In a move that gives sellers more control over their ad campaigns, eBay has made the Promoted Stores Custom advertising feature available to all eligible sellers. This change gives sellers more of a say in where their buyers land, which items get highlighted, and which moments their campaigns are built around.

While this flexibility is great, sellers need to be aware of how the payment and budget system works for this feature, as it allows eBay to spend up to double your target daily budget in some cases.

eBay Makes Promoted Stores Custom Available to All Eligible Sellers

eBay recently shared that it’s bringing the Promoted Stores Custom advertising feature to all eligible sellers, after a period of it only being available to a limited group. This change gives sellers more control over their ad campaigns, rather than letting eBay automatically handle most of the targeting.

Sellers get more flexibility, more options, and have more of a say with this feature compared to the more rigid Promoted Stores feature. However, your existing Promoted Stores campaign options are still available, as Custom just gives you another way to fine-tune your campaigns as you see fit.

eBay sellers with an active eBay Store subscription, and who are in good standing with the platform, are eligible for Promoted Stores Custom. Sellers can get started by going to the Advertising tab in the Seller Hub, creating a Promoted Stores campaign, and then selecting Custom when setting it up.

The Benefits of a Custom Campaign

The advantages of Promoted Stores Custom generally come down to having more creative control over how your store and products are advertised to potential buyers. First, you can choose which of your products you want to highlight. The feature lets you select up to 1,000 listings for your campaign, and you can choose up to 10 featured listings to display.

Next, you can also choose where potential buyers land when they click on your ad. This may be your store, a sales event, eBay Live streams, or even a curated collection of your products. This lets you build entire campaigns around new product arrivals, your seasonal inventory, promotions you’re running, or items you’re prioritizing.

While an automated campaign may be easier and take less time, the trade-off is low precision and rigid buyer destinations. Promoted Stores Custom ads may be higher maintenance and take more effort to manage, but they put more control and power in a seller’s hands.

Our Take

Be Careful About Your Budget

This advertising feature seems like a major win for sellers who desire more granular control, but it comes with a caveat. Promoted Stores Custom uses eBay’s cost-per-click monthly budget pacing system. Because of this, the target daily budget you set isn’t a hard upper limit, and eBay can actually spend twice as much as your limit on an individual day.

The company regulates this by ensuring these high-spend days are balanced out by lower-spend days where you’re getting less traffic. This ensures the overall spend throughout a month remains balanced, and gives you a better chance to capitalize on days when you’re seeing heavy traffic.

While this may be okay for many sellers, others may not be comfortable with eBay spending beyond their set limits. Also, this type of system can leave sellers with surprise charges they weren’t expecting, or even use up a large portion of their total monthly ad allocation earlier than they feel comfortable with, which could technically lead to paused ads later in the month.