eBay Promoted Listings: Your Holiday Superpower!

by Kathy Terrill | Nov 13, 2020 | eCommerce Tips, Selling on eBay

eBay Promoted Listings are your Holiday superpower.

eBay Promoted Listings are a sales superpower

We’re already 1/3 of the way into Q4, and time is ticking away on the year’s biggest retail moment: Holiday. ‘Tis the season to sell, sell, sell — so let’s get your eBay items SOLD! What can you do to garner more sales? Three words: eBay Promoted Listings. 

Promoting your listings will boost their visibility in search results by as much as 36%.

You don’t need a store to use eBay’s pay-per-purchase advertising tool, either.

In fact, now it’s even available to sellers using eBay’s quick listing tool. The only listings that aren’t eligible for promotion are those that use the auction format.

I’m going to share with you my top three tips for getting the best possible results from eBay Promoted Listings.

But first, a quick refresher course on how Promoted Listings (aka PL) works:

You specify an ad rate somewhere between 1%-20% for each promoted listing. That’s the percentage of the final sale price you’re willing to pay to eBay (in addition to the regular final value fee) if your item sells via Promoted Listings. You’re only charged that rate when a buyer clicks on your promoted listing, then goes on to purchase the item within 30 days.

Promoted listings appear in search results under the word Sponsored, so you can tell them apart from non-promoted listings. Your promoted listing(s) may appear in premium placements within search results on both desktop and mobile devices or in the Related Items module at the bottom of every search results page.

1- For Optimal Results, Optimize your eBay Listings.

Promoting your listing pretty much guarantees you more eyeballs will see it. But — and this is my first tip — you’ve still got to make sure that you optimize your listing for conversion. That means:

a -Making sure you’re following eBay best practices in your title, photos, item specifics, and description.

b- Having customer-friendly terms of sale.

eBay’s Promoted Listings team says that it also pays to double-check that you’ve listed your item in the right category. One quick way to research that is to use eBay’s Advanced Search function to check Sold items.

2 – Advice from eBay UpFront

At several eBay UpFront events, PL team members have suggested increasing your PL rate during the holidays. Remember, right now there are more sellers and more listings than usual vying for buyers’ attention! Raise your rate to give yourself a leg up on your competitors.

To help you strike the best possible balance between cost and performance, eBay provides guidance by displaying suggested rates for each item you set out to promote. The suggested rate is  calculated based on a number of factors, including item attributes, seasonality, past performance, and current competition.

Suggested rates typically run between 5%-10% for most categories, but they may be as low as 2% or as high as 18%. To find the sweet spot for your own listings, start low, then increase your rate by 1% at a time until you start to see a difference in sales.

Conversely, if your item is selling very well, you may be able to drop your rate by 1% or more and still keep sales strong. Test, and carefully monitor your PL dashboard to measure the results of your experimentation.

3- Know Your Numbers

That brings us to my third top tip for making the most of PL: Check your Promoted Listings Dashboard (located in Seller Hub) at least once a week. Look at your impressions, clicks, and sales. Are you getting a lot of impressions, but few clicks? Then review that listing:

Is your price competitive?

Is your listing optimized for conversion?

Is it keyword rich?

Have you filled out all the relevant item specifics?

Are your pictures click worthy and enticing?

Have you listed this item in the best category?

Just a few minor tweaks can transform a listing from blah to WOW — and get your item sold!

For more terrific tips on skyrocketing your sales with Promoted Listings, claim your complimentary copy of my free guide Winning with eBay Promoted Listings! You can find it at my website, iLoveToBeSelling.com. This downloadable guide features proven, actionable strategies for making PL work its very best for your business on eBay. It’s 15 full pages of PL sales power tips!

Win big sales with eBay’s Promoted Listings!

Find out how to pay less in fees while making more sales, discover ways to harness Promoted Listings data for higher profits, and much more. I’ve even added some special bonus content: Fast Fix for Stale Campaigns.

The Bottom Line for eBay Holiday Sales

During the holidays, more shoppers than usual are flocking to eBay. However, at this time of year, there is also more competition for buyers (and their dollars). Use Promoted Listings wisely and well to give yourself a competitive edge — and get more sales!

You have an eBay Superpower – it’s Promoted Listings!