what is the Deal with Ebay

They bumped me down

[ogletree]

I just noticed that Ebay is now number one for a term that I have ad words set up to be number 1. I have been number 1 for that term since I started. Could it be a premium ad. I thought if there was not one already you would never see a new one since they don't sell them any more. Also the Ebay listing has nothing to do with the term.

[jkwilson78]

Is it possible they simply out bid you for the search terms in question?

[ukgimp]

Is it ebay.com or the individual page selling something. It could be that the owner of the object for sale has out bid you.

[DaveN]

ebay signed a massive contract in the early days

DaveN

[ogletree]

I don't know what is going on. Last night my PPC guy added some new words and he added words that were already in adwords. Now I have some words in there twice. They are both set at $50. The new one does not have any stats since it was added last night. The old one says that my Avg Pos is 1.0. Ebay is winning because they are selling a one word product that happens to be the second word of my phrase.

When you click on it you get an Ebay page with search results for that product.

[Shak]

as for your question Ogletree,probably premium listings some where along the line, due to expire 31st Dec 2003.

Shak

[edited by: Shak at 6:53 am (utc) on Oct. 15, 2003]

[ogletree]

If it is premium I wonder why it just now showed up. I thought that premium listings were set a while back and there would be no new ones.

[AdWordsAdvisor]

Although I am not a part of the Premium program, I think that Premium Sponsorship advertisers still under contract may add keywords while that contract remains active.

I suspect that this is the case here.

[ogletree]

Actualy it cleared up. It was weird. Normaly there are 2 ads on top. For a while today there was only 1 ad on top. There werer some changes made yesterday so I fell off of AOL. I just don't understand why Ebay whould show up by itself when normaly there are 2 ads on top. Now the changes I made have been aproved and I have moved from #2 to #1 there are 2 ads on top and Ebay is gone. What a weird day.

[colinirwin]

Ogletree, it could have been expanded broad match at work.

If eBay were bidding on a related term using broad match then it would start to appear on related keywords, such as yours. Then, if the CTR wasn't high enough the ad would disappear.

Col

[shorebreak]

Ebay is a very smart bidder; don't underestimate their ability to know ROI at the deepest level and act on that data while the rest of us are out there trying to trade keyword portfolios using Stone Age tools, systems and knowledge.

[martinibuster]

don't underestimate their ability to know ROI at the deepest level...

I heard the guy in charge of their PPC at Ad:Tech San Francisco this year, and from what I recall, he said that they worked with so many words that they have deal with them in large groups (buckets). So they take a bucket of words and see how it sticks. The impression I got was that the depth of detail was closer to a macro than micro focus.

[webdiversity]

don't underestimate their ability to know ROI at the deepest level and act on that data

It's probably more a deep set of pockets.

[shorebreak]

If I recall correctly, there was a Business Week article talking about how they know not only what the initial value of a new buyer or seller, but also the long-term value of each type of customer that comes in. That's being a step ahead of the game, and what we all need to try and do.

[eWhisper]

they know not only what the initial value of a new buyer or seller, but also the long-term value of each type of customer that comes in.

PPC people often focus too much on each sale, and not the value of a lifetime customer. Sometimes I get asked by competition how I can afford some of my bids - and the answer lies quite easily in front of them.

[ninhld]

I'm here in France, and I see a french guy buying a lot of keywords promoting ebay.fr

I dont think he's someone from ebay, I think he's just an affiliate like us.

[AdWordsAdvisor]

IMO shorebreakand and eWhisper make a really important point a few posts above.

I am thinking of a friend who went to the site of a 'famous outdoor supplies store', found a huge sale going on, and happily bought a bunch of stuff. Most likely she was being tracked, and the site probably recorded one conversion.

What did my friend do next? Well, she emailed about 100 friends and sent them the link to the sale. A lot of the friends also went online and bought clothes, shoes, tents, and all sorts of other stuff.

Almost certainly, a few of those hundred friends emailed the link to other friends, although I can't vouch for this.

Bottom line: hundreds if not thousands of dollars of business, but only one conversion recorded for the person who started it all.