eBay just announced an expansion of its advertising program – Promoted Listings Advanced, a new CPC-based ads product similar to marketplaces like Amazon. 

Whether you’re selling on eBay now or considering expanding to the marketplace, understanding this new advertising option and initial best practices can give you an edge over competitors. 

In this webinar, eBay joins Teikametrics for a detailed overview of Promoted Listings Advanced, how it dovetails with other eBay advertising products, and key tactics and strategies you can use to outperform the competition on the retail site.

eBay Advertising Topics Covered

  • The opportunity on eBay in 2021 and beyond
  • Key details about Promoted Listings, Promoted Listings AdvancedBeta on eBay
  • How eBay advertising types can be utilized together
  • Best practices around listing management and ad strategy

Show Notes

Watch The Full eBay Advertising Solutions Replay

eBay Webinar Highlights

eBay is much more than an auction site

A lot of people have misconceptions about what eBay is and what opportunity offers sellers. If you think it’s an auction site for individuals to sell to each other, you’re missing the bigger picture. You should consider selling on eBay, which is a modern ecommerce marketplace.

“So in terms of perception, a lot of people think eBay is a,\ C to C marketplace, or it is a bid marketplace, an auction site.  But that couldn’t be further from the truth. To give you some statistics, 90% of the listings that live on eBay are Buy It Now, 80% of the inventory that lives on eBay is new inventory…

​​Roughly 22 billion in gross GMV in Q2 of this year. We have about 160 million active buyers worldwide. And so if you’re not only considering selling in the U.S. but also want to be global, eBay is a great solution for that. We approximately have 1.5 billion active listings today. ” -Kohl Perkins

You can reach new audiences on eBay

Another misconception about eBay is that the audience there is the same as the Amazon audience, making it not worthwhile to expand from Amazon to eBay. This is also untrue. eBay has audiences who are dedicated to the eBay brand and don’t shop on Amazon, Walmart, Target, or Etsy.

“Often when I run into brands, manufacturers, and different people at industry events, they often say to me, Hey, if we haven’t considered selling on eBay, isn’t it the same demographic? Or are we going to run into the same market by coming to our marketplace? 

And the answer is no, we have a unique customer base that loves to buy on eBay… There’s not a ton of crossover. And even if there is crossover, there’s still significant market share that can be had by coming to our marketplace… 

Where can I find the next customer to buy my products? And eBay is the answer.” -Kohl Perkins

eBay doesn’t own inventory

Other marketplaces may own inventory competing with the third-party sellers on their site. eBay does not do this which means you don’t have to worry about eBay competing with you for sales.

“We do not compete with you as a seller. We don’t hold or own inventory. Your success on our marketplace is our success.

Unlike our competitors that often have inventory or different things that they will bring to their 1P relationships, often those competitors will duplicate what you’re selling and compete against you. And you’ll never get that on eBay. And so true partnership is what we’re all about.” -Kohl Perkins

eBay has a new internal payment processor

eBay and PayPal used to be the same company and PayPal was the payment processing system for eBay. The two companies split and eBay has launched its own internal payment processor. 

“In the last two years, we just launched a new payment processor, internal in eBay. So this allows buyers and sellers to use multiple payment options and receive multiple payment options for the items that you’re selling.

Additionally, instead of having three places for reconciliation, you can literally get an item sold today and within two to four days, it goes from eBay directly to your bank account.

It’s a single source to manage all of your business inside eBay instead of having, an intermediate to manage that between us and you as the seller.” -Kohl Perkins

Top of search drives eBay purchases

On eBay the majority of purchases start from search. Customers are particularly likely to shop from the top search results. 1 in 5 eBay purchases comes from top of search.

“One of the most interesting stats that I’ve found is the number of people that start on search and the number of those searches that result in a purchase.

