Advertising on eBay – tips and more directly from the Advertising team
In this podcast episode, everything revolves around advertising on eBay. Which marketing tools can I use to give my business more visibility? This time, we have a specialist and an expert from the eBay Advertising team in the studio. They explain what advertising options there are on eBay and what benefits they bring. On top of that, there are useful tips for getting started with effective advertising on eBay.
**Important links**
For questions about Standard & Advanced Ads: brand-partnerships@ebay.de
Isabell: Hello dear listeners and welcome to our new podcast episode for our sellers and of course for everyone who wants to become one. Today, David and I are your hosts, and this time we’ve invited two great guests for you again.
David: A hello from me too, David, to everyone. Today our podcast talk is all about advertising on Ebay. And for that, we warmly welcome Stephanie Tschirner and Matthias Neubauer from Ebay Ads here in the studio. Hi you two.
Stephanie: Moin!
Matthias: Hello!
David: Would you maybe like to tell us a little about yourselves to start with?
Stephanie: Of course, very gladly. I’ve been at Ebay for 14 years now and almost since the very beginning at Ebay Advertising, and apart from that I also love selling as a private seller on Ebay and of course I really enjoy buying on Ebay too.
Matthias: Yes, we have a lot in common there. I’m Matthias, also at Ebay for almost exactly 14 years, at eBay Ads, but I still remember when I applied here back then as an intern and stood in front of the great holy halls of Ebay Germany and thought, do you really want to drive out here to Dreilinden every day, where only fox and hare say good night to each other. And now I’ve been here for 14 years and I’m really glad I stuck with that decision.
David: Very nice. We’ve also brought a few questions about today’s topic, and I just want to get started. Simple question: what does the eBay Ads team actually do?
Stephanie: So the eBay Ads team at Ebay takes care of everything related to advertising. So if a seller or a brand wants to advertise their offers or products on our Ebay marketplace. That ranges from marketing options with ads to classic banner advertising and of course very large integrated campaigns. We help create more visibility or branding for your own brand or your own Ebay shop and ultimately to be successful on Ebay.
Matthias: Basically, we hang or help sellers hang the colorful balloons on their shops at eBay. So if I imagine a shopping mall, you also do advertising there and say hello, here I am and I want to sell more because I have great products, and somehow transfer that to the online business. That’s what we take care of.
Isabell: That’s a very nice metaphor. I think that makes what you do quite clear. But if I want to become more successful through you, where’s the best place to start? And maybe let’s spin a scenario: if I’m a new seller on Ebay and have already set up my Ebay shop and successfully listed my first items, which already meet certain market standards, so they have the basics. And now I want to become more successful, meaning sell more. I want to grow. What can I do then, and how does Ebay Advertising help me with that?
Matthias: I’d use one of our marketing formats or advertising formats. And in fact, right at the start I’d recommend our self-service marketing tool, Ads STANDARD, because it helps completely risk-free, which we’ll certainly talk about again in a moment, to give the listed item listings on Ebay more visibility across the entire Ebay network.
David: Are there certain requirements I have to meet in order to use that?
Matthias: There are a few requirements, but not really that many. Ads are available for Ebay customers with service status "Above Standard" or "Top Rated" and with sufficient account activity, and currently only fixed-price offers can be advertised through Ads. Otherwise, there are almost no categories where Ads aren’t available. In other words, you can advertise in almost any category.
Isabell: That definitely sounds pretty exciting. So how exactly do I get started? Where do I need to go to place an ad?
Stephanie: First, you should go to Seller Cockpit Pro, the one every seller already knows. There you’ll find a Marketing tab, and when you click that tab, you get to the Advertising Cockpit. There you can then select "Create new campaigns" and then choose between a STANDARD or Advanced campaign. You can do this individually for each item. But there’s also the option to upload it via a CSV file. And in the end you still need to give the campaign a name, set a start and end date, and then you can get going. During the campaign, changes can of course be made at any time. It can also be paused. It’s a good idea to keep checking impressions, clicks, sales, and fees from time to time.
Isabell: I’d briefly explain what impressions and clicks mean. So clicks are pretty self-explanatory, I think, when the listing is opened. An impression always means when the listing appears somewhere on the eBay site, whether in eBay search or, for example, in the banner strips, which, there I’ve thrown in another word, in the ads on the item page itself, right?
Matthias: Exactly. I also thought about it, we’re always moving around in our advertising universe and there’s a lot of Denglish in it. So an impression is a viewable display. That’s how I’d loosely translate it; that explains it quite well.
David: If I say okay, I want to use Ads, then as a seller I naturally immediately ask myself: what does it cost me and what do I get out of it? So what does it cost me to use Ads? And what do I actually get from it?
