eBay’s Latest Ad Scheme Hits UK, EU & Australia Sellers With Rising Costs & Disappointing Returns
Day one of eBay's new Promoted Listings General ad attribution model for UK, Australia, Spain, France, and Italy is in the books - and sellers are already reporting disappointing, but predictable results with massive increase in ad fees but not sales.
The new model mirrors updates rolled out in Germany in February, stating General cost per sale ad fees will be assessed for any sale where any buyer clicked on the promoted version of an item - even if that isn't the buyer who ultimately ends up making the purchase!
Liz Morton
Starting June 24th, 2025, for items listed on ebay.co.uk, ebay.com.au, ebay.fr, ebay.it, and ebay.es: eBay will report an Attributed sale from a general campaign when a buyer purchases the same item that was featured in the ad that was clicked on by any buyer in the most recent 30 days.
The ad fee is charged when a buyer purchases the promoted item from a general ad that any buyer clicked on in the most recent 30 days. The item must be promoted at the time of click and the time of sale. The ad fee is based on the ad rate in effect at the time of the sale.
Yes, you read that right - if an ad for an item has been clicked on by any buyer in the last 30 days, the seller will be charged the ad fee when that item sells - even if it ends up being purchased by a completely different buyer who never clicked on the ad.
Just a week and half into the attribution changes for Germany, sellers were already seeing ad attribution rates rising to 80% or more as a result of this massive expansion of how eBay decides whether an ad fee will apply on a sale.
Sellers shared their experiences in the eBay.de community forum:
samples:
52% of my sales on 01.11.2024 calculated with ads
51% of my sales on December 19, 2024 were calculated with ads
63% of my sales on February 22, 2024 were calculated with ads
86% of my sales today (so far 5:20pm) 02/26/25 calculated with ads.
I haven't changed much in this time. For me this is a rip-off with NO added value!
Another seller provided a screenshot of their ad dashboard report, showing in the days starting from February 26th (the day the new attribution policy went into effect), almost every sale was attributed to Promoted Listings (green) with only a tiny amount of organic sales (blue) compared to previous days under the old attribution model.
without words...see screenshot...speaks for itself...
Since this update changes eBay Promoted Listings ad attribution to count "when a buyer purchases the same item advertised in the ad clicked by any buyer in the last 30 days", the sale no longer needs to be attached to an actual click on an ad and these additional ad attributions do not represent additional sales or increased value to the seller in any way.
Sellers in the UK have begun sharing their results from the first day of having the new attribution model applies to their accounts and the same pattern has predictably emerged.
Promoted Listings Changes - You Must Be Joking, eBay
and it started...
We have been gradually switching off any promoted listing to avoid a sudden drop - not there yet. Having said that there is a massive difference in the balance as of this morning - see attached.
I wondered why ALL of our sales today are "promoted listings", even though 50% are repeat buyers!
Promoted listings served a function - a few extra sales on top of organic sales - for a small cost, and roughly 1 in 8 of our sales used to come from a promoted listing.
If now every sale is being charged as a promoted listing it is going to hugely increase our selling costs. We either stop promoting or put prices up - as if we haven't had to put prices up enough already over the last couple of years to cover various increasing costs.
eBay Advertising attribution seems like a total scam
...it seems like now every single sale is an ad sale even if it was sold directly from an ad, this will only end up shooting ebay in the foot and many will stop using ads al together, prior to this coming into effect about 50% of my sales where ad sales now its 100% all this means is I'm going to end my ads and ebays greed will make them lose out.
Again, just like in Germany, UK sellers are seeing a massive overnight increase in ad fees being applied, without any commensurate boost to sales, showing there is no increased Return on Investment or value added for sellers - only a significant cash grab for eBay.
And while eBay has not yet announced if/when this new attribution model will be coming the US, stealth edits to help and policy pages have US sellers believing it will likely be coming sooner rather than later.
Liz Morton
Sellers are seeking suggestions on how to strategize to optimize for this new model and/or whether they should even continue using Promoted Listings at all - let us know in the comments below if you're seeing an uptick in ad fee attribution and what you plan to do with Promoted Listings going forward!
