from ebay and all my great deals have been found after searching the pages I've mentioned.

Specifically within Canada there are lots of great deals to be had from other Canadian Sellers but as mentioned you have to do a little digging.  It's fun and worth it to me.  Think about if you went into a Winners for example.  You would not just shop right at the entrance or by the checkouts.  The real deals to be had are when you start to shop the entire store.  That is the same approach with online shopping except you checkout the lower numbered pages on your searches. 

All the best to everyone

[valueaddedresource]

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@aviatorsparadise wrote:

I will take a wait and see approach on this - It is hard to believe they would charge a promoted listing fee for any sale of the item if anyone views it but that said - there is absolutely no way of tracking this from our end so there was really no way to know that they were not doing this already to some degree. 

Something changed in the backend around Oct. 15th though as I saw a jump in impressions from promoted listings since that date. 

---

@aviatorsparadise It's not hard to believe at all and lucky for us in the US and Canada, it doesn't come down to "belief", we have real actual data from sellers in Germany, UK, France, Itally, Spain and Australia who have had this model in place since earlier this year.

This is just one example of a chart shared by a German seller - nothing about their business changed, except on February 26th eBay flipped the switch on the new attribution model and you can see the result on organic (blue) vs promoted (green) sales.

And this thread from the UK shows multiple sellers with very similar results.

https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Business-Seller-Board/Promoted-Listings-Changes-You-Must-Be-Joking-e...

[vintage_america]

So….if a seller is just generally promoting their listings with a 5% promotion (not a per-click promotion)….what changes?

[ricarmic]

@vintage_america I think the easiest way to say it is that if you have a 5% promotion that you'll virtually always pay the 5% when it sells.

Having said this I'm not sure how much "more" you'll pay than before because anyone who purchased anything from you promoted in the past caused any OTHER items that they purchased that you also had promoted to also be incurred whether they came promoted or "organic" in the past for the next 30 days.

As an "old timer" i seem to recall decades ago one paid a promoted amount/rate to have the item show up higher in search results, I think in effect that's whats happening here again, just in a lot more convoluted way, and general isn't even the good one in terms of highest ranking as there's more expensive promoted versions too with higher search result effects.

As with all these changes one will have to evolve. When they brought in the rule of everything promoted gets hit for the same buyer within 30 days, I changed my promoted practices, prior to that I had 100% of my items promoted, I scaled back when that rule came in. Again I'll evaluate things and decide what to do after this round.

[valueaddedresource]

@vintage_america  @ricarmic  to really gauge the impact this will have, sellers should be looking at the whole big picture of their business rather than thinking of things on a per item basis.

If you have all of your listings enrolled in a General campaign, but only ~30% of your sales are currently being attributed to ads/incurring the ad fee, figure out what that total ad spend ends up being over a certain amount of time.

Then do the same math but assume that 90%+ of your sales will be attributed to ads/incur the ad fee and figure out what that total ad spend might be over that same amount of time, because from the actual data we have from sellers who already have this model applied, that is the likely outcome if you continue promoting the same way you were before the change.

The difference would be an estimate of "how much more" you'll pay.

[ricarmic]

I'm old enough that I think of all the store fees and these ways of making your items more visible through various means over the last 26 years in ebayland (for me) as "advertising" expenses (as part of cost of goods sold) given I've been selling 20 years before there was an internet.

Currently only about a third of my items have any kind of promotion on them at all (the "oldest" stuff I have running. I'm letting things slide as is until the strike etc uncertainty is lesser so, will develop more of a strategy then....