In the runup to Christmas, eBay enticed sellers to use Ad Campaigns by offering them promotions, but when some signed up, they ended up with hundreds of dollars in surprise fees. Several sellers shared screenshots that show eBay had offered them several different promotions, including the following:
- $200 off on ad fees when you try Promoted Stores.
- $150 off on ad fees when you try Promoted Stores.
Each of the promotions had a link for sellers to "Opt in and create a campaign to redeem the offer" and displayed the start and end dates of each promotion.
"Multiple offers sent to me from Oct of 2025. 4 in total. used 1 for $200. no problems. Used a second for $150 no problems. Enable a 3rd one for $150 and I was charged for "clicks.""
But the seller said when they called eBay customer service, they were told the promotions in their seller hub overview page were duplicates - despite sellers being able to activate the "dupes."
The fact that eBay displayed the same promotion multiple times without indicating they were duplicates was a major reason for the surprise charges, but not the only one. Some sellers also reported eBay was not adhering to the maximum daily spend they set up using the campaign budget feature.
Sellers believed setting a limited daily budget would let them see the early results of the ad campaign before the $200 (or $150) in the promotional offer was used up. One seller described the problem
in a post on a December 9th eBay discussion boards:
"I decided to try out the "Priority" ad Campaigns, as eBay was offering me an amount of money to try it out for free. The "Daily Budget" is not per item, it is how much you want to spend on your PPC ads (Pay Per Click). However, the campaign they rolled out for the Holiday season, in my case, is broken.
"First, it hasn't been free. I have already been refunded $60 for one days worth of charges and now. The budget feature does not work.
"I was offered this promotion twice. The second time, I set the budget to $58/day. It used over $400 in one day, the fees are still trickling in a day after I turned it off when I saw it was at $204.00. Product Dev needs to fix this. I was just on the phone with someone I could barely understand for almost an hour, and the call was dropped before I could get a refund. If you are going to use this promotion, be careful! Will update later."
A reader said a supervisor told him that many people were complaining and said the terms of the promotions weren't clear. It doesn't show anywhere in "All Transactions" when and if eBay applies a discount, the seller said. The reader also said the results of the campaigns were "pitiful at best."
"So I ran an eBay promoted priority campaign on a coupon with a daily budget of $30. I ran the campaign for 3 days. Somehow it racked up $225 in ad fees and resulted in $8.36 in sales. I would like answers @AskeBay. Don't fall for these money grab promoted listing campaigns."
These sellers appeared unaware of changes eBay made to the daily budget feature this year. It changed from a daily spending limit to a monthly average budget for Priority Ad campaigns
in June, and expanded the practice to Promoted Store campaigns
in October.
Budget pacing means eBay spends more of a seller's campaign budget on some days and less on others, taking into account various factors in order to optimize the ad spend. As we reported in June, "eBay may exceed a seller's target daily budget on some days, up to double the highest target daily budget in effect on that day, but balances that by spending less on other days to ensure the monthly budget limit is not exceeded over the course of the entire month."
eBay had announced changes to budgeting on its blog devoted to advertising - but eBay removed that blog from its website in the second half of the year.
Based on seller reports, the problem of duplicate promotions and little-known changes to campaign budgeting practices was compounded by sellers' inability to get help from eBay customer service.
eBay Ad Promotion Backfires, Costing Sellers Big
by: Bill