eBay Rolls Out Offsite Ads Beta For Google Ad Placement
UPDATE 3-28-23
It looks like eBay is once again testing Offsite Ads Beta for Google ad placement.
It looks like you still don't get to pick your actual cost per click, eBay "optimizes" that for you and the only way to control your cost is by setting an average daily budget.
Reminder for anyone thinking of testing this out - if you opt in to the new CPC offsite ads, those listings will no longer be eligible to be shown through Promoted Listings Standard External campaigns.
My original comments when Offsite Ads Beta was first test last year called it a short-sighted cannibalization of Promoted Listings Standard - and I fully stand behind that assessment now.
So offsite ads will not be part of promoted listings standard? eBay will need to create a restaurant style menu for me with all of their offerings of how I incur fees. Won't be long until they start charging a penny for every keystroke on their website.
UPDATE 7-29-22
Sellers who reported seeing the Offsite Ads Beta invitation pop up in Seller Hub yesterday are saying it's no longer showing today. 🤨
Did eBay pull the plug already or were they just not prepared for public scrutiny and seller feedback on this nascent new ad product so close to Q2 earnings?
As I reported last month, eBay is working quickly to bring new ad options to market including an offsite Google ads option rolling out now in a closed beta test.
Liz Morton ~ Founder
The new offsite ad product will be a Cost Per Click (CPC) model and will initially only be available for fixed price listings, not auctions.
Important note: in the beta version of this ad product, sellers do not get to pick their own CPC ad rate. 🤯
You can set the daily budget (with a $10 minimum), but the actual per click cost is calculated by eBay and the seller cannot edit that CPC rate.
You also cannot pick and choose which inventory is included - it's an all or nothing deal with eBay blasting all "eligible inventory" to Google at their magically calculated rate.
How does eBay determine the cost per click (CPC) for my campaign?
During this closed beta, we'll calculate a unique CPC for each seller's inventory. You'll see that CPC while you're setting up your campaign. This is the CPC we think will deliver optimal performance, based on factors like competition, relevance, and quality.
Here's everything we know so far:
Offsite ads FAQs
How do offsite ads work?During this closed beta phase, offsite ads lets you promote your entire eligible inventory via Google Ads. Every time a buyer clicks on your ad, you'll pay the exact CPC (cost per click) that you see while creating or editing your campaign.
How does the CPC work?
Offsite ads use a flat-rate CPC model, meaning that the price you're charged will always be the CPC you see while creating or editing your campaign.How does eBay determine the cost per click (CPC) for my campaign?
During this closed beta, we’ll calculate a unique CPC for each seller’s inventory. You’ll see that CPC while you’re setting up your campaign. This is the CPC we think will deliver optimal performance, based on factors like competition, relevance, and quality.We’ll continue to release more guidance as more data comes in and your CPC is subject to change. If we see that your CPC should go up, we’ll ask you to update your campaign. If the CPC should be lower, we’ll automatically lower it for you.
What does “average” daily budget mean?
When you choose to run a continuous campaign, eBay will calculate your total monthly budget as (30.4)*(average daily budget). Over the course of your campaign, you will not be charged more than this total budget per calendar month. However, as marketplace demand fluctuates, eBay may spend more or less than your average daily budget to capitalize on interested buyers when the demand is there on a per day basis.For example, if your average daily budget is $10 for a continuous campaign, you won’t be charged more than $304 per calendar month. On a daily basis, though, you may be charged up to $20 or as low as $0, but the average over the course of your campaign will not exceed $10 per day.
If you end a campaign prematurely, you may be charged up to 2x your average daily budget on a daily basis. This is because the campaign may not have had the chance to average out the budget over time.
After I launch my campaign, when will my ads be eligible to appear?
Once you launch your campaign, your ads will be eligible to appear within 48 hours.
After I launch my campaign, where will my ads appear?
In this beta phase, your ads will be eligible to appear wherever Google Shopping ads appear, including on Google’s search and shopping pages.
When I make updates to my campaign, when will my edits take effect?
Any edits you make to your campaign will take effect by the next day.
Which listings are eligible for offsite ads?
Currently, only fixed price listings are eligible for offsite ads. Auction listings are not eligible at this time. Placement eligibility is subject to Google Ads policies and requirements.
How will my offsite ads campaign affect the visibility of my Promoted Listings Standard ads in external placements?
