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Promoted Listings puts your merchandise in front of more buyers when they're actively searching and shopping on eBay, increasing item visibility and helping to improve the likelihood of a sale. There are over 60 different placements across eBay where your Promoted Listings will surface. Prominent examples include the search results page and sponsored modules on view item pages.
Promoted Listings is available to Above Standard and Top Rated sellers with recent sales activity.
Sellers can promote fixed price listings for most categories except Wholesale & Job Lots, Cars, Motorcycles & Vehicles, Events Tickets, Property, E-Cigarettes, Vapes & Accs and Everything Else categories. Auction and Auction Buy It Now listings are not eligible at this time. When you create a Promoted Listings campaign, only listings that are eligible for the service will appear in your selection view.
Your listing can be promoted on every eBay site where you offer postage. For example, if on your Promoted listing you offer postage to the US, your listing is eligible to be promoted on the US site.
A Promoted Listings fee is charged based on the ad rate selected by the seller.
Ad rate is the percentage of an item's final sale price (excluding postage), and is only charged when a buyer clicks on the promoted listing and purchases the promoted item within 30 days of that click. The fee is based on the ad rate that was in effect when the promoted listing was first clicked.
The Promoted Listings fee is additional to other eBay listing and selling fees. All fees appear on your Payments tab in Seller Hub or on your monthly eBay invoice.
Note: We usually recognize the buyer when they are logged in across devices. However, in some cases, buyers may not be logged in when they click on your ad. In those cases, we utilize internal models and signals across accounts and devices to link clicks to purchases of your promoted items.
If your items are well positioned in Search, Promoted Listings can boost your listings to higher slots. Your promoted listing will show in Search only when the boost from your ad rate is enough to achieve a higher placement than your organic listing would have.
Promoted Listings also boosts your items' visibility across eBay, not just in Search. Promoted listings appear in 60+ placements, including on view item pages, the checkout page and more.
Each month, Featured Shop subscribers receive a £10 credit and Anchor Shop subscribers receive a £20 credit.
To be eligible for the credits, you must:
Be a Featured or Anchor Shop subscriber
Have a valid eBay registration address in the UK. Sellers using My eBay can verify their registration address at My eBay > My Account > Addresses > Registration address.
Launch a Promoted Listings campaign and sell item(s) through the Promoted Listings service.
Pay your monthly invoice after eBay bills you for items sold.
After that, eBay will issue your monthly credit up to the amount used toward your total account funds or on your next monthly invoice and note any remaining Promoted Listings credit balance. Credits will appear in the expenses section of your Payments tab or in the "Miscellaneous Credits" section of your invoice. The description will tell you which month and quarter the credit is for. Example: If you're a Featured Shop subscriber and spend £10 on Promoted Listings in April, you'll be charged £10 in April and receive up to a £10 credit in May (example based on a £10 monthly Promoted Listings credit for Featured Shop subscribers).
The credit does not roll over each month. Example: If you spend £5 in April, this doesn't mean you have £15 to spend in May. You'll only have £10 to spend in May.
Note: Promotions and credits are subject to change.
Promoted Listings is available through some third-party listing tools. Please contact your third-party tool provider to learn more and get started.
Yes, you can use Promoted Listings via the eBay Merchant Integration Platform under the Marketing Management section. The first step is to upload your listings feed in the “Promoted Listings eligibility” section to determine which listings are eligible for Promoted Listings. Once you have your eligible listings, upload the feed in the “Promoted Listings” section and include the ad rate you want to set, the campaign name and the Promoted Listings action. You can also return the suggested ad rate for your listings within this section. For more information visit the Merchant Integration Platform User Guide.
Promoted Listings include relevant information from your listing, including your primary photo, price, format etc. Any changes you make to your listing are automatically reflected. Sample ad:
Promoted Listings may appear throughout our network across all devices. Prominent placements include search results as well as listings pages. On listings pages, Promoted Listings are hosted within sponsored modules which contribute to the visibility of your listings in addition to placements within search results.
Placement and ranking are influenced by a variety of factors, including ad rate, quality, relevancy and competing listings. Just having a high ad rate doesn't necessarily guarantee you a prominent placement, as eBay has strong quality and relevancy measures in place to ensure a good buyer experience.
