eBay terminate AdCommerce for eBay.com
eBay are shutting down AdCommerce in the US saying that sponsored ads from sellers simply aren’t working as well as highlighting in Best Match search results the most relevant listings from sellers who offer the best prices and service.
Adcommerce will cease to exist for eBay.com and eBay.ca as of the 4th August. For the moment it will continue to run in Europe and Australia although the program remains as a Beta in those countries.
eBay argue that they want to focus on the best selling and shopping experience and pay-per-click adverts just aren’t performing as well as Best Match. I on the other hand am wondering what the AdCommerce real estate on search results pages will be replaced with. It’s not like eBay to relinquish some additional advertising revenue so it wouldn’t surprise me to see these slots filled with adverts linking to off-eBay sites instead.
I’m also trying to figure out why the program is being terminated in the US, but continued in other territories. Perhaps it’s because eBay.com simply has so many more listings than say eBay UK, and so buying your way to the top with a Pay-Per-Click ad is a significantly higher benefit and thus more detrimental to the buying experience, especially for sellers who aren’t preforming well under Best Match.
Which ever way you cut it sellers in North America that were having success with AdCommerce are going to be pretty upset that the program is canceled, whilst those who either didn’t use it or had limited results will be pleased to see the end of buying your way to the top of search. Or at least they can breath a sigh of relief until they see what eBay replace AdCommerce’s spot in search results with.
Do you use AdCommerce and if so what is your recent experience? Which sites do you use them on and do you think loss of the pay-per-click adverts will affect your sales?
Gary says
1:20 pm on 02/07/2010
I tried it for 1 month and for me and the type of relatively niche colectables that I offer it made absolutely no difference to the store traffix or sales volumes.
My guess would be that it may make a difference for those selling mass market highly competive consumer products offered by the bucket load but I may be right or wrong.
Clearly US sellers did not take to AdCommerce. If they had and if it was generating reveunue for eBay then surely they would not cancel the programme. So the reasons offered by ebay for cancelation sound a bit like eBay spin!
Whirly says
1:34 pm on 02/07/2010
Our ROI for every £1 spent is currently £32.00, I’ll miss it if it goes in the UK.
Chris Dawson says
3:06 pm on July 2nd, 2010
That’s fantastic – I never managed to get enough clicks to get any ROI
In truth if you’re looking for my products you’d find them in search above AdCommerce and if you weren’t looking for them you wouldn’t want them anyway
Terralis says
1:34 pm on 02/07/2010
This is probably the main reason eBay are dumping AdCommerce for eBay sellers:
1) eBay launch AdCommerce, but with no way of seeing the Stats and Click-through rate and revenue per click.
2) eBay sellers jumped on AdCommerce.
3) eBay started giving sellers the data behind their AdCommerce campaings.
4) Sellers realise that they were paying a lot of money to eBay for very little extra exposure and even less sales.
5) Sellers left Adcommerce in droves,
6) eBay will now try and sucker off-site ecommerce companies to pay for AdCommerce.
7) In time these companies will also realise that they are throwing good money after bad and leave AdCommerce to the “diet pill” advertisers.
8) Adcommerce will then be terminated, but in the process eBay have made big profits and sellers have lost money.
Whirly says
3:17 pm on July 2nd, 2010
4) Sellers realise that they were paying a lot of money to eBay for very little extra exposure and even less sales.
Speak for yourself, don’t speak for me.
Chris Dawson says
10:54 pm on July 4th, 2010
I never got AdCommerce to generate clicks let alone sales so ROI was zilch (but so were costs). I know a few who it works really really well for though so it’s worth a try for those that haven’t
JD says
12:55 am on July 5th, 2010
My ROI just about washes its face.
But I have a very good percentage of repeat customers.
I think that a good number of points raised in Sue’s Adwords thread are likely to apply here.
eBay sellers really do need to look beyond ‘I have already paid for my listing’.
Jack says
2:13 pm on 02/07/2010
I think I probably agree with Terralis.
I say I think, because I simply do not know if it has had any affect on my sales. I have kept the same keyword searches and same cost per click since its inception. Over this time I am getting less clicks presumably because others have upped their rates, therefore at around £10 to £15 I am now paying only a quarter of my original fees. My suspicion is that this amount is like a little tax I have allowed my self to be suckered into and I am not getting any extra sales for it.
Terry says
10:10 pm on 02/07/2010
Ebay rang us up and gave us £10 free credit – We let it run for a few months and we didnt even use £1 of the £10 they gave us.
Needless to say I just terminated the agreement
Didnt work in the office supplies and stationery industry
Emily says
10:46 pm on 02/07/2010
I have been using it for about 3 months now – I get charged about £6 a month – but as far as I can tell it is not working as I have not sold a single item advertised in 2 months!!
Keep meaning to cancel it – but then worry that I might be stabbing myself in the foot as I now have a load of new competitors in the market
Sue Bailey says
1:48 pm on 03/07/2010
Really unsurprised by this. The way AdCommerce was launched was idiotic: months and months of pushing it with free ads, but absolutely no analytics whatsoever. By the time they’d introduced tracking to see what sales AC had driven, anyone who might have been interested had pretty much given up on it.
David Brackin says
12:01 am on 05/07/2010
I wonder if it decreased buying activity — if so that would explain its prompt demise and removal: if it had a negative effect on commission (because buyers clicked links instead of purchasing) then that would swamp the advertising revenues.
JD says
12:45 am on 05/07/2010
I cannot report ROI up to the Whirly standard (fantastique), or others that will have equalled or even bettered that, but I am happy to continue with my modest contribution to the eBay pot.
Readers would do well to look closely at the offer, and also to consider the parallel argument put forward by Sue on the more recent Adwords thread.
Whirly says
8:38 am on July 5th, 2010
I will continue to as well, the costs are small and the results are good
http://twitpic.com/22m0md
I could burn my entire monthly eBay budget in 24 hours using google adwords.
Steve says
5:55 am on 05/07/2010
Great, now lets get rid of this ‘best match’ nonsense, bring back SIF and cross promotion boxes and get back to what was a perfectly workable and successful format.
Toby says
5:36 pm on 05/07/2010
I see dumping this and featured first as a very good thing for sellers. The last thing that would be good for sellers is ebay going towards the more you pay the more exposure you get. Even if adcommerce was working for you, that would only last until someone else was willing to pay more for those ads.
Ebay sure seems to jump often after Wingo speaks, wasn’t long ago he had a scathing piece on “put a bullet in adcommerce”
SinBad says
4:02 pm on 06/07/2010
I don’t even know whether it worked or not. It certainly doesn’t double your sales thats for sure lol
I feel a lot more relaxed now I don’t rely on eBay much anymore. They can do what they want, and so can I