Monetize Pros   Mar 14 2013   Flag

Loved this article.

"I couldn’t help but laugh when I read this, and I’m sure many of you did as well, because it’s pretty well-known within the search engine marketing community that eBay is the butt of many jokes when it comes to adopting advertising best practices.

eBay is probably the world’s biggest abuser of an ad writing tactic in AdWords known as Dynamic Keyword Insertion or DKI. As its name suggests, DKI dynamically inserts the user’s query into the headline of your ad, as follows:"

Indeed. We can all remember some random hilarious ad SERPs... I think I remember googling "how to cure my bum rash" and getting the ad "Buy how to cure my bum rash on ebay now!" ;-)

Dennis Goedegebuure   Mar 14 2013   Flag

I thought the article was really bad actually, as using screenshots from years ago do not reflect the current state of optimization. Also, the writer of the article might be a good PPC consultant on small, medium and sometimes large accounts, managing a portfolio like eBay is definitely different. And then the question is, are you really set up to succeed, or are there other powers which want you to fail? 

victorpan   Mar 14 2013   Flag

Hi Dennis, just read your in-depth post on the matter on your blog. Love your points and hope your friends survive the in-fighting. Here it is for everyone else: http://thenextcorner.net/ebay-ppc/

An interesting segment highlighted below, but read the whole post for context:

"It has happened that one group proofed with analytic proof, that the advertising on eBay was cannibalizing the  conversion rate of items on the site, and had an impact on site speed. 4 months later, the VP of the group moved to the business side, became responsible for the P&L, and with 3 weeks into the quarter and a $20 million hole in the budget, made the executive decision to move the ads back on the site. Just make a check on the eBay site, it's full with ads right now, even on the View Item page which had always been a sacred page for sellers!

This Paid Search campaign effectiveness study could very well be a power play from inside groups to take control of the advertising budgets. Objective: proofing incompetence to replace and take control"

Larry Kim   Mar 14 2013   Flag

Dennis -here's  a more recent crawl of ebay's "top ads" from mid february of this year -- looks like they're still hooked on DKI.

http://www.ispionage.com/research/default.aspx?q=ebay.com&lc=1&type=0#tab-1,kadtab-0