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.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@edubb101 wrote:

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

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@edubb101 

@valueaddedresource 

Cash grab or just chasing your tail. Either or? Every time I think about creating a new promotion the more likely I am to see a higher EBAY suggested rate to use. Remember when folks were using 2 %? Feels like now that was 1000 years ago!!!

The biggest problem going forward is we have all become super tiny needles in a very large haystack with a search engine that does bait and switch extremely well. 

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@ricarmic wrote:

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....

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@ricarmic 

@valueaddedresource 

Potential buyers in the past were more likely to scan the whole store once they arrived. Maybe not check out every item, but at minimum check out anything that was in their lane. New potential buyers once you get them to your store and see a "suggestion" are more likely to skidaddle especially if they see something/anything they may be searching that is lower either in price or shipping.

It would be interesting to know if there are as many actual shopping (add to cart) shoppers now compared to the past. 5/10 years ago I got them all the time. Now, not so much.

[ricarmic]

It appears to me that shopping is not dead, keep in mind that my ebay store was closed almost the entire time from May until October 17th.

75% of my sales since the latest store reopening have been to repeat customers. Of the other 25% it could be that some of them are repeats just over 2 years since last time.

75% of my sales have NOT been promoted, so only 25% have general promotion. As I noted only about 33% of my items are promoted at all. Generally I don't currently promote anything that's less than a year running, most are older than that. Who's been buying as promoted  is primarily repeat customers, but that's not surprising given the "anything promoted" gets dinged after they purchase any item that was promoted for 30 days.

[an_709184]

Another shameless scam, I'll mark my calendar and make sure to end all the promotion.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@ricarmic wrote:

It appears to me that shopping is not dead, keep in mind that my ebay store was closed almost the entire time from May until October 17th.

75% of my sales since the latest store reopening have been to repeat customers. Of the other 25% it could be that some of them are repeats just over 2 years since last time.

75% of my sales have NOT been promoted, so only 25% have general promotion. As I noted only about 33% of my items are promoted at all. Generally I don't currently promote anything that's less than a year running, most are older than that. Who's been buying as promoted  is primarily repeat customers, but that's not surprising given the "anything promoted" gets dinged after they purchase any item that was promoted for 30 days.

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@ricarmic 

I have nearly 1/2 of items currently promoted. Over the last 30 days 1/3rd of sales were promoted...mostly at higher end rates. Traffic is wayy down since eliminating US sales (About 60% down). I would prefer to wait to "maybe" add eIS for US sales. eIS makes no sense from my perspective/product mix to use for Intl sales. For an Intl sale to happen you  it has to be someone a buyer just can't find elsewhere and warrants the shipping. Shipping tracked internationally with eIS makes no sense cost or speed wise. 

[femmefan1946]

@flipistics 

I'll definitely be reducing my promoted rate to compensate for this.

I'm in the process of removing all my PL campaigns from my lisitings.

In the process, although I have a firm policy of only allowing the minimum fee of 2%, I was surprised to notice a lot, perhaps 15-20%, of those listings actually had a 5% fee accepted. 

Interesting. 

I find that while PL definitely increases the number of Views I get, PL items actually have a lower sale rate than non-PL.

Also interesting.

[john_koenig99]

No more promoted listings for me, that's for sure. 

[arlenr24]

Hey eBay - THIS IS AN ABSOLUTE RIP-OFF AND SCAM! HOW DARE YOU!!!

I'll be ending all ads and promotions immediately. Screw this.

[sapphyres-designer-jewellery]

I have comprehension problems.

I'm understanding this to mean "if you are running PL, and there's a PL ad and someone clicks on it, then if it sells within 30 days you will pay the PL".

Not if someone is browsing your listings or looking at your store and clicks on some random thing that's not in an ad, you'll be charged the PL. 

So I'm interpretting this is you get charged if the click the ad, not get charged if they look at the listing.

C.

[regs43]

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@sapphyres-designer-jewellery wrote:

I have comprehension problems.

I'm understanding this to mean "if you are running PL, and there's a PL ad and someone clicks on it, then if it sells within 30 days you will pay the PL".

Not if someone is browsing your listings or looking at your store and clicks on some random thing that's not in an ad, you'll be charged the PL. 

So I'm interpretting this is you get charged if the click the ad, not get charged if they look at the listing.

C.

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If person A clicks on your PL ad listing on the 4th day of the month and then Person B comes and BUYS your listing through Google or some other organic means on day 29 you get charged the PL rate, becasue person A activated it by clicking on your listing on Day 4.

[intimewithmusic]

@valueaddedresource 
@sapphyres-designer-jewellery 
@regs43 
@femmefan1946 

  Hi. It's my understanding eBay has backpedalled with respect to the 30day any buyer Promoted listing halo. 

On the eBay Radio show Podcast from Nov 28 Shari and Philip discussed it. Shari indicates that now if a seller cancelled PL on a listing the PL grab by eBay will not happen. There will no longer be an any buyer halo after the seller pulls it from the program. The 30 day window is still in effect if the original looky loo buys the item as is the program status quo.  If I understand Shari correctly the sellers who have said in this thread they are discontinuing PL can wait until Jan to do so if they choose but do your own due dilligence before deciding. Otherwise the campaign is the same for anything left in PL so this is only a miniscule win for sellers.

The topic is at 17:30 in the following Spotify link although the podast can be found on most providers.  If the spotify link doesn't work for you google the text, and episode 138 and choose your podcast provider. 

Ep 138 Shari & Philip The Selling On eBay Radio Show- Promoted Listing Cash Grab at 17:30 

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[intimewithmusic]

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@lotzofuniquegoodies wrote:

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"Traffic is wayy down since eliminating US sales (About 60% down). I would prefer to wait to "maybe" add eIS for US sales. eIS makes no sense from my perspective/product mix to use for Intl sales. For an Intl sale to happen you  it has to be someone a buyer just can't find elsewhere and warrants the shipping. Shipping tracked internationally with eIS makes no sense cost or speed wise. "

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You're down 60% USA sales. Why would risk free world wide exposure at no extra cost "make no sense"?  Thanks to EIS I sent a Sherwin Williams color fan deck (rejected by the USA EIs program) to Greece. Possibly due to the rebuilding following their horrific fires.  

Never sold much to Greece before. Something beats nothing. It makes perfect sense to me. 

Sold: Sherwin Williams color chip fan deck for $24.99 to Greece via EIS total Final Value Fees were $5.71 plus tax. ( App 1 Kg) 

by InTimeWithMusic