Promoting listings lowered my views

[rocketscollectibles]

I tried to promote my whole listings to test

After just 4 days im noticing suspicious datas. My impressions are boosted (makes sense), but weirdly we can also notice a tendency that it lowering views. Those 4 days gave me my 4 lowest days on views for the past 30 days while impressions are boosted by 3-5x. I can already notice a drop in views corrolated with promoting listings

Any idea what to think about this, this is paradoxidal datas

 

[canada_goose_whisperer]

Views means buyers actually click on your listing right?

Personally, I usually scroll past the promoted listings when I'm searching for something... maybe others are doing the same. This could explain the higher impression count but lower click-through rate.

[rocketscollectibles]

Yes by views i meant clicks

What you said is actually whats my datas seems to say. It's like people are less inclined to click on listings because they are promoted. My 5th day just updated and it's the same tendency. Seems very counter productive as we pay to promote. I'm kinda shocked by those test results 

[femmefan1946]

How do you know which are the Promoted Listings when you Search with Best Match?

I just did a favourite Search using my usual Highest Price plus Shipping, then with Best Match.  There's nothing I see that says any of the items shown are Promoted.

[rocketscollectibles]

Not sure on app but on computer it's written ''sponsored''

[femmefan1946]

Sorry to niggle-- where is that written?
 On the Search, I don't see in in any of the lists.

I can choose All Listings/ Auction/Buy It Now, various specific Searches, and move from Gallery View to List View.

But I don't see the word Sponsored anywhere on my Search. I changed the keywords to a category more likely to offer Promoted Listings than the first.

AHHH!

I moved from my preferred Search (Highest Price +Shipping) to Best Match and  found several. The word is greyed out and away from the price.

When I went back to HP+S, I had over 300 listings but only two PL listings, both at the bottom of the HP+S list.

So it's there, but less effective in placement away from the Best Match default Search.

My head hurts.

[pjcdn2005]

Basing any conclusion on a few days of data isn't reliable.

[rocketscollectibles]

I understand that and understand variance in statistics. Although i don't think the sudden drop is a coincidence, the tendency seems very clear already

I'm actually waiting maybe one week to confirm the tendency, then will un promote to confirm that my views drop was directly caused by promoting. We'll see

[ricarmic]

@rocketscollectibles 

You mentioned that you promoted everything. I'm assuming in the past you were promoting only certain items.

The gap between impressions and clicks might be a result of more exposure of less interesting items to the potential buyers receiving the impressions.

If you promoted previously the more likely to sell items the ratio of impressions to clicks would be higher.

If there were no promotions, folks were generally looking for stuff, so impressions and clicks would be more closely aligned because the search was already bringing up something more likely to be clicked on.

Promoted items might also show up in "non pokemon" searches because of other key words, which wouldn't generate clicks.

I think that the message might be that the promotion is creating more unlikely exposures than non-promoted items create.

If I look at my statistics (I promote ALL of my items as well):

It takes 1,325 impressions to get 1 click 

It takes 85,100 impressions to get one sale

(it takes 64 clicks to get one sale)

The difference and timing is interesting, but you've no way to know what the results would have been if you didn't promote. The same 4 days (Mon/Tues/Wed/Thurs) 2 weeks earlier were poor.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

@rocketscollectibles 

Approximately 2/3rds of  my current 1200+ listings are promoted with basic amount.

In my own search for required products the majority of items that appear as promoted are US or Offshore. Almost never Canadian.

As far as promotions go it's basically a case of cat and mouse with sellers who are also promoting their items or can afford to promote at higher rates due to inventory volume/margin.

Sold/Impressions/Page Views for last 5 quarters:

Dec 1, 2020 to Feb 2021

Sold 88

Impressions: 1,423,830

Page View: eBay: 5836  <~~~

                       External:2617  

Mar 1 to May 29, 2021

Sold 61

Impressions: 1,042,227

Page Views: eBay: 4137

                           External: 2816

June 1 to Aug 29, 2021

Sold 52

Impressions: 807,719

Page Views: eBay: 4056

                          External: 3221

Sept 1 to Nov 29, 2021

Sold: 37

Impressions: 970,617

Page Views: eBay: 3555

                         External:5089

Dec 1 2021 to Feb 28, 2022

Sold: 56 

Impressions: `1,162,980

Page Views: eBay: 3923   <~~~

                          External:4501    

-Lotz

[reallynicestamps]

That's very interesting.

