eBay Promoted Listings
Promoted Listings is eBay's advertising tool. It puts your listings in sponsored spots in eBay search results and on listing pages. In crowded categories, where organic ranking alone won't get you seen, it's often the difference between selling and sitting.
📌 Key Point: Promoted Listings is managed entirely in eBay Seller Hub, not in PSS. The listings PSS creates are regular eBay listings, so you promote them like any other. This article explains how it works and how to set it up so it works well alongside PSS.
🎥 Insert video here: setting up a rule-based Promoted Listings campaign in Seller Hub.
What you'll learn
- The two campaign strategies and how each one charges you
- How to set up a campaign that keeps working as PSS adds listings
- How to pick an ad rate you can afford
- What to watch out for when PSS reposts listings
The two campaign strategies
|
|
General strategy | Priority strategy |
|---|---|---|
| How you pay | Per sale. You pay only when a buyer interacts with your ad and then buys the item within 30 days. | Per click. You pay for each click, whether or not the item sells. |
| What you set | An ad rate: a percentage of the total sale | A daily budget and a cost per click |
| Where ads show | Sponsored spots across search and listing pages | Includes the first ad slot in search results, which general campaigns can't get |
| Risk | Low. No sale, no fee. | Higher. Clicks cost money even when nothing sells. |
| Best for | Most dealers, and most of your catalog | Best-sellers and seasonal pushes, once you can measure conversion |
⚠️ Warning: The general-strategy ad fee is charged on the total sale amount, which includes shipping and sales tax, not just the item price. Factor that in when you set your ad rate.
Choose how listings get into a campaign
This choice matters more with PSS than anything else in this article.
| Method | How it works | With PSS |
|---|---|---|
| Rule-based (recommended) | You set rules, such as brand, category, price range and condition. eBay automatically adds current and future listings that match, and removes ones that stop matching. | New listings PSS creates are picked up automatically. So are reposted ones. |
| Manual | You hand-pick listings, enter item IDs or upload a CSV | New PSS listings aren't added until you add them yourself |
💡 Pro Tip: Use rule-based campaigns. Set up one campaign per brand or category group (for example, "Fly Racing apparel, $40–$300") so your whole catalog is covered and stays covered as you list more.
Set up a general campaign
- In eBay, open the Advertising dashboard in Seller Hub and click Create new campaign.
- Choose Promoted Listings, then the General campaign strategy.
- Under Add listings, choose Rule-based. Set your brand, category, price and condition rules.
- Choose your ad rate:
- Dynamic: eBay updates your rate daily to its suggested rate.
- Fixed: you set the rate and it stays put.
- Review and launch.
📷 Screenshot here: the rule-based listing selection screen in Seller Hub.
📌 Key Point: You can't edit a rule after the campaign launches. To change it, end the campaign and create a new one with the new rule.
Pick an ad rate you can afford
Your ad rate has to fit inside your margin after eBay's other fees. Work it out before you launch:
| Example | Amount |
|---|---|
| Total sale (item + shipping + tax) | $200.00 |
| Ad rate | 5% |
| Ad fee if it sells through the ad | $10.00 |
- Start modest on low-margin products, like hard parts. Go higher on high-margin ones, like apparel and accessories.
- Exclude listings that can't carry an ad fee. Rule-based campaigns let you exclude specific listings by item ID.
- If something still isn't selling, check the price before raising the ad rate. An overpriced listing won't convert no matter how often it's shown. See Pricing Rules.
How Promoted Listings works with PSS
Most PSS activity has no effect on your campaigns. When PSS revises a listing's price, quantity, title or description, it's still the same eBay listing, so it stays in its campaign. Keeping Out of Stock Control on means sold-out listings stay alive and keep their spot.
The exception is a repost or recreation, which ends the old listing and creates a new one with a new eBay Item ID.
⚠️ Warning: If you hand-pick listings for a campaign, any listing PSS reposts or recreates drops out of that campaign and stops being promoted. Rule-based campaigns add it back automatically. If you use manual campaigns, check them after reposting. [Confirm with a live test before publishing.]
📌 Key Point: The reverse applies to exclusions. If you've excluded a listing from a rule-based campaign by item ID and PSS recreates it, the new listing has a new ID and may start getting promoted again. Recheck your exclusions after large reposts. [Confirm with a live test before publishing.]
Keep an eye on results
- General campaigns: watch the ad fee as a percentage of sales, and make sure promoted sales are still profitable.
- Priority campaigns: watch cost per click, click-through rate and return on ad spend.
- Review campaigns monthly, and adjust before busy seasons.
Next step
Continue to Listing Statuses, Errors, and Fixes.