eBay Germany Drops Promoted Listings Express For Auctions
UPDATE 7-12-23
The eBay Germany ads team has pushed out the effective date for the discontinuation of Promoted Listings Express for Auctions to August 7.
There's news for all eBay sellers: there's a new way to drive more traffic to your auction listings. Ads Express will be discontinued on August 7 , 2023. Sellers who sell in auctions and want to use Express campaigns or implement ads can then use Ads Standard: the improved, easy-to-use tool for promoting listings across the eBay network.
eBay Germany has announced effective July 12, 2023 Promoted Listings Express ads for auctions will be discontinued as a stand alone product and the Promoted Listings Standard cost per sale ad option will be expanded to include auctions as well as fixed price listings.
Promoted Listings Express was first introduced in the US in 2021 as eBay's first ad product that allowed sellers to promote auction listings, later expanding to UK, Germany, Australia, Canada, and more in 2022.
Liz Morton ~ Founder
Instead of the cost per sale model that sellers were used to with Promoted Listings Standard ads, PL Express for auctions charges a flat rate upfront fee simply to have your ad displayed to potential buyers, regardless of whether or not the item sells.
Liz Morton ~ Founder
eBay seems to have had difficulty getting sellers to adopt PL Express for auctions, largely due to that upfront fee structure - sellers are understandably leery of paying eBay a set dollar amount upfront with no guarantee they will see a significant increase in views on their item, let alone an actual sale.
Not to mention with auctions, since you have no way to know ahead of time what the final price will be, it's almost impossible to determine whether or not the fee eBay charges will be worth it.
Giving eBay an extra $3-$5 or more could be acceptable if it brings in enough additional traffic to drive the final bidding up, but if the bids stay low, that could be a very steep cost.
The high upfront cost was such a stumbling block to adoption that eBay even had to resort to running discounted ad fee promos just to try to entice sellers to try out Promoted Listings Express ads.
Liz Morton ~ Founder
Given the obstacles to adoption, it's not surprising that eBay appears to be giving up on this model and pivoting to test including auctions in the more familiar Promoted Listings Standard cost per sale model, starting with the German marketplace (translated by Google).
There's news for all eBay sellers: there's a new way to drive more traffic to your auction listings. Ads Express will be discontinued on July 12 , 2023. Sellers who sell in auctions and want to use Express campaigns or implement ads can then use Ads Standard: the improved, easy-to-use tool for promoting listings across the eBay network.
Advertise more types of offers with standard ads
With Ads Standard, you can direct buyers to auctions and Buy It Now offerslead. Easy-to-setup ads that produce compelling results help your offerings stand out from the crowd. With more listing types to advertise, you can continue to convince potential buyers to make a purchase while increasing the visibility of your listings across the eBay network, regardless of how they're sold.Present your auction listings to the right buyers across the eBay network and track performance. You only pay when an item sells. We've listened to your feedback about upfront fees: you now only pay when you sell a promoted item. There are no upfront fees - so you can stick to the budget you set yourself.
Promoted Listings Standard for auctions will work the same way as it does for fixed price listings - sellers select the percentage ad rate they are willing to pay and only pay the fee when the item actually sells.
Ads Standard puts you in control
This effective tool supports you with many functions and a very simple setup when advertising your offers.
- Get started with just a few clicks during setup and add all the offers you want to promote to your campaign at once.
- With a dynamic ad rate, your ad rate (the percentage of your item's total sale amount that you're willing to pay if your advertised item sells within 30 days of clicking one of your ads) is automatically adjusted based on eBay's daily recommendation.
- The reporting and cockpit tools with detailed offer analyzes help you to achieve optimal campaign performance.
- Pay only when it sells - You set the maximum percentage of the sale price that you are willing to pay in advertising fees when a promoted item sells.
eBay Germany also provided the following questions and answers for sellers.
What is changing at Ads Express?
To make advertising auctions easier, we have discontinued the Ads Express solution and included auction listings in our existing Ads Standard solution. With this change, you'll benefit from the ease of use and increased visibility that this solution offers, and only pay when your items sell.What is the benefit of this change for sellers listing auction items?
eBay has expanded the types of listings that are eligible for advertising with Standard Ads to include Auction and Auction with Buy It Now categories. With this easy-to-use, efficient advertising solution, you can easily increase the visibility of your offers and only pay when your item sells. Without upfront fees. Ad Standard helps you direct potential buyers to all your listing types and provides far more visibility than your listings can get organically. Now that more listings can be promoted with standard ads, you can direct interested buyers directly to your listings across the eBay network on more than 100 placements, no matter how you sell.What is changing in Ads Standard?
eBay has expanded the offer types that come into question for sales campaigns with standard ads to the categories auction and campaign with buy it now option. Now that more listing types are possible for Standard Ads, you can attract interested buyers to buy while increasing the visibility of your listings across the eBay network to 100+ placements, no matter how you sell.Does it now cost more to advertise my auction with standard ads?
Ads Standard is an advertising solution based on a cost-per-sale model with no upfront fees. This means you select the percentage of the selling price that you are willing to pay in advertising fees if your promoted item sells. You decide how much you pay!Can I advertise both auctions and Buy It Now auctions with Standard ads?
Yes, you can promote all your offer types with Standard ads
They do not specify if the recent updates to ad attribution, including "halo items", will also apply to auctions but most likely they will as it looks like auctions will simply be under the existing policies for Promoted Listings Standard ads.
Liz Morton ~ Founder
So far eBay Germany is the only market where this change has been announced, but it's a good bet if they find this test is successful in getting sellers to opt auction listings in, eBay will expand it to their other marketplaces soon.
The failure of Promoted Listings Express may raise questions about eBay's other newer ad products like Promoted Listings Advanced, Promoted Display, and Offsite ads which are all cost per click models.
Introducing new and different ad types and models to increase revenue was a main focus of eBay's Investor Day presentation in 2022 and Wall Street has been paying close attention to whether or not eBay is delivering on ad revenue promises.
If sellers continue to show hesitancy for adopting products outside of the PL Standard cost per sale model, that may drastically alter the landscape of eBay's ad revenue projections and potential.
What do you think of eBay Promoted Listings Express for Auctions? Would you be more likely to opt auctions in to a cost per sale model vs upfront flat fee? Let us know in the comments below!