One in five are actually from the top of search, which is one of the key reasons that we’re focused on Promoted Listings Advanced as a key tool to help you grow your business. And with billions of listings across eBay, finding ways to drive that visibility within search is critical to driving that velocity.” -Elisabeth Rommel

eBay advertising started with Promoted Listings

For several years eBay sellers have been able to use Promoted Listings, now being rebranded as Promoted Listings Standard. This ad type will continue to operate on a cost-per-sale model.

“Promoted Listings has been a tool that sellers on eBay have used for the last seven years. And as part of the expansion of our promoted listings portfolio, we’re now rebranding Promoted Listings to Promoted Listings Standard.

It will remain a cost per sale model, so only pay when you sell… This is a unique advertising platform in the industry where you can determine what sort of ad rate works for the products you’re selling and have this always-on so that whenever the search arises or a merchandising slot is relevant, your ads appear and you only pay when the item is sold.” – -Elisabeth Rommel

eBay announced Promoted Listings AdvancedBeta

eBay is listening to feedback from sellers and is adding to Promoted Listings with the new ad program Promoted Listings Advanced. 

“We’re excited to announce today the Promoted Listings Advanced Beta, and with this is really an opportunity to have a first-mover advantage, to get in early and see early wins and experiment at a lower cost than you might see in other marketplaces… Promoted Listings, Advanced shows up in the top slot of search.” -Elisabeth Rommel

Use both ad types for maximum coverage and control

Should you be using Promoted Listings Standard or Promoted Listings Advanced? The answer is both! Combine the two ad types to ensure you have both coverage and control in your customer acquisition.

“The portfolio approach is something that we’re really excited about. Instead of just having one way to reach buyers, you have both, and we’ve seen them work together in a very complimentary way…

We have some early stats from a seller who tried this approach and using this saw 66% increase in daily sales velocity, a 44% increase in impressions, and in just one week, 15% growth in their overall eBay business.” -Elisabeth Rommel

Test out the eBay suggested keywords

eBay provides suggested keywords for Promoted Listings Advanced and they’ve seen these keywords working to drive sales, so utilize the keyword suggestion tool and test to determine what performs for your products. 

“​​Consider suggested keywords. eBay has mined our data, looked at what buyers are searching for, understood how those keywords relate to the products that you’re listing, and given you this tool, to be able to select some of these. Sometimes I’m surprised by some of the suggestions they come up with and pleasantly surprised when we see how those keywords generate impressions for the campaigns. 

And so the mix of maybe keywords that you’ve used on other marketplaces with really paying attention to what’s unique about eBay. As you recall our user base or buyer base is different and so understanding that and having that resource to guide you has been very well received by sellers.” -Elisabeth Rommel

Optimize eBay listings for the best ad performance

Optimizing your listings will increase conversion rates and make eBay ads more powerful. So make sure you’ve got great imagery, competitive pricing, clear information, and correct categorization.

“Do you have better product imagery and is it up to date? Does it look great? Do you have a lot of it so that when someone goes to that page, they’re like, wow, like I can tell this is very authoritative and it gives me everything I’m looking for. You want to show the buyer you want to buy from me because I’m obviously giving you the best quality, with information on everything about this product.” – Andrew Waber

Starting on eBay now will give you an advantage 

We saw with Walmart that sellers who got in on the ground floor and had time to test ads before more competition moved into the marketplaces were in the best position to succeed. Likewise, now is the opportunity to be a first-mover on eBay and start figuring out what works with eBay ads so you’ll be ready as they continue to release new ad features and products.

“I really emphasize that getting in early, even at a limited level, is going to make a difference in terms of how you can adjust and really reap the benefits long-term.” – Andrew Waber

Teik-Aways

  • eBay offers the opportunity to reach a large, loyal customer base in the U.S.
  • Promoted Listings Advanced offers unique value with top-of-search placements
  • Supplement with Promoted Listing Standard campaigns for maximum exposure
  • Retail readiness will help you outflank other sellers and improve ad effectiveness
  • Getting in on eBay Ads early will help you gain valuable learnings to better capitalize long-term

Learn more about eBay’s Promoted Listings Advanced