007 – The Propensities of a Typical EBay’er

I won my first eBay auction back in September 1999. I’ve been an active eBay buyer ever since that time. I love eBay! It’s the place I go for the usual and the unusual! I believe my shopping patterns aren’t too different than any other eBay user, and this behavior is probably not favorable to classified advertisers.

Anyone experienced in affiliate marketing would probably agree that a 1% conversion rate is not unusual, and it could be half that. Therefore, you might expect one sale for every 100 to 200 visitors who click-through to the merchant web site from your classified ad. Classified ads generally run for 30 days with an option to auto-renew.

I browsed several classified ads, in multiple categories. I paid special attention to those ads that were due to expire within 24 hours. Many included page counters at the bottom of the ad, and a good number of these page counters displayed 50 to less than 100 views. It seems reasonable to assume that these page views occurred over a period of 30 days. A few of the classified ads had been viewed more than 200 times, but that was much less common. A few classified ads had page views of 800, 2000 and even 4000. With further inspection, however, it appeared that these ads had been auto-renewing for quite some time! If you look just under the page DESCRIPTION tab, you’ll see dates for ad revisions. Some of these ads had revisions that dated back to December 2009. Classified ads having 4000+ pages views are often included in the marketing hype. I personally don’t believe any of these ads received anywhere near that number of page views in only 30 days! I invite you to investigate this yourself.

I am not surprised that page views are typically under 100 for a 30 day period given the placement of classified ads in eBay’s “best match” sorting. With these numbers, you would probably have to place your ad for a 2 – 4 month period before you see a single sale. Minimally, a classified ad will cost you $10 USD per month, so the advertising cost could be anywhere from $20 USD to $40 USD for each sale. Now, ask yourself – what is my affiliate commission for that product? Will one sale cover the cost of advertising? Can I make a profit? If you’re getting better conversions than this, I would love to hear from you! I believe you can improve your ad visibility, and therefore the number of page views, by carefully selecting affiliate products and then placing the ad intelligently into the optimal category. I’ll cover this process in more detail in the next post.

If you’re an active eBay buyer, I'll also ask you this question... When you perform a search that returns several hundred results; how many pages of listings do you browse through, typically? Usually, I don't browse past the 2nd page of listings, but occasionally I'll venture into the 3rd page. If I’m bored and just browsing a category of interest, I might browse through 6 or 8 pages of listings. Generally though, I’m looking for something very specific and perform a keyword search for the item. I locate a few listings that meet my criteria and they're almost always found within the first two or three pages. I then add those items to my watch list and then eventually make a final decision. Often, classified ads won’t even make it into the first few pages of the search results and, therefore, are overlooked.

It is true that eBay’ers have the propensity to buying. In fact, they want to do it quickly, with as few clicks as possible and often with the convenience of instant pay with PayPAL. When someone encounters your classified ad, they would need to leave the eBay web site and then make a purchase directly from the merchant (with your affiliate code, of course). Here’s another questions for you... Why would an eBay user do that? Why would they ignore similar (or even identical) items listed in standard auction and “buy-now” formats? Your ad will have to answer that question for the buyer. If you don’t offer a compelling reason; he or she will likely browse right past your listing! This was probably my biggest mistake!

I realize that I’m painting a fairly dismal picture of eBay classified ads; but I want you to be in the right frame of mind and understand the elements that determine your success. I also don’t want you to go into any type of affiliate marketing campaign with unrealistic expectations. With all the marketing hype out there; it’s easy to have unrealistic expectations – believe me! :) Keep in mind that this is all my opinion. Your mileage may vary!

I’ll try to summarize all this information in the next post, and then wrap up the topic with my comments on eBay’s rules in a final post. I would love to get your feedback!

Until then...