It's important that you also optimise your listings for Best Match to give them the best chance of performing in Promoted Listings.
No. An individual listing will only appear once in the same set of search results. If your listing is promoted, it will either appear as a promoted listing or an organic listing, depending on which one ranked highest for the buyer's search query. Your promoted listing will only be shown if it needed the boost to rank higher than its organic counterpart.
Your item may appear in more than one sponsored placement on the same view item page.
Your promoted listings may appear anywhere your listing is eligible for sale.
Yes. You can promote any eligible listing that has a Promotions Manager offer or a Best Offer on it.
If you use Promotions Manager to offer a markdown sale event, the markdown sale event price change will appear in your promoted listing. If you offer Best Offer, your promoted listing will show the Best Offer label (see example listing below).
Note: Ad fees are based on the final sale price, including if you accept a Best Offer as the final value price.
Yes. A third party can promote your listing at the same time you are promoting it. This can help increase the likelihood that it will appear prominently. For example, a major shoe brand may choose to promote eBay listings featuring its shoe products.
Note: Your ad rate will be based on your own campaign settings, and third-party promoters will be charged separately.
Ad blockers are generally intended to block intrusive ads (like pop-ups) that disrupt the user experience. We have designed our Promoted Listings ads to align natively with our site experience, and most ad blockers don't block that sort of non-intrusive content. However, there are a host of ad blockers on the market, and each maintains its own user settings and policies distinguishing between intrusive ads and acceptable native content. Currently, our data suggests that promoted listings are being blocked for less than 2% of traffic. Like other marketplaces and social networks, we are constantly evaluating our user experience and our advertising programs, including the impact of ad blocker software on the content we make available.
There are multiple ways you can promote your items:
Using the "Sell it Faster" option when creating a new listing in Seller Hub:
Active Listings page in Seller Hub
Filter your listings by Promoted Listings eligibility.
Check suggested ad rates from a customisable Promoted Listings column.
Select all listings or a group of listings to promote in bulk. You can also select single listings to promote individually.
Promoted Listings Campaign Manager, under "Marketing" in Seller Hub
Selecting listings individually
Select the listings you'd like to promote.
Set your ad rate.
Review and launch your campaign.
Uploading in bulk
Download a .csv file with your eligible listings and suggested ad rates. You can also upload your own .csv file, just be sure to note the format required for a successful upload.
Modify and upload the file.
Review and launch your campaign.
Through using our Merchant Integration Platform:
Upload your listings feed in the "Promoted Listings eligibility" section to determine which listings are eligible for Promoted Listings.
Upload the feed in the "Promoted Listings" section and include the ad rate you want to set, the campaign name and the Promoted Listings action.
For more information visit the Merchant Integration Platform User Guide.
Using third-party listing tools:
Check with your third-party tool provider.
By setting up your own API access:
Register for the eBay Developers Programme.
Create an eBay Developer Programme account and read best practices.
Read the Marketing API Overview and Marketing API Technical Reference.
Build integration and Terms & Conditions acceptance flow.
Test and launch.
Promoted Listings in My eBay - Active:
Open the dropdown menu beside the listing you want to promote.
Select Promote listing.
Use our suggested ad rate or, under "Ad rate (%)", set your own rate.
Select a campaign.
Select Promote listing now.
You can also edit or stop promoting a promoted listing in My eBay Active. From the dropdown menu beside the promoted listing, select Edit promoted listing. You'll then have the option to Update promoted listing or Stop promoting.
Promoted Listings doesn't show listings that aren't active – whether sold, expired or ended. If an item was previously promoted and has sold, expired or ended and you ‘Sell similar’ or relist that item, it will be automatically promoted and inherit its previous Promoted Listings settings.
Note: Multi-quantity Good ‘Til Cancelled listings remain promoted until removed from their campaigns.
To edit listings and/or ad rate in Promoted Listings Campaign Manager:
If you used the "Select listings individually" option to create your Promoted Listings campaign:
Click on "Actions" next to the campaign you wish to edit
Click on "Edit campaign"
Adjust the ad rate and/or add or remove listings from the campaign
If you used the "Select listings in bulk" option to create your Promoted Listings campaign:
Click on "Edit" next to the campaign you wish to edit
Once you’re on the “Edit your ad rate strategy” page you can choose from two options to edit your ad rates:
Note: Large files may take up to an hour for the changes to be reflected.
