@teenytrinkets wrote:
Some of my listings need more visibility. I can't believe the low listing views these days. It's really bad, and I figure they're just low demand. But then I see items like mine that sold by other sellers... and for more! Why? Obviously the dreaded search algorithms eBay is using are failing us. Or maybe there's just too much out there. Maybe both. So how do we increase visibility? The only thing I can think of now is promoting... but is it worth the cost?
I'm pretty Clueless about the "ad rate". For my listings, they range from ~3% - 10%. What do we set it at to achieve optimal exposure, while not paying too much in FVF? Most of my items are less than $20-30, so it's a big hit for ebay to take another 10% of that.
Wondering if anyone that's successfully used the promoting features could share their strategy, or any other insight into the benefits of promoted listings. Thanks in advance!
Approximately 1/3 of my listed are promoted. I have run sales in several categories during Sept/Oct with crickets in results. It is apprearing that the only sellers getting eyes (the ones with deep pockets) are the those that can afford to promote EVERYTHING to the hilt. The megasellers or offshore folks (often with 12 stores selling the same products).
Since the recent category switches (where a good percent of my items are located) my traffic on dot com has fallen off the map. Below is the current report for Sept 28 to Oct 28 2021. It's barely budged in 3 weeks. On dot ca everything is heading in the direction of listings being noticed.....for lack of a better word, via external meaning Google etc. For every 5 searches, 2 are eBay and 3 are external. It was NEVER like this in the past for my listings. In the past, speaking to a variety of sellers on a regular basis, they had no problem selling to the USA or even Internationally. For me, currently a sale to a US customer is an anomoly.
Going forward, unless buyers happen to choose the exact search words from eBay there is limited chance your item will be spotted there and/or sold. Because of these factors and a few others like VAT & high shipping costs, it is just going to be more difficult for Joe or Judy seller to compete when their items are now sooooo difficult to spot.
-Lotz
@teenytrinkets wrote:
I'm pretty Clueless about the "ad rate". For my listings, they range from ~3% - 10%. What do we set it at to achieve optimal exposure, while not paying too much in FVF? Most of my items are less than $20-30, so it's a big hit for ebay to take another 10% of that.
The SUGGESTED rates are just that and they come from eBay so hardly unbiased!
Quite a few sellers have posted that they use a 1 or 2% rate and do get results, a lot would depend on how many other sellers are promoting similar items and the rate they have used. Obviously eBay will give priority exposure to listings that have the highest likelihood of selling AND are paying the highest rates.
On a $20 sale total, fees are just shy of $3.00, a 2% PL rate would add 20 cents, not a huge amount especially if it makes the difference between getting a sale or not.
The circumstances are different for every seller so your best bet it to experiment and see what happens, it's a very small investment to try so run some experiments on a selectiuon of listings and see what happens.
Personally I've used it very sparingly, a 1% rate which does seem to bring an increase in exposure but I've applied it only to what I would consider "dead stock" so the actual amount of resulting sales has been very small.
No amount of promotion will instantly create sales if the items or the pricing isn't what buyers actually want.
