eBay sellers can now watch the “2026 Advertising Strategies” webinar eBay held on February 19 on YouTube, hosted by Kye Mou, Senior Product Marketing Manager of Ads and Rishi Vora, Senior Product Manager.
The webinar explained three types of ad solutions for sellers: eBay Promoted Listings, Promoted Offsite, and Promoted Stores. We scanned some of the comments sellers posted in the chat feature of the live webinar to get a sense of what participants had to say about eBay ads and what questions they asked during the presentation.
One seller said advertising such as promoting listings had never helped them and were hoping the webinar could help them learn why that was.
Some sellers shared their experiences with eBay promoted ads:
“We have had success with promoted listings but cannot justify the cost without raising prices.”
“I list my items % higher, so I can run a sale on them, and I also take offers. They may be listed higher, but with the sale and offers, I get what I want.”
“I actually tried all of the promoted and tried stopping them all – tested all of them and promoted general is best for my one of a kind store – I promote all of my items – definitely worth it for me.”
“My results in eBay Motors for all the promoted strategy choices are these as of just today: Promoted general – good. Promoted Offsite – VERY good. Promoted priority (pay per click) was a fail. I blew through the $100 credit with hundreds of clicks but not a single sale. Hope this helps you guys!”
“I use the promoted ads and in less than 90 days have seen sales over 11K and listing impressions over 1.3m with a 12% ROA (return).”
Other sellers said they didn’t think they should have to pay extra to get exposure:
“We never used to have to use “tricks” to get sales. Sure has changed over the many years. So complex now.”
“Just a way to increase the referral fee with window dressing.”
“Buyers should be able to find listings without the promoting money grab by eBay. It did help my sales but, I don’t believe the value equals the cost. It’s ridiculous!”
“IMO, eBay should promote our inventory organically for free. Not grab money. I have faith in my product & serviceability. No promotions or additional costs needed. 9K items on line.”
“We all make money when stuff sells. seems odd for the need to add extra promotions to be seen. I have seen a drastic drop in sales since the new promotions took affect. Not sure what the cause is yet, but seems suspicious.”
“eBay should be displaying your listing even if it is not promoted when IT is what the buyer is looking for.”
“If I have the ONLY one of something, and you won’t show it because I’m not using promotions, how is that fair?”
“The problem is that eBay does not display your listing even though it matches every words a buyer lists – just because your listing is not promoted and that I think is very unfair!!”
eBay recently changed attribution for items promoted with a general campaign strategy when charging ad fees, explaining as follows:
“An attributed sale will be when any buyer purchases the promoted item within 30 days of any click on the ad, regardless of whether the buyer themselves clicked on the ad. The item must be promoted at the time of click and the time of sale. The seller will be charged the ad rate at the time of sale.
“This update will simplify campaign reporting, which many sellers have requested for greater ease-of-use and clarity, while allowing you to maintain control over your spend – you continue to only pay when your item sells. As with any update, we recommend you monitor ad performance and adjust your strategy accordingly.”
At about 8 minutes into the webinar, eBay’s Vora addressed the topic, and some sellers commented specifically about the new attribution change:
“My promotion sales went for 15 to 20 percent to almost 85 to 90 percent. The change seems more like a money grab. I have no more sales than before, just less money because of your change. Please explain how this was not a money grab by eBay.”
“The new ad change has hurt my store over helping and have increased the clicks on the listings with less sales then before the change.”
“Total fail on justifying the new ‘pay for promoted’ if anyone clicked before.”
“What are people seeing in their traffic reports since 1/13? I am seeing that my % promoted clicked on is down but % promoted sales is up 20-30%. I did and still do 2.6%.”
Some sellers said they didn’t like the fact that other sellers’ listings were appearing in their eBay Store. “Sellers who are promoting higher are showing up on my store landing page or being told to look at other items while in my store from the moment they come to my page. Someone else’s items are there,” a seller commented.
Some sellers were intrigued about the discussion of eBay’s Rule Based Tool (introduced in 2021): “I use general Promoted Listings but have never tried the Rule Based Tool – this is interesting,” wrote one seller. “Rule based tool – I didn’t even know that existed. Thank you for sharing that,” said another.
Many sellers had specific questions about eBay promoted ads:
“Will eBay show a less specific matching item for a search over a closer matched item, if the less specific item is promoted at a higher rate? EX – buyer searches a book title, one available unpromoted, but a similar title, different book, is promoted high. Will that less-specific match rank higher in search??”
“Should an item be listed under both general and priority?”
“I can never get a straight answer on what the cost of selling an priority promoted item is. Anyone?”
“Where can we see the advertising cost per item on Priority promoted?”
“I have obscure items in collectibles and books and have tried to see if items that haven’t had views get some after general promotion. I can’t really be sure it works. But it seems like it should. It’s hard for me to keep track of.”
“What is the best way to get listings more visible in Google Search?”
“With priority strategy, cpc, how do you know how much you’ll spend on it so it doesn’t wipe out your entire margin on the item?”
“Do you think smart targeting or manual targeting works better for priority campaigns?”
“Why is that when you set a daily budget for CPC priority ads, it disregards the budget and will sometimes spend 3-4x your budget. I have been charged over $100/day when I set the budget to $25 for a day before. I never tried it again for real of having my money stolen.”
One seller asked the eBay moderator to share information about the Listing Quality Report because “no one knows this exists,” advising colleagues, “Don’t keep throwing money at your listings, fix them first.” A moderator included a link to more info about the Listing Quality Report. The page explains: the report “provides specific actions you can take to optimize your listings and categories, with the aim of boosting your views, impressions, and sales.”
Toward the end of the webinar, the moderators answered some of the questions submitted to the queue. For example, one seller had asked, “If 5 sellers promote the same item at 12% who will get the top slot?” At minute 51:45, Vora explained the process eBay uses and the signals it considers when determining which seller’s promoted listing to display in the top slot.
eBay posted the video presentation on YouTube, where you can hear the product managers and view the accompanying slides:
