Early Fallout From eBay’s Promoted Listings Ad Attribution Changes Raises Questions About Rising Fees
Two weeks into major shift in eBay Promoted Listings General attribution policies, some unaware sellers are shocked at sudden rise in ad fees and customer support appears clueless about how new policies actually work.
The new model, which was introduced in Europe, UK, and Australia last year, went into effect January 13, 2026 for the US and Canada, making any click on an ad from any user count for attribution - even if that user isn't the person who eventually ends up purchasing the item.
Liz Morton
Sellers in Europe reported they immediately saw the percentage of sales attributed to ads, thus incurring Promoted Listings fees, rise from ~30-40% to 80-90%+ with no commensurate increase in the number of sales or return on investment - and US sellers largely expected similar results.
Liz Morton
Importantly, sellers with multi-quantity and/or multi-variation listings will be hit particularly hard by this change - if they have 100 of an item in stock, all it takes is a single click by one person on the ad for that item and every sale of that item for the next 30 days will have the ad fee attached.
The policy shift was met with significant backlash from US sellers who took to the eBay community and Seller Circle events to air their concerns and frustration with the apparent money grab.
Liz Morton
But apparently some sellers didn't get the memo about the attribution changes and are now extremely confused about why they are suddenly seeing a significantly larger percentage of orders being charged ad fees.
For example, this seller took to the eBay community for help, thinking there must be a technical problem because they believed a 100% ad attribution rate shouldn't be statistically possible.
Why Organic sales drop to ZERO?
Anyone have any theories as to why my organic sales have dropped to ZERO over the last two weeks? I am a Top Rated seller with 50 listing for about a year with pretty consistent results. I sell about 60 items per week with a mix of organic vs. promoted each day. No changes to my listings recently.
I continue to get a mix of organic and promoted impressions and views. However, not even one organic sale in the last two weeks. Statistically doesn't seem possible unless something is broken. Literally an overnight thing about 2 weeks ago. I even tried lowering my promoted % by 5% for the last couple of days and all that did was decrease my promoted views and sales. Thoughts?
The seller also shared screenshots showing that starting exactly on January 13th, Seller Hub reports show 100% of their sales began being attributed to Promoted Listings ads (light blue) and incurring ad fees, when previously they had a mix of organic (dark blue) and promoted sales.
After some initial confusion and incorrect information from other sellers in that thread, several community members jumped in to explain that what this seller is seeing is the direct and entirely predictable result of the new ad attribution policy.
But alarmingly, the original poster said they had contacted eBay support and the reps were apparently unaware of the new policy or at least did not offer it as an explanation for the change the seller was seeing.
Once again this ebay community is amazing and has gotten to the root cause. I was just speaking to ebay tech support about this. First person just did not get it. He just wanted me to spend more on coupons, sales, more promotions, etc.
Second person at least understood the reason I called. Did not really have an answer and is supposed to send me an email with help. Could be the same article as previously shared. I will read what they send but I already know the answer thanks to everyone here.
Not sure what I will do, other than just live with it. It really just boils down to a policy that ebay puts in place to make more money. I will continue to sell on ebay but will spend some time and money on other platforms. Thanks again everyone!!!
These attribution updates are just the latest desperate move eBay has made to increase ad revenue without providing additional value to sellers.
Sellers noticed in early November 2024 that the Promoted Listings Dynamic ad rate minimum had been raised from 2% to 5% with no notice and eBay also instituted a massive 10X minimum bid increase on Promoted Listings Priority cost per click ads, going from $0.02 to $0.20 per click.
They've also recently moved Promoted Listings Priority and Promoted Stores to monthly budget pacing, while making stealth changes to remove Promoted Listings ads completely from search sorted by Time, Price, and Distance options and reserving the top spot in search exclusively for Priority cost per click ads.
And these are likely not the only major changes we'll see to Promoted Listings ads in 2026, as eBay is taking inspiration and strategy cues from Amazon in quest for continued ad revenue growth and tinkering with Promoted Stores cost per click ads as well.
Liz Morton
As the full impact of eBay's new ad attribution policies become clear, sellers are encouraged to share their concerns with the FTC and/or their state attorney general's office with calm, factual and data-based reports about how these changes are impacting their businesses.
Liz Morton
And as always, I'd love to hear about your experience with the new eBay Promoted Listings General ad attribution policies too - leave a comment below or contact VAR!