Matthias: Interesting that it’s always the question about costs, totally surprising, exactly, but of course a very legitimate question. From my point of view, Ads STANDARD first cost absolutely nothing, except perhaps a little investment of time the first time. Because with Ads STANDARD, there’s basically no risk, since it’s a so-called, another English term, attention, cost per sale model. So only when the advertised item is sold through an Ads STANDARD ad does the seller pay a previously defined percentage of the sale price. That’s the so-called ad fee. So the important thing is: fees for Ads STANDARD only apply if a buyer clicks the ad and then buys the advertised item within 30 days. Such an Ads STANDARD campaign is also very easy to set up and can actually be flexibly changed, optimized, paused, or stopped.
David: Now you, and Steffi already mentioned the topic of changing ads and optimizing ads. That makes me wonder, how often do I need to change an ad and what do I need to change, and how much extra work does that mean?
Stephanie: Basically, of course, you can decide for yourself how much work you want to invest. To begin with, it definitely makes sense to let the campaign run for one to two weeks so it can settle in and enough data can be collected to optimize and analyze it better later on. Once that initial period is over, you should regularly look at our reports on impressions, clicks, and sales, and of course also how many fees have been incurred in each case. And accordingly, you can then optimize. On the topic of optimization, there’s a lot of support in the Seller Portal and also on the eBay help pages, and we’d be happy to include the links in the show notes.
Matthias: What are show notes? I actually don’t know that term.
David: Show notes are just the additional information we provide alongside the publication so that when you view the podcast episode, you also have extra information.
Matthias: See, not only do we speak Denglish.
David: Yes, it’s just that we’re an international company too. That’s just how it is, it’s simply part of it.
Isabell: But back to the topic. We recently introduced a new campaign type, namely Ads Advanced. Would you like to say something about that, what exactly is it?
Stephanie: Yes, very gladly. Unlike Ads STANDARD, Ads Advanced offers the possibility to bid explicitly for position 1 in search results, thereby achieving even higher visibility than with Ads STANDARD. And what we or you as sellers naturally want to achieve is to increase sales speed. Matthias can probably tell us a few more details about that.
Matthias: So to make it clear once again, with Ads STANDARD it’s about an eBay listing getting more visibility, more reach. As a seller, you can’t determine where in the eBay network it’s displayed. It can be on the search results page. But it can also be a view page, an offer page. It can appear in "My eBay," the logged-in area, and of course important, an Ads STANDARD ad can also be displayed in m-web and our app. Where it actually gets displayed is decided by our smart algorithm. And in contrast, or perhaps better said as a complement, there are Ads Advanced. And there the focus is specifically on the possibility to bid for position one on our search results page. As an addition or as a difference to Ads STANDARD, there is also the possibility here to select keywords for your items, i.e. the so-called keyword targeting, using another English term. So for each keyboard, for each search term, as a seller I set a maximum CPC, cost per click. That means I set how much each click on my Ads Advanced will cost me. And to make it as easy as possible for you, for both the keywords and the CPC amount, we provide recommendations. Not us personally, but they’re provided in our tool. And perhaps as a tip, when setting up an Ads Advanced campaign for the first time, just orient yourself to these recommendations from our tool. So both in terms of CPC amount and the suggested search terms, keywords. But if you already have a bit of experience in the whole subject, you also have the option to add or remove keywords yourself and set the CPC amount too.
Isabell: I’d like to explain exactly how billing for Ads Advanced now works.
Matthias: Gladly. The difference from Ads STANDARD is actually that billing is per click here. That means as soon as an interested buyer clicks on an Ads Advanced ad, the previously set CPC price is charged at most. The good thing is that you can still keep full control over costs, because in our tool you can set a daily budget. That means if I say daily budget 100 euros or maybe only 10 euros, once that’s reached, the Ads Advanced campaign is automatically paused for that day and then goes live again the next day, so to speak. That means you can’t run into hidden costs or a cost trap. You know in advance exactly how much money you’re spending at most to gain more visibility. And of course you can also look at the whole thing in the various reports on a daily basis and optimize it.
David: And which items can I advertise with the new campaign types? Are there certain requirements there as well, or are they similar to Ads STANDARD?
Stephanie: Exactly, they’re very similar, or actually the same as with Ads STANDARD. So you can also place Ads Advanced if you have an account with service status "Above Standard" or "Top Rated" and you need a certain account activity, i.e. sufficient account activity. And at the moment, only fixed-price offers can be advertised with Ads. And of course, like Ads STANDARD, they’re available for almost every category. It’s perhaps also important to mention once again that Ads Advanced, just like Ads STANDARD, are accessed and set up via Seller Cockpit Pro and then again through the Marketing tab. And there you can then select or decide whether you want to create Ads STANDARD campaigns or Ads Advanced campaigns.
