"sponsored" listings

[block36]

Hello Tyler,

In preparation for listing of one of my postcards I made an advanced search in category "collectibles" dialing words ZHIGULI STORMY DAY

And I received the same listing shown twice, but one of them is marked "SPONSORED"

Same item number for regular and "sponsored" listings.

Please try it and you should come against item 263932427326

Who sponsors it and for what reason? 

Does this double listing contradicts eBay's policy for "one listing for the same item"?

Please elaborate on it.

Thank you.

I am on eBay.ca

[ricarmic · Accepted solution]

Hi block!

Sponsored listings are promoted listings. Promoting them means you decide to commit an additional percentage (that you determine) of the selling price (in addition to the final value fees) to ebay if the item sells and for that ebay presents them more predominantly to buyers in search results etc which increases the chance they sell.

To promote an item it is much easier now.

On .COM if you look at your active listings in my ebay/seller hub there's a "promoted listings" column and a "promote" link for qualifying items that opens up the process for you.

On .CA if you look at your active listings there is a "promote listing" link in the qualifying items in the "title" column

It is normal for an item to show up both as regular and promoted if it would naturally have shown up on its own on the first page. ie one is the normal view and one is the promoted/sponsored view. (I agree it is a bit odd to have it show up two times, but it is probably difficult programming to stop that from happening).

If you want Tyler to see this kind of thing sooner you have to include tyler@ebay 

He can add/correct anything I've got wrong above....

[tyler@ebay]

Thanks for the tag Ric!

Hi @block36 - @ricarmic is spot on with the info: what you saw was a promoted listing. That is an eBay program and something you can also do. 

It is a pay-per-sale model, which means that you would pay the additional percentage only if a buyer finds the promoted listing in search, clicks on it, and purchases it within the next 30 days. If a buyer finds your non-promoted listing and purchases that way you would not pay the additional percentage. You can read more about the program here. Thanks!

[kawartha-ephemera]

This is a good example of the doubtful value of Promoted (Sponsored) listings when the item is an uncommon one like a ZHIGULI postcard. If one were listing a Niagara Falls postcard with a generic view of the Horseshoe Falls then perhaps some level of "Promoted" listing spend would be warranted. Personally question their usefulness in general within some Collectibles categories, they've not resulted in any sales whenever I've used them.

[reallynicestamps]

I tend to agree, with the caveat that, if it doesn't sell, we don't pay anything, and it is just possible that promotions get extra views and draw the browsing customer to our Stores.

[ricarmic]

My own promoted listings have been doing very well in the last couple months. They've been a solid support to somewhat lower sales of other stuff during the same time.

I do agree with Kawartha. Unique or uncommon items that are often searched do not likely require being promoted.

I have noticed with my multi-item listings, promoting them increases:

-sales via the promotion (ie because they saw the item)

-sales of the same item NOT because of the promotion (because overall visibility is increased as a result of increased views and/or purchases of the item)

-sales overall*

*Interesting recent experiment: I took my 200 oldest items, ones I've put on sale from time to time and instead I promoted them all instead. A very small number of them have sold (these are all items running for over 7 years or so) but, overall sales increased, and included a number of people who have not purchased from me for years. This MAY be because overall my "views" increased from the extra "promoted" views and that got everything else's visibility raised a bit higher in cassiniland too??? I will have to conduct more experiments to better test this over time.

[hlmacdon]

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@ricarmic wrote:

*Interesting recent experiment: I took my 200 oldest items, ones I've put on sale from time to time and instead I promoted them all instead. A very small number of them have sold (these are all items running for over 7 years or so) but, overall sales increased, and included a number of people who have not purchased from me for years. This MAY be because overall my "views" increased from the extra "promoted" views and that got everything else's visibility raised a bit higher in cassiniland too??? I will have to conduct more experiments to better test this over time.

---

Promoted listings are basically the equivalent of keyword spamming these days. If you sell in a category where keywords are relatively consistent you'll get some conversions from spamming the product pages of competitor items that share common keywords with the descriptions of the given items in your promoted listings. If the use of promoted listings or the ad rate isn't particularly high for given products within a category, it can have some effect if you just set the minimum 1% ad rate as you'll get some views that offer better visibility than best match might, and that can translate into sales. 

I find promoted listings are more useful for attracting new customers but for those with thousands of listings in their store it can help your existing customers find products easier. I don't find the conversion rates are any better with promoted listing traffic so I wouldn't advise spending much on the ad rate unless you really want to rank a specific product. I'd spend more time fine tuning keywords since for many people, those will have a bigger impact on where their promoted listings get seen. I'm not a fan of them, but in a slow period setting the minimum ad spend on your listings might pick up a few extra sales.

[ricarmic]

This got me thinking so I took a quick look at the last 100 items of mine that sold.

14% of them were promoted items.

So it is making a difference to me at least.....

[hlmacdon]

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@ricarmic wrote:

This got me thinking so I took a quick look at the last 100 items of mine that sold.

14% of them were promoted items.

So it is making a difference to me at least.....

---

I should probably take a closer look at what percentage of the sales are from new versus existing customers, the theory being existing customers would likely have found the item anyways. In my latest test run with a minimum ad spend and targeted skus it resulted in just over $550 USD in sales over 2.5 weeks. Nothing to get excited over but nothing to sneeze at either given how inconsistent sales here can be and there is always some invoice that needs paying.