eBay Introduces Dynamic Target Daily Budget For Promoted Listings Priority CPC Campaigns
eBay is making changes to how seller budgets for Promoted Listings Priority Cost Per Click campaigns work, promising more flexibility and matching ad spend to demand, but will sellers still maintain the same level of control over maximum ad costs?
When the first cost per click ad product was introduced by eBay in 2021, then called Promoted Listings Advanced, the budget settings were a straightforward maximum daily amount - once that maximum was reached on any given day, ads would turn off for the rest of the day and start up again the next day to run until/unless the budget was met.
Then in 2023, eBay introduced Smart Targeting, which allowed sellers to "set it and forget it" while eBay manages bid and keyword optimization.
Liz Morton
But even with Smart Targeting, the only budgeting option sellers had was to set the maximum cost per click and a static, flat daily total ad spend budget.
As part of the Summer 2024 Seller Update, eBay announced they were streamlining the ads process with a new dashboard and renaming the different ad types - with Promoted Listings Advanced now being called Promoted Listings Priority.
Now, eBay is announcing daily budgets will be changing to be targeted to help maximize sales potential, with actual daily cost per click ad spend changing dynamically depending on demand effective November 6, 204.
Brandy Yarema
We’re making some updates to our Promoted Listings program that will give you more flexibility over your advertising budget while maintaining control over your spend. The change, effective November 6, 2024, impacts all advertising campaigns leveraging the priority campaign strategy.
Starting soon, we’re moving from a fixed daily budget to a target daily budget. This means you’ll set the average daily amount you’d like to spend for your priority campaigns to help maximize the sales potential for your campaigns.
Here’s what’s changing:
- More Flexibility: Instead of being locked into a set daily cap, you’ll have a target budget that can be used more flexibly throughout the week.
- Match your spend to demand: On days when more people are visiting eBay, your campaign can spend up to double your target daily budget. This helps make sure you don’t miss out on those extra sales opportunities, while still keeping your spending in check day-to-day.
- Maintain control: You still have control over your weekly spending, as it won’t exceed seven times your target daily budget unless you make changes mid-week.
- Why this matters: This update allows for dynamic allocation of your budget throughout the week, giving you a better chance to boost visibility and sales by adjusting your spending to match when potential buyers are most active.
That puts eBay more in line with other popular cost per click advertising solutions. For example, Google Ads similarly averages out your daily budget over a 30 day timeframe.
eBay goes on to explain that with this new Target Daily Budget, some days may not reach your budget amount and others may exceed by double the set amount but it will all be averaged out so the total spend will not go over 7 times the daily budget for the week - unless you adjust the budget during that time.
Your campaign will optimize spend based on a variety of factors, including your ad’s relevance to marketplace traffic and buyer behaviors. This means that on some days you may not reach your target daily budget, and on others you may exceed it by up to double that target.
The update will also eliminate the worry of overspending for the week by keeping overall costs within your desired budget. Rest assured, your total spend for the week will not go over seven times your daily target, unless you decide to adjust it during the week.
Your total spending for the week (Sunday-Saturday) will be capped at an amount equal to your daily target multiplied by seven. For example, if your daily target is $12.00, your total weekly spend will not exceed $84.00 ($12.00 for each day of the calendar week).
There is nothing sellers will need to do to opt in to Target Daily Budgets, eBay will simply automatically switch all active Promoted Listings Priority campaigns to this method starting November 6 - but that also means unfortunately sellers will not be able to opt out either.
Additional FAQs eBay has provided for Cost Per Click Target Daily Budgets:
Why is eBay Advertising moving to a target daily budget?
We are transitioning campaigns used to promote listings with a priority strategy to the target daily budget to offer sellers more flexibility. This approach allows for dynamic ad spend adjustments to maximize sales opportunities on high-traffic days while maintaining a consistent weekly spend.How do I migrate all of my campaigns over to the target daily budget?
There’s nothing you need to do to migrate to the target daily budget. On November 6, 2024 all of your existing campaigns will automatically move to the new target daily budget.What is the maximum my campaign can spend each day?
On any given day you could spend less than your target daily budget, or up to double the highest target daily budget in effect on that day. You can set and edit your target daily budget at any time during the week.How will my campaign optimize the spend of my target daily budget?
Your campaign will optimize spend based on a variety of factors to help your campaign drive sales when buyers are shopping for items like yours. This means that on some days you may not reach your target daily budget, and on others you may exceed it by up to double that target.However the total per week won’t exceed seven times your set target daily budget, unless you make changes to your daily budget, in which case, up to seven times the highest target daily budget in effect would be the maximum spend possible for that week.
How will my campaign cost be calculated?
The daily campaign cost will be calculated by multiplying the total number of clicks received on your ads by their respective price.For example: Your campaign has a target daily budget of $30 at the start of the week, which means the maximum your campaign could spend that week is $210 ($30 * 7 remaining days).
On Sunday you spend $30. On Monday, your campaign exceeds the target daily budget in order to capitalize on high traffic and spends $40, so after your campaign spends another $30 on Tuesday your campaign’s total spend is $100.
After reviewing the campaign’s performance, you increase your target daily budget to $50 on Wednesday, this increases the maximum you campaign can spend for the remaining days of the week to $200 ($50 * 4 remaining days, including Wednesday). Your campaign allocates the budget over the remaining days, leading to $125 in ad spend for Wednesday through Saturday.
Over the course of the week, your campaign’s total spend is $225.
While the flexibility to have ad spend be allocated to days when there may be more demand could be very useful to some sellers, others may be skeptical whether eBay will really honor the maximum weekly spend or simply not appreciate being forced into this instead of having it be an optional setting.
What do you think of eBay moving to Target Daily Budgets for Promoted Listings Priority Cost Per Click Campaigns? Let us know in the comments below!
