It's no secret that being on multiple online Marketplaces is a must. And it's no secret that advertising is one of the most powerful actions you can take to take sales to the moon (or into the dirt, if you're not careful). Some Marketplaces have well thought out and thorough advertising options, while others are a little more difficult.
While we have had great success selling on eBay, there is no doubt it definitely falls into the second category. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be used, just that sellers have to be diligent in how they use it.
There are a couple of interesting things about eBay advertising worth mentioning. First, unlike some other Marketplaces, you can't just start advertising after opening an account. You have to have sales, reviews, and excellent metrics. That's definitely annoying when you are first starting out. And it causes many sellers to forget eBay altogether. We believe that is a mistake. This type of gatekeeping is an excellent opportunity to reach nearly 110 million unique monthly visitors with little competition. For brands willing to take the time to get advertising approved, the rewards can be substantial.
Campaign Types
eBay offers two types of campaigns right now : Standard and Advanced. Both have their uses for different reasons, but serious sellers will primarily be using Advanced.
Standard - Standard advertising is like automatic ads on Amazon. eBay picks the phrases it likes for a product, and when that phrase is searched, the ad shows. Amazon's automatic keyword selection is helpful because it might introduce you to new keywords you had not yet discovered. eBay's standard ads offer no such insight. You can download a generic listing report, but it contains no useful information.
Our experience with standard is that it is underwhelming. Impressions to conversions are low. Here are the previous 31 day results from one of our better performing campaigns
This next one is a little embarrassing. With over 36,000 impressions, the campaign has received 0 sales.
So with all of this negative, it seems Standard should be avoided by serious sellers, right? Not necessarily. Take a look at the metric in the bottom right of the second image. Notice that despite having 36 clicks, our Ad fees are $0. Unlike Amazon, eBay standard ads are not Pay Per Click, but Pay Per Sale. That means a company only pays when the product sales, no matter how many times the ad has been clicked. And overall, the Ad fees are cheap when the product does sale.
Take a look at the first image again. With 11 items sold, we've only paid $15.26 in Ad fees, or $1.39 per item, and have generated an average of $16.73 per sale. That is a ROAS of 12.03 and ACOS is 8.30% or .083, a great result.
Advanced - Advanced is what Amazon sellers are accustom to using. Advanced is choosing keywords and entering bids. eBay is limited to phrase and exact matching only in it's advanced campaign type, but it is still powerful. Here again, you can allow eBay to choose the words you bid on, but you can also choose keywords and the bid, along with the match type. Here are the results from a single day of Advanced advertising, on a product designed for warm weather outdoor use, post-Christmas and targeting just a single keyword.
Our ROAS is 6.77 and ACOS is 14.76% or .1476. We are spending just 13 cents per click. Advanced also offers useful information in its reports. There are 3 options, with 2 of them providing value.
Keyword Report - This report is useful when there is more than 1 keyword in a campaign. It breaks down the individual performance of each keyword you are bidding on. Here is an example of the report:
Each line under Seller Keyword is a keyword we are bidding on, and out from each are the results of that keyword. The keyword highlighted with yellow is not performing very well. It is our highest cost per click keyword, we have had 133 clicks with only 2 sales. ROAS here is 3.49. In contrast, the keyword in green is performing well. CPC is low, and we are getting a ROAS of 116, spending just 86 cents to generate $100 in revenue!
Search Query Report - A very powerful report. This report shows what shoppers typed into the search bar when an ad showed. Yes, showed. That is what makes this powerful. Amazon only shows what was searched when the ad is clicked, eBay shows what was searched every time an ad is served, regardless of being clicked. The report then shows impressions, clicks, and sales related to the search.
With this information, businesses can add specific keywords to ensure products show more often for that search, and alternatively, may learn keywords which should be negated.
Negation
That brings us to negation. Unfortunately, we are back to less than powerful tools. While advanced ads allow for phrase and exact matching, negation allows only for exact matches. That means every combination of keywords that a product should not show on must be negated. If a seller is offering hair dryers, is paying for clicks for black hair dryer searches, and does not offer a black hair dryer, they would have to negate every possible combination of black hair dryer. For example:
black hair dryer
hair dryer black
hair drier black
black hair drier
black hair dryers
hair dryers black
black hair driers
hair driers black
Other misspellings may occur which would need to be found in the results of the search query report.
Is eBay as powerful as Amazon or even Wal-Mart when it comes to PPC? No. Does that mean businesses should forget eBay in their Marketplace strategy? Also no. There are challenges, but building a lasting and profitable company is about facing and overcoming challenges, not running away from them. And a brand should never shy away from seeking help when it is needed. Consider partnering with ARSN Digital, which specializes in full Marketplace adoption, to make the transition.
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