eBay Sellers Report Promoted Listings Eligibility Issues After Attribution Changes Go Live
Sellers report problems with eBay Promoted Listings eligibility glitch in app after attribution changes go live.
January 13th marked the launch of a controversial attribution policy updates for General cost per sale ads, massively expanding the number of sales which will collect ad fees without providing additional sales or return on investment for sellers.
Liz Morton
In the wake of those changes, sellers are also experiencing a strange glitch when using rules based Promoted Listings General campaigns, causing confusion about whether listings really are being promoted or not.
Promoted Listings Campaign not adding all new items
I have a promoted listings campaign that Ive had running for a while. It is set to run continuous (no end date). All of my listings should be (and have been) added to it automatically.
"Your campaign will automatically include listings in all categories priced all prices from all brands that are all conditions."
But the last few days it isnt adding all of my new listings to it. It will add some but not all. I cannot figure out why. There are 38 items that are not being promoted, starting January 7th.
Is there a glitch? I cant even promote them manually - when I try it tells me "This listing has been added to a campaign using rule-based listing selection."
Promoted Listing Eligible Glitch
So I have an automated promoted listings rule, and for about a week now, both on the app and the desktop site, it shows my listings as eligible to be promoted. But when I click on them, they’re already promoted. All new listings are showing this way, and it’s not going away.
Same thing here, I promote all of my items and I have this showing on my app. Just the newest glitch I think, hopefully the items are actually being promoted.
New problem with PL Total numbers - anyone else?
Yes. Happening with me also. It’s super irritating. Been more than a week, just on app and yes it started right around the 13th. Go figure.
Edit: Yes, these are listings in a campaign! So already promoted but showing not but also can’t fix because they’re promoted! What?!? Arggggg!
I did a test last night & it's not as simple as every item either. I listed 3 brand new, never before been listed items & my count increased only by 1.
Weird. Will experiment with some relists later but right now I'm trying to beat this storm to get a few things done before it hits, but I thought that was weird.
Technical glitches where ad data is out of sync between the desktop and app experiences are not uncommon - for example, when eBay introduced ad reporting to the app last year, it showed wildly different statistics than the reports on desktop.
Liz Morton
And that's just one of many example of the ongoing problems affecting sellers on eBay.
Back in 2019, eBay and then CEO Devin Wenig faced activist investor pressure from Elliott Management calling for changes at the company, with constant site glitches and technical misexecution called out explicitly as one of the major problems at the company.
7 years later, it's shocking just how much of Elliott's "Enhancing eBay" plan still rings true today - particularly critiques around glitches constantly plaguing the platform and lack of leadership prioritizing operational and technical excellence.
Ex-CEO Devin Wenig infamously said at eBay Open 2018 that technical glitches are unacceptable and really pissed him off.
eBay has since removed the video they had posted on YouTube of the event, but the interviewer asked:
There've been a lot of site glitches recently on eBay. What are you guys doing to get rid of them?
Here's the simple answer - unacceptable, unacceptable. And we're making a lot of changes. When you make changes there are times that things happen but that's not an excuse and it's not ok with me and this summer in particular there have been a number of issues that directly impacted sellers like people not being able to see their view counts and a few other things and it's just not ok.
I'm extremely proud of a lot of things we've done, I'm not proud of that and in fact I hold my team accountable and it's not important, it's an internal matter but, we made changes to people and teams because shipping product that isn't ready is not ok. It's not ok with me and it's not ok with my team.
So the short answer is it's not like we don't get it. We are making a lot of changes and I want to make those changes, we need to make those changes, but making changes and then having to back up and fix things is not cool and I totally get it. Most of the issues from this summer have now been remedied but I was pissed off.
Mazen Rawashdeh was Chief Infrastructure and Architecture Officer at the time, but somehow managed to escape the wrath of a "pissed off" Wenig and was promoted to Chief Technology Officer, a title he still retains today despite the fact the site continues to experience near daily business impacting "glitches."
eBay community staff and social media support agents have not yet provided any updates about when sellers can expect this Promoted Listings glitch to be fixed.
Stay tuned for updates and let us know in the comments below if you are experiencing this problem with ad eligibility in the eBay app!
