As we reported in May, eBay resurrected its long-closed advertising program for sellers in which they can pay to promote their listings on the eBay marketplace, including placement on the first page of search results. eBay has been opening the program to additional sellers this summer as it continues beta testing the ad program, and now it inviting sellers to learn more through a webinar.
The Promoted Listings program gives seller listings added exposure, and sellers pay only when a shopper buys an advertised item – as the invitation to the webinar stated: “Unlike other online advertising services that charge by impressions or clicks, you only pay for the ad when it results in a sale.”
eBay Vice President of Ads & Monetization Alex Linde will host the webinar on August 12 at 11 am PT along with the Director of Seller Experience Alison Raphael. The invitation described the webinar, as follows:
- Get a quick overview of promoted listings – eBay’s new seller advertising service.
- Learn how easy it is: Just choose your listings, set your ad rate, and ads are created automatically for you.
- It’s risk free – you only pay when the ad is clicked and your item is purchased.
As with similar programs it ran in the past (and are available on other marketplaces such as Amazon and Etsy), some sellers question the need to advertise listings when they’ve already paid insertion fees, and when the most relevant results should be shown to shoppers.
“Sellers shouldn’t have to pay for more visibility because their current exposure is being limited, wrote one seller about the program earlier this month.
“We already give them enough money in fees as it is and now they are offering to place our items on the first pages IF we pay more fees! Our items should already be there if we are top rated sellers right?” wrote another recently.
Nevertheless, it seems there are always sellers willing and able to advertise at least certain listings, especially on a pay-for-performance model such as Promoted Listings.
We spoke to one seller last month who was testing the program. Jason Opdyke began using eBay’s new Promoted Listings ads in June to advertise his company’s wifi products sold through his eBay Store, Rokland.
He said using Promoted Listing ads was a good way to get exposure in really crowded areas where there was an abundance of listings using similar keywords. But he said he expected that as more sellers joined the program, the cost could rise.
You can learn more about the Promoted Listings webinar on the event.on24.com website.
