eBayAdCommerce Blog

Great news!  Last year we started providing some advertisers with sales conversion metrics for AdCommerce, a great new feature that provides data on eBay bids and sales that occur as a result of ad clicks.  Based on encouraging early results, we’re happy to announce that on Monday, March 8, 2010, we will roll out Return on Investment (ROI) reporting to all AdCommerce advertisers.

Along with these new reports, we will be providing sellers with education webinars and user guides to help sellers make the best use of the new reports.  The initial webinar is scheduled for March 9, 2010 to help everyone fully understand the tool and learn how to become more efficient with their AdCommerce campaign.  

More data, more transparency

One of our biggest priorities is to provide sellers with the tools they need to be more successful, and the ROI tool does just that.  ROI reports allow users to see the amount of sales their ads are generating compared with the amount they are spending, providing clear insight into ad campaign performance.  This information is intended to help advertisers better optimize their AdCommerce campaign to generate even more sales with eBay!

Our beta testers are reporting excellent results.  Seeing their ROI data has allowed them to determine which campaigns are working best and invest further in more targeted and higher performing campaigns.

For example, Jonathan Ocasio, founder of CanCrafts has told us:  “Once we were able to see our Return on Investment, we were ecstatic!  We started in November 7^th and our sales [have] been increasing exponentially ever since!  Once I was able to see the positive impact AdCommerce did for my ROI, I increased our maximum daily budget from $5 to $200.  Now, I want to find ways to further optimize my campaign through AdCommerce so I can spend and make even more money.”

And from Jeff Chun of Personalization Mall: “We’ve started with AdCommerce at the end of September 2009 and our ROI has been close to 1000% – which is absolutely outstanding for us!” 

How It Works

We will host a webinar on March 9, 2010 to demo the ROI feature and answer any questions, along with a follow-up webinar shortly after to review how to optimize your campaign for greater ROI. 

In the meantime, here’s a quick snapshot of how this works:  When a buyer clicks an ad, AdCommerce tracks the buyer’s activities for 30 days.  If the user places a bid or buys an item after clicking on the AdCommerce ad placement, that bid or sale is displayed in your ROI metrics.  For the purpose of ROI calculations, user transactions are correlated to the last ad they clicked on before making the transaction.

What’s Next

Don’t forget to attend the webinar on March 9, 2010.  We’ll post more details on timing in the next few days.  This will give you all the basics you’ll need to know about ROI to start optimizing and selling more on eBay.    

You can also visit our enhanced Help content for more ROI best practices to learn more about this new tool.  And as always, please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.  

We’re very excited to be able to offer this feature and can’t wait to see the positive impact it has on your sales.  Happy Selling!

The AdCommerce Team

We would like to inform all AdCommerce advertisers that the invoices sent out on February 8, 2010 are incorrect.  The charges accrued for clicks in the month of January 2010 were not accounted for in your initial invoice.  We will be processing an adjusted invoice for all accounts in a few days.  Automatic payments that are typically withdrawn on the 18^th of the month will be delayed a few days this month to adjust for the invoicing error.  For all customers who have a payment method with AdCommerce, no further action is needed.  We will automatically withdraw the full amount owed for January 2010.  If you are making a one-time payment for the amount due, please reference the adjusted invoice.

We appreciate your business and apologize for any inconvenience this might have caused.

Warmest Regards,

eBay AdCommerce team

Listen to blogger and eBay Platinum PowerSeller John Lawson and eBay Director of Advertising Alexis Van De Wyer keeping it real in this revealing interview about AdCommerce, posted on the ColderICE  blog.  They talk about how the AdCommerce tool works, what’s working for sellers, and what we can look forward to in the future. You’ll hear about keyword selection, the performance-based model and how eBay is reaching out to help AdCommerce partners be more successful. You may be surprised to hear how easy it is to take control of your own advertising!

Join John and Alexis and find out how to use AdCommerce to sell more on eBay today.

Walk into any retail outlet and you cannot escape the pink and red reality: Valentine’s Day is just around the corner. We’d like to offer a few keyword tips to help AdCommerce partners get in on the fun and profits – but keep in mind that most of these apply year-round. 

When our sellers find the right keywords, their traffic skyrockets and they sell more products. But how do you pick the right words, especially for something temporary like a holiday? In the case of Valentine’s Day (or any holiday), try working holiday terms in with your product terms, i.e.: “Valentine’s Day Gift: iPod Nano.”  Then use your ads to let shoppers know about your great deals on excellent last-minute gifts.  Nearly any product makes a good gift for someone searching on eBay.

Otherwise – and this is true for any day, not just holidays – the AdCommerce wizard will provide keyword suggestions you might find helpful.

Here are a few other “words to live by” when selecting keywords, holiday or no:

1. Relevance. Select keywords related to your product or category. We’ve seen this in action: adding more relevant and targeted keywords helps sellers get better exposure.  Plus, sellers are more likely to stay on the site, buy, and come back again when they see results relevant to their searches.
2. Research. Check eBay Pulse for the most searched terms in your category. While these terms will be more competitive, you can combine a top term along with a term unique to your product.
3. Optimization. Once you choose your keywords, make sure you’ve optimized your listings or your store page(s) for those words.
4. Reporting. Use the reporting tools to check your results and to optimize your ads for the best return.

Here’s to finding the right words – on Valentine’s Day and all year long. Cheers!

The AdCommerce Team