David: We also did a deep dive about this at eBay Open. Of course, you can also find that on our YouTube channel. We’ll link it in the show notes again as well.
Isabell: We’ve already talked about a few points that distinguish the two ad types. So with Ads Advanced I have the so-called keyword targeting and billing is also different from Ads STANDARD. Are there any other differences between the two campaign types?
Stephanie: Those are basically the most important differences already. So to summarize again: With Ads Advanced, you bid explicitly for position one in the search results. With Ads STANDARD, as Matthias already explained so nicely, it’s about the ad being displayed across the entire network. Exactly where can’t be determined, because that’s done by the eBay algorithm. And yes, the option to select keywords is of course a great thing with Ads Advanced. It allows sellers to narrow down their target audience. So if you want to sell a flowerpot, it certainly doesn’t make sense to reach someone searching for car parts.
Matthias: Flowerpot. Nice example.
Isabell: That’s definitely true. Running ads and advertising is of course always very individual for our sellers too. Everyone has their own preferences and has had different experiences. The question I’m asking myself right now is: can I combine both ad types, or should I use only one of the two? Do you have a recommendation?
Matthias: Personally, for me this isn’t an either-or decision, but I think it depends on the goal of the campaign. What do you want to achieve with it? Personally, I’d say Ads STANDARD are very well suited to getting a large, broad reach or placement across the entire eBay network. So not just on the search results page, but on all the other pages in m-web and so on that I mentioned earlier, kind of as a sort of always on, a kind of background buzz, meaning you might always have an Ads STANDARD campaign live with lots of products from your own assortment, and then supplement that selectively, maybe seasonally—don’t ask me why I’m bringing up Carnival now, I’m from Berlin and don’t really have anything to do with Carnival. I don’t even know when it starts and when it ends. But what I actually want to say is seasonal occasions, Carnival gear, costumes you sell, maybe highlight those products again shortly before the start of the Shrovetide or Carnival season with an Ads Advanced campaign. Featured in position one so that the revelers, so to speak, have the chance to buy right away in first place.
David: And do you also have a few tips so that I as a seller can make optimal use of the new offer? What should I pay attention to?
Stephanie: So it would definitely be important to follow our recommended keywords. In the tool, we provide keywords that can be used and that are suitable for the respective listing. And that simply increases the chance of actually reaching position one in the search results. And of course you can still add your own keywords. You should make sure they’re really relevant to the listing. And overall, at least 10 to 15 keywords per listing should be used. We also, as Matthias already mentioned earlier, provide bids as recommendations. It would also be good to follow those at first and see: does this fit my ad or not so much? Then of course you can increase them to stay competitive. And if the daily budget, which we also talked about earlier, is used up faster than you’d like, then it’s always advisable to adjust the daily budget and thus make full use of the potential of the Advanced ad campaign again.
Matthias: I might add one more thing. All of that is completely right and important. But it naturally works particularly well when the groundwork has been done. You, Isabell, I think said that at the beginning too. The quality of the listings on Ebay is important, using the right images, using the right item title. Being fast when it comes to shipping. In other words, everything you should already be doing anyway to be successful online. You absolutely have to do that, and on top of that, Ads STANDARD and/or Advanced will certainly help.
Isabell: That’s a good keyword, Matthias, maybe we can also mention the video we had on this at eBay Open. We also had a tip on optimization there. We can link that directly in the show notes too.
Matthias: I’ll take another look at it too.
Isabell: Very good. We’ve already talked a lot, shared many tips. Is there anything else I can do if I want even more? How can I get even more out of my ads?
Matthias: Well, there’s always room for more. And I’d say we’ve talked a lot about Ads STANDARD, or exclusively about Ads STANDARD and Ads Advanced. There’s another advertising solution called "Display Banner" or "Display Campaign." And unlike the Ads tool, this is classic banner advertising, which everyone is familiar with when browsing online, whether on news portals or e-commerce platforms, so classic banner campaigns. And here the focus is less on the individual listing, and more on promoting the overall product portfolio again. Doing a bit to build your own brand awareness. In other words, simply placing the information that you can’t place through a normal listing. And unlike the ad campaigns, which you as a seller can create and manage yourself, our display campaigns are a so-called managed service—I’m noticing again just how much English we speak. So this is not a self-service, but a managed service, meaning our eBay Advertising team, for example me in my role, develops a media plan for the campaign together with you, with a manufacturer or with another seller. And then you decide where and when these banners should appear on Ebay, and of course we have a huge number of targeting options we can use. To stay with the example of a phone, or a flowerpot—let’s stay with the phone example. We can target users who searched for a smartphone from any brand in the last 30 days but haven’t bought one yet, because then the assumption is that they’re still in search mode and naturally want to buy the product. In terms of budget, that’s a whole different ballgame. So with Ads STANDARD and Advanced, you can already experiment and learn with very small budgets. With a display campaign, we’re talking more about larger budgets that may even be spent over a year. But if there are any questions about that, I’d be happy to answer them.