Once you've created an offsite ads campaign, your listings can only appear in Google Ads through that campaign. They won't be eligible to appear in Google Ads via your Promoted Listings Standard campaigns.
Promoted Listings Standard / External Promoted Listings users will want to make note of that last part - if you opt in to the new CPC offsite ads, those listings will no longer be eligible to be shown through Promoted Listings Standard External campaigns.
External Promoted Listings was introduced last year as a way to have your existing Promoted Listings shown on Google and Bing while still keeping with the cost per sale structure where sellers only pay the ad rate percentage if a buyer completes a sale within 30 days of clicking on the ad.
Liz Morton ~ Founder
At the time, sellers were concerned that eBay was simply monetizing a service it had previously been providing for free and were left wondering if this was just a subtle way for eBay to ramp up the take rate or if there was really a significant advantage to using the paid External Promoted Listings.
Liz Morton ~ Founder
I'd say this latest move puts the last nail in that coffin - there's no question eBay is looking to monetize every possible aspect of the site and has no qualms about turning previously "free" (or included with store subscription) features into more pay to play opportunities.
The fact that they are willing to cannibalize the relatively stable Promoted Listings Standard Cost Per Sale model that sellers have come to accept (albeit grudgingly) in order to push the Cost Per Click model reeks of desperation to me.
I believe it's a short sighted bet that is not likely to pay off as sellers can't afford to continue raising prices or swallowing lower margins and the buyer experience continues to suffer from the massive amount of ad stuffing across every inch of the platform.
Liz Morton ~ Founder
Liz Morton ~ Founder
What do you think about eBay's new Offsite Cost Per Click ads scheme? Let us know in the comments below!
I understand Wall Street doesn't care about an individual seller's success but there has to be a line on a graph of how much ad revenue you can wring out on a declining platform. This new ad service is just going to get us closer to crossing that line.
PLA CPC on ebay has done real damage to itself, our PLS click through rate is down quite a bit since it's installation. Ebay will say that's normal since PLS no longer gets the top spot. Sure but also having a "Sponsored" listing at the top that has nothing to do with your search term trains your buyers to avoid all "Sponsored" listings.
Trusting Ebay with my money and bid amounts for Google Ads is ridiculous. Their data in PLA with keywords is incomplete and just broken in some cases. When a company doesn't even have the data integrity to display correctly, I certainly do not want actions taken on incorrect data. The PLA service itself is more expensive and does not give the needed tools to succeed. They don't even have an API, which is how most users control campaigns on other CPC platforms. If a seller knows CPC is a good fit for their business and knows how to set bid keywords effectively, it's a solid bet they have their own ecommerce store and none of them are going to pay Google to send traffic to their Ebay listing instead.
We were forced to recently start testing out PLA, as eBay has become more promoted than ever this year. (A year ago 51% of sales were promoted, this year according to eBay 63% of our sales are from promotions. Our Promoted sales dropped 10%, our Organic sales dropped 23%).
PLA itself is a nightmare, with many of the keywords COSTING MORE than Google... And then one week after we start testing out PLA, now they're trying to invite us for this new program?
Part of the reason they gave for promoting PLS was that they could invest more of it in to marketing... Now they want us to pay those marketing fees too?
And considering that, as mentioned, eBay is charging MORE per click than Google is... Now they're double dipping. So we'll pay eBay higher fees than Googles per click, so they can make a few extra cents and THEN get the FVF's While BLOCKING the PLS ads?
What, exactly, is supposed to be the incentive of this for sellers? Why on earth would we spend on Google to advertise eBay? If we're going to invest in Google, you can be sure that we're going to spend that money on advertising OURSELVES and not eBay.
It wouldn't be so bad if eBay was giving us more for all this investment. But all they've done is take away, and then want you to pay to get back what they've taken away.
Meanwhile it's horrible timing. GMV dropping, top sellers yearly sales plummeting, and now is the time they decide to suck even more from the sellers...?
EBay is becoming a parasite that doesn't know when enough is enough.
"It wouldn't be so bad if eBay was giving us more for all this investment. But all they've done is take away"
Spot-on. This is a key tenet to nearly everything eBay does: sucking more (literally and figuratively) while offering less.
Meanwhile, eBay's never-ending major glitches and site issues aren't any better than they were back in 2018.
