BREAK-EVEN PROMOTED LISTINGS RATE CALCULATOR
BREAK-EVEN PROMOTED LISTINGS RATE Calculator
Promoted Listings charges nothing per click, which makes it look risk free. Since the attribution change it also charges for sales you were getting anyway. This works out what that costs.
Break-Even Promoted Listings Rate
Promoted Listings Standard costs nothing per click and charges your ad rate on the whole sale when a promoted item sells. That makes it look risk free. It is not, because eBay charges you for sales you were going to make anyway, so the real question is how many extra ones the promotion has to bring in.
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Fill in an item price to see the answer.
The buyer pays –
Contribution before advertising –
Ad fee at your rate, as invoiced –
After reclaiming the VAT on it –
What a promoted sale leaves –
Headroom to the ceiling –
Advertising takes this much of your contribution –
Extra sales needed to stand still –
If every sale were attributed –
The ceiling is the rate above which a promoted sale loses money. It is not a target, because it assumes every sale you pay for is one you would not otherwise have made.
Why a small ad rate is not a small cost
Promoted Listings Standard charges nothing for impressions or clicks. The fee lands when a promoted item sells within 30 days of a click, and it is a percentage of the whole sale, postage and VAT included.
Since the attribution model changed, any click on any of your promoted listings makes any purchase from you in the next 30 days an attributed sale. UK sellers reported the attributed share going from roughly 30 to 40 per cent to 80 to 90 per cent, with no matching rise in sales.
Multi-quantity listings take it worst. One click on the ad can attach the fee to every unit of that item you sell for the following month.
So the extra sales figure above is the one to read. It is the ad bill as a share of what is left after it: a quarter of your contribution needs 33 per cent more sales, a third needs 50 per cent more, half means selling twice as many.
Every ad rate, in Excel
The workbook runs your listing against twelve ad rates at once and adds a grid of ad rate against attribution share, so you can see what the attribution change did to the numbers rather than take anyone's word for it.
Download the workbook Working out the rest of what eBay takes? Try the eBay Fee Calculator.FAQs
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