eBay is everywhere and driving up costs!

How can they do this?

[Jmez]

It seems that eBay is bidding just about every word in the dictionary without rhyme or reason. They can't be looking to maximize their profits using this strategy as I'm sure that bidding on the actual word 'widgets' does not generate a lot of ROI.

What is their reasoning behind this strategy?

Do you think that eBay is getting large discounts from Google on their campaigns?

Also, they seem to be driving up the costs for everyone in just about every category they're in. How is everyone else handling this? Let them have the premium positions?

The way I see it, some people just aren't going to buy from eBay, regardless. They don't trust the whole transaction process and are suspect of dealing with mom and pops.

Opinions?

[Michael Weir]

I've noticed what you are talking about. Ironically, searching for 'widgets' actually results in an ebay ad. haha

Anyways, yes it's annoying and probably out of your control. Accept that ebay is the wal-mart of the internet.

Also, I've never had a trouble with ebay transactions.

[gopi]

>> They don't trust the whole transaction process and are suspect of dealing with mom and pops

This dont explain why ebay become the biggest ecom power in the world!...

[AdWordsAdvisor]

It seems that eBay is bidding just about every word in the dictionary without rhyme or reason. They can't be looking to maximize their profits using this strategy as I'm sure that bidding on the actual word 'widgets' does not generate a lot of ROI.

Jmez, just wanted to make sure that you were aware that many of the ads you're seeing are probably from affiliates of eBay, rather than eBay itself. If an advertiser is an affiliate of eBay, they must identify themselves as such with the word 'affiliate' in the ad - often abbreviated to 'affil' or 'aff'.

Since I don't know exactly what you've seen, I may be mistaken of course. But thought it worth posting about the distinction between eBay and eBay affiliates.

AWA

[lgn1]

I think ebay is doing it for branding. Pick any keyword and ebay will pop up. Search for gizmos 'yes literally' and you will get 'best value at ebay for gizmos' ad. Quite hilarious.

Try searching for idiots on google, 'ebay has loads to unload' :)

After a while, people will treat the ebay ads as spam.

[edit_g]

I don't think they drive up costs at all. If you've got a more relevant ad then you're bound to come up above the ebay/ebay affiliate ad after a short time.

[PeteM]

After a while, people will treat the ebay ads as spam.

Don't they already?

[shorebreak]

eBay has been doing paid search advertising since its inception and likely knows more about the space than almost everyone on this board. When I worked at RealNames back in '99 eBay was already the biggest ppc advertiser.

[gopi]

>> eBay has been doing paid search advertising since its inception

True , i remember the altavista days when ebay ad will appear in the bottom for any search term :)

[PPCBidder]

Another thing is the affiliate payout schedule has been much improved starting last November. EBay cracked down on spyware programs and other malicious earners in their program, which enables them to now give greater payouts to affs who play by the rules.

[1milehgh80210]

eBay (through their affiliates) has found a cheap way to get their name in front of peoples eyeballs. -think traditional advertising-
The fewer people that click, the cheaper it is.
Of course everybody has heard of ebay, but the same can be said of many other companies that advertise.)

[edit_g]

Well, eBay also have completely different success metrics than most other online businesses. They measure a campaigns success by new user sign ups and their subsequent activity (using, as far as I've heard, very sophisticated methods)- not on straight conversions.

[inasisi]

They measure a campaigns success by new user sign ups and their subsequent activity (using, as far as I've heard, very sophisticated methods)- not on straight conversions.

I would hardly call eBay as being very sophisticated in tracking conversions. They are one of the very few companies that cannot find which marketing channel got them the sign up at the time of sign up and in fact end up reversing more than half the registrations due to this issue. Check out the affiliate forum on the eBay site and this will be one recurring rant from their affiliates.

[beren]

I lost some respect for Google when I found out that many of those eBay ads aren't placed by eBay, but by "affiliates". I learned this from reading webmasterworld. That also explains why there are sometimes more than one eBay ad for a given search.

[ogletree]

They must have some special relationship with Google. If I were to make ads like that they would be put on hold minutes after I put them up. I am sick and tired of adwords. I have tried and tried to give them money but they refuse. Their system is completly flawed. They base everything on clicks and impressions but use data that is incorrect. Somebody type s in a kw and imediatly clicks on the first ad. The guy at the bottom gets an impression and non click counted toward them. The person never saw that ad. Google tells that guy that his ad sucks because it has been seen so many times and not clicked. The first ad on a page and the last ad on a page do not get the same ammount of impressions but Google seems to think they do. What they are trying to do is impossible. You can't make decision on such flawed data. There is no way to know what searchers are thinking. G's system says we know what the user wants and you don't.

[contentsiteguy]

Ogletree, sorry but that is NOT entirely how Adwords works. It is not all based on raw CTR. The position of the ad at time of click or nonclick is factored into the equation as well. Just clearing this up for the noobies who might be mislead.

[ogletree]

Where does it say this?