eBay's International Promoted Listings Push: Is Seller Ad Spend Tolerance Waning?
eBay has cranked up discounts and promotions aimed at enticing sellers to try Promoted Listings ad products in Q1 - is seller tolerance for ever increasing ad rates and expanding attribution models starting to wane?
Sellers of all types and sizes across eBay's global markets have reported receiving the offers which range from a few dollars to hundreds, depending on the ad type being promoted.
For example, some sellers have received an offer of 50% off Offsite cost per click ads, up to $300 through March 31st.
Or this one offering 75% up to $200 on Promoted Listings Priority cost per click ads.
And a seller on Reddit says they were offered 40% off up to $4,000.
Such promotions are not unheard of - both Priority cost per click, Offsite Ads and Store Display ads are "newer" ad products eBay offers and with sellers being less familiar/comfortable with the cost per click model, eBay has used these kinds of discount tactics in the past to try to goose seller adoption rates.
What's more surprising is that eBay is also offering discounts on their oldest and most established ad product Promoted Listings General (previously called Standard) which is a cost per sale model.
Some versions of the offer have taken the 50% model, but at a much smaller amount of up to $20, and others just offer a flat credit of $10.
In the UK, private sellers have apparently been being offered similar £15 credits as well - clearly targeted towards sellers who are not experienced with ads and likely haven't used them before.
suelel1968
Anyone tried this offer? I only noticed it today and opted in, but after reading how it works i am totally confused as to what to do next and how to best benefit from it. Any tips
That inexperience could come back to bite these sellers as they are less likely to be aware of the fact that eBay has a 30 day attribution window.
With Promoted Listings General, an ad fee is charged any sale that occurs within 30 days of a buyer click on an ad or taking any other action which counts for ad attribution, but it's important to note these promotions are timed to apply to ad fees for items sold within the promotion period.
That sets up a situation where the initial attributable click or action may happen during the promotion period, but the buyer could wait to complete the sale until after the promotion ends - in which case the seller would end up paying the full ad rate with no credits or discounts applied.
And if all these ad fee credits don't already seem desperate enough, Australian sellers on Reddit say they've received unsolicited phone calls from eBay trying to badger them into signing up for Promoted Listings.
I'm a small seller on eBay Australia. eBay have been calling me to try and get me to pay for additional advertising, as if the final value and other fees paid weren't enough.
This seems like a rip off so i told them I wouldn't be paying any more. Since then sales have slowed and I think they are reducing my visibility deliberately. Perhaps its paranoia, but I am wondering if anyone else has experiences anything similar?
Anyone else been called by the eBay call center recently to try and get them to pay more in advertising? They try and just get you to activate it without telling you its paid advertising. The whole thing feels very sneaky and underhanded.
Also an eBay seller in Australia. Also got this phone call and told them I wasn’t interested.
If eBay is feeling the need to pull out the stops, and discounts, to goose Promoted Listings General cost per sale ad adoption too, that could signal sellers' tolerance for increasing ad rates and expanding attribution models have hit a wall, particularly due to changes eBay made in Q4 2024.
First, sellers noticed in early November that the Promoted Listings Dynamic ad rate minimum had been raised from 2% to 5% with no notice to sellers.
Liz Morton
That lack of communication was in stark contrast to when eBay sent proactive emails and a ~30 day heads up in 2022 when they increased the minimum cost per sale rate from 1%-2%.
Then, even more alarmingly, 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 - again with no notice to sellers.
Liz Morton
And in a December update to eBay's Marketing Terms, they added additional actions which count for ad attribution, increasing the possibility any given sale will incur an ad fee, and granted themselves much more wiggle room to make future ad rate changes with no proactive notice to sellers.
Also in December, eBay's stock price fell when analysts at Jefferies downgraded the company to "underperform" from "hold", citing concerns about slowing ad revenue growth and possible headwinds in cross border trade from China.
Liz Morton
In a reactionary move, eBay then announced major changes for ad attribution in Germany that will expand the pool of possible transactions that incur Promoted Listings General ad fees to include sales where the buyer never actually sees or clicks on an ad - and many sellers are worried the may try to do the same in the US too.
Liz Morton
On top of all the ad fee discounts, eBay is also continuing to lean on legacy discounting tactics to boost enthusiast buyer stats for Q1 2025, raising questions about whether CEO Jamie Iannone has run out of ideas to grow GMV and active buyers on the platform organically.
Liz Morton
The return to using discounts as a lever to try to boost financial metrics is an interesting strategy - particularly since Iannone had been highly critical of previous CEO Devin Wenig's frequent discounts (paid by eBay) to try to attract more buyers in 2018-2019.
Those 15-20% off flash sales proved to be a double edged sword - once buyers get used to receiving discounts, they'll often wait for a sale before making a purchase, creating "one and done" or only occasional buying patterns.
Wenig's strategy was considered such a failure that Iannone felt the need to explicitly distance himself from it when he took the helm, telling investors in 2021:
We've discontinued legacy tactics that led to low value, infrequent or one and done buyers. Our buyer base is starting to evolve based on this strategy. These high-volume buyers are growing compared to a year-ago and their spend on eBay is growing even faster. This higher-quality mix of buyers increases value for sellers and will lead to improved health of our ecosystem over the long-term...
..This is something that I laid out last July when we talked about the tech-led reimagination as being focused on turning buyers into lifelong enthusiasts on the platform and moving away from the tactics that we had in 2019 what was really just about the number of active buyers even low value buyers or one and done buyers.
However, despite his criticism of those past tactics, it's hard not to see that eBay is increasingly putting themselves in a similar position with their various discounts offered to sellers
If Iannone is confident these discounts will create long-term, sustainable growth without the significant downside risks he criticized his predecessor for taking, then he should have no problem candidly discussing how much any (presumed) growth in these areas can be attributed to these initiatives as well as costs and return on investment on the next earnings call.
If instead he and/or CFO Steve Priest try to present any (presumed) growth as proof their "magical" strategy is working while not disclosing any of that crucial context - investors would be wise to dig deeper, demand honesty and transparency, and take a hard look at the near to long-term prospects for the company if eBay remains under current leadership.