But due to the ebb and flow of retail, only the Dec-Feb are comparable.

And only the External Page Views have increased, year to year.

The upcoming March-May will be useful.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

@reallynicestamps 

The majority of the drop/reversal in traffic was right after Category changes in August.  It was like an on/off switch being flipped. In speaking to other sellers who sell 00AK/Unique or lots their observations mirrored mine. Sellers in other (non-blow up at all costs) categories that I have spoken to have only seen subtle changes in traffic and business. I have never used the system eBay now has in place to search. I go to eBay. Type in what I am looking for and it came up. Now, not so much. I used Google for research only.

Pre August 2021 I routinely sold 90 items per 90 days (Numbers posted as per eBay date search. No guarantees they are accurate but all I have to go on. I am down to 37 sales for the last 90 days. Shortly after eBay category changes I lost USA top seller rating. Since I have lost level 2 discount with CP and on bubble to lose Global rating.

-Lotz

[reallynicestamps]

The category changes are weird.

Postcards went to Topographical/Non-Topographical.  I can sorta see having two basic categories but why those?

Actually I can't even see having only two.

Real Photo/ Lithographed? That would make a difference between large editions and limited editions.

Divided Back/ Undivided Back/Chrome?  That would show a difference between three iterations of cards.

When something happens in August, I am suspicious that some intern was trying to justify his contract and his manager wanted to show that his division was upgrading, instead of just churning.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

As a wonderful sidenote....They are tinkering as of today with  the DVD's etc category. Either additions or re-wording.

• Type
• Director
• Sub-Title Language
• Music Artist
• Cinematic Movement (similar to what they added to books)
• Case Type
• MFN
• Franchise
• Runtime
• Video Format (Re-wording)
• .....

My sincerest condolences to anyone selling in that or a related category. 🍷🍻🍷

-Lotz

[rocketscollectibles]

Just an update on my stats, it was or look that it was all coincidental. On the 5th/6th day it came back to my standards and kept the pace since then (since a few days)

[downsizing2018]

Kind of off topic, but I have been recently looking more into "promoted listings" and was wondering if this is something that more sellers are doing now? Trying to generate more sales, views etc., and wondered how everyone felt about paying to have your items show up higher on searches, and if it truly works and or translates into more sales?

[reallynicestamps]

My observation is that I get more sales when I Promote, (using the 2% minimum) but it is not necessarily the Promoted items that sell.

PL seems to bring more Views to my listings, and now that Views are only for the last 30 days and only recorded for human beings, not bots, there are definitely more Views on  Promoted listings.

But sales for PL and non-PL items are about equal.

PL was introduced just before the pandemic surge in online sales, so it may have a somewhat better reputation than it should have.

[darak10]

no, it doesnt (translate into more sales).  Its completely irrelevant if the item you have is either unique and/or highly sought after. Ive noticed it does translate into more views though, though I suspect why this is.  I had a conversation with a fellow seller recently about this and Im starting to think that what 'promoted listings' especially for us as Canadian sellers means in practice is access to foreign markets.  I suspect what may be going on is that for Canadian sellers paying to promote items means items get listed on ebay sites outside of Canada and not promoting them means they arent.  This fellow seller I was speaking to about this did an experiment along these lines and his results support this conclusion.  Ultimately its voodoo right, we ultimately dont know, and I think thats part of the game going on here, keeping us guessing as to what the deal is, like a bunch of mice in a maze trying to find the cheese.  

[a51split]

I think you're right. It is foolish to promote an item when you're the only one with that item on ebay.

I have an item I've been selling for several years. Until last spring, I was the only one selling it, so it was not Promoted.

Then in April, my sales disappeared. That's how I discovered my competitor who copied my listing title.  I then turned on PL.   I took back the sales starting in May.  Then ebay upped the minimum % for PL in July from 1 to 2%. I didn't update my listing, so that turned off PL. Sales went away. In Aug I turned it back on and have been killing my competitor ever since.

Here are the sales:

               Apr   May   Jun   Jul   Aug   Sep   Oct   Nov

Me:         0         7         5       0      6         7        9         4

other:    3          1          2       5      2         2        0        0

[reallynicestamps]

That's the first actual confirmation of PL usefulness I've seen. Thank you @a51split .

My own anecdotal observations has been more Views but while sales were helped, the PL items were not necessarily those selling.

But my items tend to be OOAK and longtail, so comparisons with other sellers is difficult.