seller
- What changed
- Promoted Offsite adds automatic or manual optimization, one campaign goal and prioritized or deprioritized listing groups
- When
- Announced on the eBay Community; reported November 2, 2026
- Who it affects
- eBay sellers running Promoted Offsite campaigns
- What to do
- Pick the method and goal carefully at launch, set a daily budget you can afford at twice the amount, and track sales per click
Key takeaways
- Promoted Offsite now offers automatic or manual optimization, one goal, and prioritized or deprioritized listing groups.
- You still cannot exclude listings, set bids or split budget, and method and goal are locked after launch.
- eBay can spend up to twice your daily budget in a day, so size the budget to that ceiling.
| Now possible | Still missing | |
|---|---|---|
| Pick automatic or manual | ||
| Choose one campaign goal | ||
| Prioritize or deprioritize listings | ||
| Exclude listings | ||
| Set max cost per click | ||
| Split budget by group | ||
| Change goal after launch |
Per eBay's announcement and Value Added Resource, November 2026
What eBay changed
When you create a new Promoted Offsite campaign, eBay now asks how it should optimize. Automatic optimization lets eBay run the campaign with return on ad spend as the lead metric. Manual optimization asks you to pick one goal: reach more buyers, drive more traffic, or increase sales. eBay's FAQ says you can only select one.
Manual campaigns also get optional listing priorities. You can build a prioritized group and a deprioritized group using category, price range, days on site, quantity or item condition. eBay says priority changes apply to future optimization cycles within 24 hours. Setup also shows a preview of how ads may look on channels such as Google Shopping and Bing.
What sellers still cannot do
eBay's FAQ is clear that Promoted Offsite remains an all-inventory campaign. Deprioritized listings get less emphasis but keep being promoted, and a listing that sits in both groups stays prioritized. Value Added Resource notes the setup screen appears to allow only one rule per group.
The optimization method and the goal cannot be changed after launch, so a wrong choice means building a new campaign. Value Added Resource also reports that sellers still cannot exclude listings, set maximum cost per click bids, or decide how much budget goes to each group, and that the interface shows no option to switch off or review AI-rewritten titles used in external ads. It is not clear yet whether reports will split spend by group.
How Promoted Offsite is billed
Promoted Offsite charges per click, whether or not the shopper buys. Value Added Resource reports that the click price reflects external partner charges, historical click prices for similar listings and a service fee, that eBay can spend up to twice your target daily budget on a given day, and that the monthly limit is 30.4 times the daily budget. eBay has not published a fixed cost per click, so the only lever you fully control is the budget.
Why eBay is pushing ads harder
eBay's Q3 2026 earnings release, dated October 28, says its advertising products earned $607 million in the quarter, with first-party ads on eBay at $575 million, up 16%. Gross merchandise volume rose 15% to $23.2 billion. Ads are growing faster than the marketplace, which is a useful reminder that each new control also helps eBay sell more clicks. Treat the new settings as tools for your margin, not as a reason to raise budget.
So what: the money and risk math
Because you pay per click, your break-even is simple: average order profit before ads, multiplied by the share of clicks that buy, must be higher than the cost per click. With no exclusions, low-margin or slow items still draw clicks. The deprioritized group reduces that waste but does not remove it, so the budget cap is your real safety net. Plan for a day at twice your daily budget and a month at 30.4 times it.
Promoted Offsite setup check
- Choose method and goal before launch
- Prioritize high-margin, in-stock items
- Deprioritize old, low-margin items
- Budget for 2x daily, 30.4x monthly
- Track sales per click weekly
- Spot check rewritten titles
Worked example with illustrative numbers
These numbers are invented to show the arithmetic. A seller sets a $20 daily budget, so a single day can reach $40 and the month can reach $608 (30.4 times $20). Suppose clicks average $0.40, so $608 buys 1,520 clicks. If 2% of clicks buy, that is about 30 orders. With $18 profit per order before ads, profit is $540, which is $68 less than the $608 spent. Moving 300 clicks away from a low-margin item group, and lifting the click-to-sale rate to 2.5%, would give 38 orders and $684 profit, about $76 ahead. The prioritized and deprioritized groups are the tool for that shift.
What sellers should do this week
- Owner: decide before launch whether you want eBay's automatic return on ad spend or one manual goal, because you cannot switch later. Metric: one written goal per campaign.
- Ads manager: if you choose manual, put high-margin, in-stock, fresh listings in the prioritized group and old, low-margin or single-quantity items in the deprioritized group. Metric: share of offsite clicks on prioritized items.
- Finance: set the daily budget so that twice the amount in a day and 30.4 times it in a month fit your cash plan. Metric: offsite spend never above the planned monthly cap.
- Ads manager: in Seller Hub advertising reports, track offsite sales divided by clicks every week. Metric: profit per click above your average click cost.
- Lister: check a sample of your items on Google Shopping for rewritten titles that misdescribe the product. Metric: zero misleading titles found; screenshot and report any you see.
- Owner: if offsite clicks lose money for four weeks, end the campaign and keep budget in on-site Promoted Listings. Metric: total ad cost as a share of eBay sales falls.
When this does not apply
If you do not run Promoted Offsite, nothing changes for you. Sellers with a small, uniform catalog gain little from priority groups, because there is little to sort. Very high margin items can carry wasted clicks, so the budget check matters less than for low-margin goods. Sellers who need hard exclusions, such as items with limited stock or restricted claims, should keep using on-site Promoted Listings, where they choose which listings to promote.
Where PPC Spider helps
We manage ads across marketplaces and Google, and the cost per click logic here matches what our Google Shopping ads agency team uses. See all our ecommerce services, read our eBay shipping limit update, and follow the ecommerce marketplace news channel for eBay changes. If Amazon is your main channel, book a free Amazon audit.
Sources
- eBay Community: More ways to guide your Promoted Offsite campaigns (https://community.ebay.com/forum/announcements-57928/topic/more-ways-to-guide-your-promoted-offsite-campaigns-486608/)
- Value Added Resource: eBay Adds Promoted Offsite Ad Controls, But Sellers Still Can't Exclude Listings (https://www.valueaddedresource.net/ebay-promoted-offsite-ad-controls/)
- eBay Inc. via SEC: eBay Inc. Reports Third Quarter 2026 Results (https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001065088/000106508826000209/exhibit991erebayq32026.htm)
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