When Promoted Listings fees cost more than they earn
How eBay Promoted Listings charges you, the signs that an ad rate is too high, and a careful way to lower it without losing the sales that matter.
Updated · 6 min read
Promoted Listings can put a listing in front of buyers who would never have found it. It can also charge you for buyers who were coming anyway. The trick is telling the two apart.
How the two main campaign types charge
- Cost per sale (sometimes called general): you set an ad rate, a percentage. You pay it when a buyer clicks your ad and then buys that item within the attribution window, which eBay sets at 30 days at the time of writing. eBay’s minimum ad rate is 2%.
- Cost per click (sometimes called priority): you pay for each click, within a daily budget, whether or not the buyer goes on to buy.
The measures that matter
- ACOS, advertising cost of sale: ad fees divided by the sales they’re credited with. Lower is better.
- ROAS, return on ad spend: those sales divided by ad fees. Higher is better.
- Ad share of sales: across a listing, how many sales carried an ad fee at all.
ACOS on its own can look fine while you overpay. If an ad rate of 9% brings in sales at a 9% ACOS, that tells you nothing about whether those buyers needed the ad.
The signs a rate is too high
- Nearly every sale carries an ad fee. When most of a listing’s orders pay one, many of those buyers were likely searching for it already.
- Ad fees are a big share of sales, or the listing’s margin after fees is thin.
- The listing ranks well without help: a strong seller of a well-known product.
SellerDesk’s weekly profit plan flags a listing when at least 60% of its orders paid an ad fee and ad fees are a large share of its sales or its margin is thin.
Lowering a rate without losing the sales
- Change one listing at a time, so you can see what happened.
- Step down, don’t switch off. Halving the rate is a sensible first move. Never go below eBay’s minimum, and keep the rate well inside your margin.
- Give it a couple of weeks before judging: sales are lumpy.
- Watch sales, not just fees. If sales hold, keep the lower rate. If they fall, the ad was doing real work.
Use search terms when you can
For cost-per-click campaigns, eBay reports the search terms that triggered your ads. Terms that bring clicks but no sales are where budget leaks; terms that sell are worth putting in your title.
See how SellerDesk handles campaigns, search terms and bid suggestions, or how ad fees show up in your weekly profit plan.