Isabell: Where exactly are these banners displayed? Maybe you can give one or two examples.
Matthias: Very gladly, we discuss that in the media plan, which we agree on together with you. They can be on the eBay homepage, on our so-called homepage. A homepage takeover like that, everyone who visits the homepage that day sees it. But they can also appear at the very top of the search results page, above the first listing, above the first offer. They can appear in our app, they can appear in My eBay, so there are also lots and lots of formats and placements, and exactly how and how often and for which target audience, we can discuss and define that specifically with us.
David: A very exciting addition, something I hadn’t heard much about before either. But now we’re coming to the end, and so of course I’m interested, on behalf of our listeners, in the question: do you maybe have one last insider tip you can share?
Matthias: Just do it. So if I’m not an eBay seller, but if I’m thinking about opening a new shop in the shopping mall, or if I’ve been there for a long time: yes, then I naturally do everything to make sure customers come to me and not to my competition. For that reason, advertising never hurts. And I think with our two formats, especially Ads STANDARD and Ads Advanced, the risk is very manageable or can be planned in advance. And I can’t personally think of any reason not to just give it a try. As I said, even with small budgets, if you start with 10 euros a day.
David: Very nice. So now we’ve learned a whole lot about Ads STANDARD and Ads Advanced, what distinguishes the two models from each other. And if you then have a larger budget available and really want to achieve more, there’s also the managed service directly with Matthias, for example, there’s an option there. Or of course the colleagues from the eBay Ads team. But then you can do even bigger and somewhat more complex things. That was all very, very interesting. I’d like to thank you very much for giving us these insights and for taking the time. But at the end, as always, comes our question that we ask every guest here. And that is: what was the last thing you bought on Ebay? Steffi, maybe you can start.
Stephanie: Well, I mentioned at the beginning that I buy a lot on Ebay. My family is always amazed at how many packages arrive at our house every day. The last thing I bought was, quite classically, a phone for our eldest son.
Matthias: It’s the same for us—DHL, Hermes, UPS don’t just ring once, but several times a day, perhaps. Often for the neighbors. But often for us too. I’m just trying to think when this episode will air. I hope after Christmas, because otherwise I’d be spoiling or giving away my wife’s Christmas present. It’s a kitchen machine that I bought on Ebay during Cyber Week. And I’m wondering, it was incredibly heavy when it arrived at home and huge. I still wonder why something like that is so expensive. But well, if it makes you happy.
Isabell: I think we bought the same item during Cyber Week on Ebay. I think the same kitchen machine also moved in with us recently. But with that, we’d already like to say goodbye for this week. Dear listeners, we hope you were able to take away a lot for yourselves and are already looking forward to the next episode. It’ll be back in two weeks.
David: We’d also really appreciate your feedback on our podcast. Feel free to write to us in the community about your experiences, especially if you’ve already tested the ads, and leave your questions there too. I’ll pass them on to Matthias. And of course, we’d be very happy if you’d leave us a subscription or a like wherever you’re listening to us right now. finance.
Isabell: And with that, the two of us say goodbye,
David: Goodbye and thanks again to Steffi and Matthias.
Matthias: Thank you.
Isabell: Thank you!
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4 comments
claudi13-2008
·3 years agoHow much is my total revenue on eBay???
podcast@ebay
Hello @amcollectables and thanks for your feedback! Especially Standard Ads are also well suited for smaller sellers. We would like to offer you a phone call with someone from our growth consulting team so that we can support you more extensively in optimizing your eBay business.
If you would like to take advantage of an appointment, please let us know your preferred callback time.
Best regards,
the eBay Podcast Team
amcollectables
·4 years agoThey could have spared us this Ebay "advertising" podcast, which, in my opinion, only makes sense for corporations and big companies with large advertising budgets. As a small retailer, we simply don't have the option of factoring these costs into our sale price if you calculate properly from a business standpoint. You can see that from the many "private" registered accounts offering new goods and undercutting our sale prices considerably.
mssportsandtoys
·4 years agoWas really super good and easy to understand, keep it up.