To edit listings and/or ad rate in Active Listings:
For an individual listing:
Click on "Edit promoted listing" either in the actions or Promoted Listings column
Adjust the ad rate in the pop up screen or click "stop promoting" to stop promoting the selected listing
For multiple selected listings:
Click the check box for the listings you want to edit
Click "Edit selected" in the "Edit" dropdown
Select all listings and click "Edit promoted listings"
Adjust the ad rate for all selected listings or click "Do not promote listings" to stop promoting the selected listings
If you select "stop promoting" or "do not promote listings" in the Active Listings flow, you will "End" promoting that listing. This listing itself will still be live. You can also “End” campaigns through Campaign Manager within the same drop down as when you edit the campaign. You can also choose to "Pause" a campaign in this same drop down. The differences between pausing and ending a campaign are:
Pausing allows you to resume that same campaign, whereas you can’t resume an ended campaign.
If you have listings in a paused campaign, you'll be unable to put those listings into a new campaign. If your listings are part of an ended campaign, you'll be able to put those listings into a new campaign.
Only a campaign that has ended can be deleted and this can only be done through Campaign Manager. If your campaign is active or paused you may not be able to delete the campaign.
Once the status of the campaign(s) changes to "Ending", or has "Ended", check the box next to the campaign(s) you wish to delete and click "Delete". Edits to active campaigns generally take effect the same day. Edits to non-active campaigns take effect when you resume the campaign.
Note: If you delete a campaign, you will no longer be able to see that campaign or any data for that campaign. Consider this carefully before deciding to delete a campaign.
Recommended listings are those with the highest potential to benefit from being promoted, due to the marketplace trends like buyer demand and the competition in the item’s category. eBay recommends that you promote those listings first, although you can still promote any of your eligible listings for greater visibility.
There are no right or wrong answers regarding which listings you should promote, but as a good first step we suggest promoting our recommended listings which can be found in the Promoted Listings Campaign Manager.
Other suggestions include:
Increasing sales velocity for your best selling items. These listings are most likely to appear in prominent Promoted Listings placements.
Promoting items that are discounted through Promotions Manager to further drive velocity.
Increasing visibility for new / hard to sell items. It's important to ensure that these listings are optimised for Best Match before you promote to have the best chance of increasing sales.
The eBay Marketplace is a dynamic environment. A number of factors can cause an increase or decrease in your Promoted Listings visibility, clicks or sales. They include:
Buyer traffic or demand for a certain item
Seasonality
Changes to the competitive landscape (e.g., other sellers start or stop promoting items in the same category and/or make significant changes to their ad rates)
Third parties, such as a brand manufacturer, choosing to start or stop promoting certain items
General platform improvements and quality thresholds
Policy changes. You can review eBay's latest rules and policies here.
Review your Promoted Listings dashboard frequently to keep track of your sales and campaign performance. The Dashboard includes metrics such as:
Impressions. The number of times buyers viewed your promoted listing.
Clicks. The number of times buyers clicked your promoted listing.
Sold. The number of items purchased within 30 days of a click on your promoted listing.
Ad fees. The fee based on the ad rate set for your items.
Sales. Amount sold within 30 days of a click on your promoted listing.
CTR. Click-through rate. Clicks divided by Impressions. The CTR is the percentage of times buyers saw your ad and clicked on it.
Sales conversion rate. Sold divided by Clicks. The sales conversion rate is the percentage of promoted listings that are purchased after the buyer has clicked on them.
Average sold ad rate. Ad fees divided by Sales. This number represents the average ad rate for items sold within 30 days of a click on your promoted listings.
Your Promoted Listings dashboard also provides detailed item level data for your daily sales tracking needs. Click on Sales Reports on the top right of your dashboard to see information such as:
Items sold. The number of items sold within 30 days of a click on your promoted listing.
Date sold. The date when the item was sold through Promoted Listings service.
Quantity sold. The number of items sold.
Sold amount. The sales amount from the items sold.
Ad fees. The fee based on the ad rate set for your items.
