How eBay’s New Expansion of Promoted Listings to Partner Sites Impacts Sellers

eBay is expanding the reach of sellers’ Promoted Listings campaigns by featuring them in external ads on partner sites and search platforms like Google and Bing, the company announced on Monday.

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“While we are excited to introduce external Promoted Listings, we remain committed to providing sellers with the opportunity to be included in eBay’s external advertising at no charge. Sellers will not be required to participate in external Promoted Listings in order to be eligible to appear in eBay advertisements on search platforms or partner sites.”

eBay statement from announcement

Furthermore, eBay says this new feature will come at no additional cost for sellers who already use Promoted Listings and will work similarly as Promoted Listings work now on the eBay platform.

When a buyer clicks on an externally placed Promoted Listings ad and buys the item within 30 days of the click, the eBay seller will pay the prevailing ad rate determined at the time of the click.

On the surface, nothing appears to be different for sellers except that Promoted Listings may expose their listings to more shoppers. eBay will also offer more insights into how this change will impact Promoted Listings with four new downloadable reports.

• Promoted Listings clicks (via external placements)
• Promoted Listings conversion rate (via external placements)
• Promoted Listings sales (via external placements)
• Ad fees (via external placements)

Participation in this new program is automatic.

Sellers do not need to do anything as eBay will include Promoted Listings on partner sites unless sellers specifically opt out of the external placement program.

It’s a bit difficult to envision a good reason why a seller would do that. But some sellers may have a unique circumstance why they don’t want their Promoted Listings to show up on search engines or other partner sites.

How eBay and Sellers Benefit From the Expansion of Promoted Listings

For eBay, the hope is that including more Promoted Listings in external advertising will increase revenues, which may offset some of their external advertising costs.

By including more Promoted Listings in their advertising, they increase the chance of charging sellers both a Final Value Fee (FVF) and a Promoted Listings fee, adding a second revenue stream to a sale.

While there are no additional fees for sellers to participate in the program, sellers who routinely do not max out their Promoted Listings budget may perceive an increased “cost.”

For example, if a seller has a budget of $200 for Promoted Listings but routinely falls short of using up the allotted budget, having Promoted Listings appear on the partner website exposes that seller’s listings to more shoppers, potentially using up more of the previously unused budget amount.

Without context, this will seem like an increase in costs.

But sellers that are smart about setting their budget limits, especially when using the new automation features, and dig into their Promoted Listings metrics should really profit from the additional sales.

In effect, eBay is maximizing the budgets sellers make available for Promoted Listings. Therefore, each sale from a partner site using a Promoted Listings ad will result in a dual revenue stream for them. It’s a clever way to increase revenue while increasing sales for sellers based on budget limits sellers control.

eBay Promoted Listings Expansion Win-Win for eBay and Sellers

Overall, this expansion seems like a good improvement to the Promoted Sellers program and a win-win for both parties, assuming sellers will correctly manage their Promoted Listings budgets.

For those sellers uneasy about the change, eBay offers the option to opt out of the partner placement program and only run Promoted Listings on its platform.

eBay Promoted Listings is not for every seller, and some sellers strongly dislike the program because they believe the company is just trying to double-dip on fees. But it has grown significantly, suggesting many sellers realize a benefit from the Promoted Listings program.