eBay revealed on Monday it will continue testing Yahoo Sponsored Links on the bottom of eBay search results. A post on the eBay Announcement Board stated it would update users on eBay's progress and future plans, but the post was short on details and long on reassurances.

The announcement stated in part, "Make no mistake - above everything else, we want buyers to transact on eBay. But we also want to offer alternatives when we believe it will improve the buying experience. Our advertising efforts have shown no significant impact to our core transaction business, and subsequently to our sellers' revenue, which further convinces us that we are on the right path."

In a phone call on Monday afternoon, Steve Hartman, Director of On-Site Advertising for eBay, said aggregate results of A/B testing has shown serving Yahoo Sponsored Links ads does not affect how people buy on eBay. eBay spokesperson Catherine England said that as a whole, the ads have had no significant impact on buyer behavior, though "it's not that it has never happened."

Hartman confirmed eBay serves up ads differently depending on a visitor's past buying behavior. eBay is not showing the ads to frequent buyers, Hartman said. Visitors who come to the site but don't transact, who don't find what they are looking for, are more likely to see the Yahoo Sponsored Links ads than those users who have purchased items on eBay. Users who sign in under their selling IDs are also more likely to see the ads than if they sign in with their buying IDs. Clearing cookies also has an effect on the display of the ads.

In response to a question about whether eBay tweaks the broadness of search results depending on the Yahoo Ad keywords (broadmatching), Hartman said the ad testing does not have an affect on search results - "There's no changes to the results on eBay, we'll show all available results."

Todd Lutwak of eBay Seller Development said the seller team is working very closely with the advertising team on the testing. Lutwak said just as it's better for buyers to have three people selling an item on eBay versus just one seller, the Yahoo advertising provides more choices to buyers.

England said eBay wants to convert visitors to buyers, but they also want visitors to consider eBay "the first place to start their shopping experience."

England would not disclose how much money eBay was generating by displaying the advertising links, which in some cases directly compete with eBay's own listings on search results pages (http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y07/m09/i05/s01).

Asked whether eBay might make a choice between Yahoo, which is the exclusive ad partner on the US site, and Google, which is its partner on international sites, England said the company will continue to take a unique approach to each market. "If you see something on the US site, it's not necessarily indicative of what you'll see on other markets. It's not a one-size fits all approach," she said.

eBay's posting can be read on the Announcement Board.

http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200709241100512.html

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