You also have the ability to download data onto a .csv file to further analyse your campaigns. Additional performance metrics that we provide include:
Click to sale rate. Quantity Sold divided by Clicks. This number represents the ratio of quantity sold to clicks. The CTS is the percentage of promoted listings that are purchased after the buyer has clicked on them.
Return on ad spend. Sales divided by Fees. This number represents the ratio of advertising revenue to costs. For every 1E spent on Promoted Listings fees, the ROAS represents the amount that you're getting back in sales via Promoted Listings.
For example, if your ROAS is 3.45, you're earning £3.45 per £1 spent.
Promoted Listings contribution. Promoted Listings Sold divided by Total Sold. The percentage of sales driven by Promoted Listings. Think of the percentage as the "share" of sales that Promoted Listings contribute.
Firstly we recommend following eBay’s listing best practices to help ensure your listings are high quality and attractive to buyers:
Categorise your listings properly.
Include relevant keywords in titles.
Price items competitively.
Use high quality photos with clear backgrounds.
Once you've followed eBay's listing best practices, to get the most out of your Promoted Listings campaign ensure that you:
Use the "Recommended items" option when selecting listings to promote when possible.
Promote best-selling items to further increase visibility in placements across eBay.
Consider bidding at or slightly above the suggested ad rate to stay competitive.
Utilise your Promoted Listings campaign reports to monitor and optimise performance.
Set up enticing offers such as Markdowns or Best Offer, and consider promoting them to help maximise visibility and sales.
Promote relevant listings during seasonal events.
Re-promote listings as you relist items on eBay.
Your listings will appear across a number of related search queries and there is varying competition for each query. This competition is continually changing and thus it may be difficult to pinpoint exactly where your Promoted listing is being shown in search.
Search is not the only place you'll get visibility, as your Promoted listing will also appear in sponsored modules on relevant view item pages, checkout pages and many other pages throughout the eBay shopping experience. The best way to determine the performance of your campaign is to check your Promoted Listings reporting and see whether you're generating impressions, clicks and sales.
No. The Promoted Listings ad fee is charged only when a buyer clicks on your promoted listing and purchases that same item within 30 days of that click.
They could. When sorting listings, our Best Match algorithm considers a variety of factors, including:
How closely the listing matches the buyer's search terms
How popular the item is
The price of the item
The quality of the listing – description, photos and so on
How complete the listing is
The listing terms of service, such as your return policy and dispatch time
Your track record as a seller
Many of the factors listed above are based on historical performance metrics, which can be impacted by your Promoted Listings campaign performance over time.
Both your ad fees and ad fee credits for unpaid items, returns or cancelled transactions appear in your Payments tab or on your eBay invoice.
Promoted Listings fees appear in the expenses section of your Payments tab in Seller Hub or in the Account Summary section of your invoice. The itemised details (such as item title, sold to, sale price, ad rate and ad fee) will appear in the expenses section of your Payments tab in Seller Hub or further below on your invoice.
Promoted Listings credits for returned items, unpaid items and cancelled transactions are reflected in the expenses section of your Payments tab in Seller Hub or on your invoice as well, along with the itemised details (such as date, title, itemID, fee type and amount).
When a buyer clicks on your promoted listing after you revise your ad rate and purchases the item, you'll be charged the ad rate after you revised it.
Note: Both examples assume the purchase occurred during the 30-day attribution window. The ad rate doesn't apply after expiration of that window.
The eBay Marketplace is a dynamic environment. A number of factors can cause a fluctuation in your Promoted Listings impressions, clicks or sales. They include:
The best way to understand your Promoted Listings performance is twofold. First, create benchmarks from current performance data to understand where you're starting from. Second, use your benchmarks to set goals for your Promoted Listings campaigns that make sense for you and your business.
Some of the metrics to keep an eye on are your click-through rate (CTR), sales conversion rate, and average sold ad rate. Those will give you insight into the overall health of your Promoted Listings campaigns – namely, they can tell you where you can work to improve your performance.
For example, if your CTR unexpectedly drops, it can be a signal that you're receiving the same volume of impressions, but something has stopped buyers from clicking through to your listing pages. That would indicate that key buyer signals like price, postage and seller rating may have recently changed and is having a negative impact on your CTR.
