If you want to read my useful, normal post about this, click here. But now, let’s have some fun.
Because I know you guys love this, here is the AdCommerce announcement helpfully translated from eBay to English.
First, in eBay:
AdCommerce Placements for On-eBay Promotion to be Discontinued
As you probably know, the AdCommerce pay-per-click ad program launched last year as a trial to test various ad placement opportunities on eBay.
During that time, we’ve determined that providing the best possible experience for eBay buyers and sellers means highlighting in Best Match search results the most relevant listings from sellers who offer the best prices and service.
In order to focus on the best selling and shopping experience, the specific AdCommerce program that allowed eBay sellers to purchase pay-per-click advertisements on search result pages linking to their eBay stores and listings will be retired for eBay.com and eBay.ca as of August 4, 2010. The service will continue for eBay sellers using AdCommerce in Europe and Australia.
We understand that you may be disappointed and that these AdCommerce ads may have provided an advantage to your business. However, we are confident that consistently displaying the most relevant items highest in the search results is in the best interest of buyers, sellers and the eBay marketplace overall. We appreciate you participating in the AdCommerce beta program to date and wish you continued success with your eBay businesses.
If you have recently purchased AdCommerce ads for your store or listings, you do not need to do anything at this time the AdCommerce placements you have already purchased to appear on these sites will automatically expire on August 4. Your final billing will be sent out in early September.
In the meantime, to continue to ensure maximum exposure for your listings in Best Match, the best thing to do is focus on sound business practices and on delivering great value and service to your buyers. Here are a few best practices:
* Provide great service to your buyers
* Retain or achieve eBay Top-rated seller status on eBay.com
* Offer good prices and reasonable shipping
* List in the right format and the right categories
* Write accurate and relevant titles
* Write clear item descriptions
* Include great photos
* State your terms clearlyThank you,
eBay AdCommerce team
Now, in English:
Guess what we just got rid of out of the blue?
Remember that on eBay ads PPC service we keep obsessively revamping and relaunching? Well we are going to call it a trial in this paragraph to make it sound like it was a real temporary thing instead of a thing we’ve had for years so its less random that we canceled it out of nowhere.
Well, you know that Best Match thing everyone hates? We are going to try to pump that up a little bit in this paragraph to make it sound like that useless search feature is better than targeted ads. Why would you want a specific ad directing buyers right to your content when you could have the random chance of Best Match either showing your item or totally burying it? Best Match is so cool. I want to lick it.
Seriously, though, the fact that we were in the PPC business at all was always kinda weird. I mean, it was like the house was on fire and we were outside selling lemonade, that’s what the program always felt like to us. So we thought, heck, maybe we should focus on selling and shopping and discontinue the program because it was distracting us from, like, our eBay mojo. Well, when I say discontinue I mean only for people not in Europe and Australia. Because all that stuff I said about it being a distraction and about sellers not needing it because of Best Match doesn’t apply to those areas where we are still going to run it. Besides, man, how else we will relaunch it for the billionth time if we don’t keep it going somewhere?
We understand that you may be disappointed and that these AdCommerce ads may have provided an advantage to your business. Sucks to be you, man! LOL But seriously, man, Best Offer is the wave of the future and “in the best interest of buyers, sellers and the eBay marketplace overall.” Because, seriously, if you could find items easily, where is the fun in that? The marketplace needs to understand that no matter what it thinks it wants we know what’s in its best interests. We don’t care what you search for, we are showing you items from diamond PowerSellers man, it’s what you’d want if you really thought about it. So we appreciate you participating in the AdCommerce beta program to date and wish you continued success with your eBay businesses, despite all the handicaps we are constantly giving you. We are also really hoping no one notices that this program has been around for many, many years under several different names and really shouldn’t be called beta by any stretch of the imagination. Seriously, don’t tell anyone about that. It’s easier for us to cancel this if it sounds all temporary.
If you have recently purchased AdCommerce ads for your store or listings, you do not need to do anything at this time– you’re boned either way!
In the meantime, if you could just suck a little less at listing, you wouldn’t need to use PPC ads at all. To continue to ensure maximum exposure for your listings in Best Match, the best thing to do is focus on sound business practices and on delivering great value and service to your buyers. Or maybe some healing crystals and a few prayers to the Flying Spaghetti Monster. No one really knows how Best Match works, it may help, who knows.
Anyway, here’s some stuff you could try:
- Provide great service to your buyers. I mean, it won’t do a damn bit of good, they’ll still leave you low stars but it sounds good on paper, doesn’t it?
- Retain or achieve eBay Top-rated seller status on eBay.com. Seriously, slacker, get on that.
- Offer good prices and reasonable shipping. Let me clarify this a bit. Good prices here is defined as a price in which you charge only what the customer expects to pay and make no profit for yourself. Also, reasonable shipping is defined as free.
- List in the right format and the right categories. You know, man, I have no idea what this even means. Like, if you meant to list it as an auction, don’t list it as fixed price? Or does it just mean, your Spongebob pillowcases will sell better if you don’t list them as sex toys? Who can really say, we just put this here to make the list longer.
- Write accurate and relevant titles. You know, because you were just putting an entire row of the letter K as your title before we advised this. A little effort, man.
- Write clear item descriptions. Seriously, man, I should be able to see through that shiz. Opque isn’t going to cut it anymore. This is the future!! Oh and you should probably, like, describe the item a little bit. Instead of now where all your descriptions are just a huge picture of your cat. But seriously, man, that cat is cute.
- Include great photos. Not clear photos. Not useful photos. Great! Like photos Tony the Tiger would take of his items while eating Frosted Flakes.
- State your terms clearly. Because, man, if you state your terms clearly, people will be able to find your items just as easily as if you used a PPC ad. It sounds crazy, man, but… well, yeah it is pretty crazy, I guess, when you look at it literally. I don’t know how doing any of this replaces a PPC ad, maybe I should just stop talking.
Thank you,
eBay AdCommerce team (aka, the people eBay just fired)
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LOL – here here. ebayers want the cheapest no matter what the quality. so if items are similar but not the same, ebay will put those cheap ass nasty items at the top while the quality more expensive stuff gets lost in the never ending pages. Time to invest in a website and google ads it i think.