Professional sellers
Trade Me Sponsored Listings Overview - New Goods Feed (NGF)
Sponsored Listings is a cost-effective and flexible way to reach relevant buyers and promote your inventory on Trade Me.
19 July 2024
We are excited to share this product with you. Sponsored Listings is a cost-effective and flexible way to reach more relevant buyers and promote all of your inventory on Trade Me. In this guide we’ve outlined some more detail on how the product works. There is also an FAQ at the bottom. If you have any additional questions then please feel free to reach out through your normal support channel.
How it works
Please note that usage of this product will result in charges, which will be charged to your linked Trade Me account balance.
Sponsored Listings is easy to use, all you need to do is set a daily budget and an optional end date. If you don’t set an end date, your daily budget will be used until the end of the campaign or until you pause your campaign. Your daily budget is used to promote all of your inventory to relevant buyers in high visibility Trade Me keyword search positions – this will be the top of search on our web and app experience. You will be charged when buyers click on your sponsored listing. The price per click is determined through an auction process and will vary based on a range of factors including item price, seller & buyer demand.
How is my daily budget used?
Your daily budget is the maximum amount you will be charged for use of Sponsored Listings per day. However it is worth noting that any unused daily budget will carry over to the next day, for example: if you set a $100 daily budget for a campaign duration of 2 days but you only used $50 on day 1, the unused $50 would carry over to day 2 and you would spend no more than $150 on day 2. This means you would still be charged a maximum of $200 for those 2 days.
Step by step guide:
What are high-visibility search placements?
High-visibility search placements are search placements within Trade Me search that are seen by more buyers and have a higher likelihood of being clicked. This will be the first position of our keyword search, and prominent positions within category browse. This may change as we progress.
What do these Campaign insights mean?
Campaign insights help you understand the effectiveness of Sponsored Listings and how your budget is being used.
Breakdown of metrics
- Impressions: The number of times your products have been displayed in a Sponsored Listing placement in search.
- Clicks: The number of times your Sponsored Listings have been clicked.
- Purchases: The number of purchases that have been made from a click on your Sponsored Listing. Note: that at this stage this does not include purchases made using the cart.
- Total spent: The amount of money you have spent on Sponsored Listings. This price includes GST.
- Total Sales: The amount of sales revenue you have generated through your Sponsored Listings.
- ROAS: Your return on ad spend. This is calculated by dividing your total sales from your ad spend by your total ad spend. This is an indication of how efficient your Sponsored Listings spend is driving revenue. A higher ROAS indicates better performance, with each dollar spent on advertising resulting in a proportionally higher revenue return.
FAQ
Why is this invitation only?
We are testing and refining the product with a small number of sellers to make sure that we launch the best product possible in preparation for a potential full scale launch later on. We believe all sellers will benefit from the learnings from this initial stage.
How much will it cost?
This is a paid feature with Sellers being charged to use this product. Sellers are able to set a daily budget and will be charged when a buyer clicks on their sponsored listing. The cost per click will vary based on a range of factors including buyer demand and item price. We believe this will represent a fair value exchange.
The product costs as Sellers are being given access to premium search positions through the use of the product.
When will this be available to me?
As this product is invite only, we have no timeline on when this will be available to a wider seller group. However, if successful we will be sure to let you know
How does this differ to your existing promotional products?
Promoted listings offer a more flexible approach to promotion for our Professional Sellers. For example sellers will be able to:
- Set their own budget
- Reach relevant buyers in premium search positions
- Be provided with ad reporting (impressions, clicks, purchases)
- See transparent return on ad spend
Can I still buy your existing promotional products?
Yes, our full promotional product range is still available. We have no plans to change or remove these.
How will I be charged for using Sponsored Listings?
Sponsored Listings will be charged against your Trade Me account balance. To avoid having a negative Trade Me balance we recommend setting up Autobiller. For Sellers on invoicing, your spend will still be charged against your Trade Me account balance. Charges will be applied weekly.
What does ROAS mean?
ROAS means Return on Ad Spend and is the value of sales compared to the amount of money spent on advertising. An example is if you spend $10 of budget and receive $50 of sales, the ROAS is 5x or 500%.
What do you mean by detailing reporting?
Sponsored Listings will provide high level information including how many times your products were displayed (impressions), clicked and purchased. We may look at adding a deeper level of reporting, we will let Sellers know if this becomes available.
Why do you charge a cost per click?
A click to your listing in search represents a high potential buyer of your product. We feel that cost per click is a fair value exchange in return for promoting your listing in a high value, high traffic spot at the top of search.
How do you determine the cost per click?
There are a range of factors that determine the cost per click which includes (but isn’t limited to) the number of buyers searching as well as how many Sellers are promoting listings in a search.
How do you select the inventory to promote?
Sponsored Listings uses Trade Me’s relevancy coupled with a range of buyer & seller quality factors and other criteria to determine which listing to display. Sponsored Listings are selected through an auction process. The product’s goal is to display the most relevant listings in high visibility placements
Why do I have to promote everything, why can’t I select the listings I want to promote?
We have kept the development of this product as light as possible to get it off the ground for this first stage. Leveraging our machine learning to select relevant products allows us to test in market quickly and effectively. If this stage is successful, it’s possible that selection functionality will be available in upcoming product phases.
Is this the only way I can get my listings into the top of search?
Sponsored Listings will appear in multiple areas of Trade Me and are not restricted to just Trade Me Search. In relation to Trade Me search the answer is no, we will still have organic search results at the top of Trade Me search as not all searches will have Sponsored Listings.
Is this just another Trade Me fee?
Sponsored listings are optional, and you have complete control over your spend. Our transparent data allows you to see your ROI, so you can decide whether it’s right for your business.
This is a powerful marketing tool, designed to boost your sales and make you more money. It’s a product that sellers have been asking us for.
Search isn’t working for me and now I cant purchase this product, what are you going to do about this?
If you’re looking to improve your search presence, you can check out our guide to help you improve your position in search results.
We’re learning how this product can meet our sellers needs before we scale. We’ll let you know once it’s available.
What happens if there’s more than one Sponsored Listing where the products and the budget are the same?
There are a range of factors that determine what sponsored listings are displayed. The product runs an auction on each search and takes into account multiple factors including (but not limited to) how many times a particular product has been shown, and the relevance of that item to the buyer’s search criteria.
What’s the difference between this and category ownership?
Category ownership is an advertising product designed to help Sellers create better visibility of their overall proposition & branding whereas Sponsored Listings is designed to promote individual listings in relevant Trade Me keyword searches.