eBay Pulls Google Ads Over Marketing Stunt

odoketa writes "According to the BBC, it seems Google scheduled a party to promote their payment system (Google Checkout) on the same day as a big eBay meeting, and this made eBay mad enough to pull their ads with Google. According to the story, eBay says it's merely an 'ongoing experiment' on their marketing. 'Google hoped to alert PayPal users who would have been in Boston attending the eBay Live annual seller event to its own service, according to market experts. It could also have been seen as part of an effort to get eBay to accept Google Checkout, currently banned on the online auctioneer's site. But in a contrite manner, Google cancelled its rival function a day before it was due to happen.'"

UK promo was good

In the UK, Google checkout was offering £10 off any order over £30 with a major online IT supplier I use. The number of small orders I placed last month for toners and other parts was quite exceptional!

Re:UK promo was good

We use Google Checkout. Under their promotions, retailers have it good for the start, too. The ending rates are great, too, much better than PayPal. The Terms of Service are much more agreeable to both the buyer and seller, particularly for physical goods. I'm not sure how they compare to digital goods, but PayPal isn't very good on that front, either.

Re:UK promo was good

The promo was/is good and I was about to sign up to Google Checkout to accept smallish payments on a system I'm working on, but was really put off by the fact that Google insist on the person making the payment sign up to a Google account. PayPal dropped this a long time ago, and much as I dislike PayPal, at least now you have the choice to letting your clients make their own decision to signing up to PayPal, or not.

Once Google removes this restriction, I'll probably use them to accept small payments rather than use PayPal.

/DM/

Re:UK promo was good

Hopefully you've let google know that. Otherwise it's just wishful thinking.

eBay wouldn't do that

They don't advertise on Google to do Google a favour. They advertise on Google to draw traffic to eBay. If they pull their advertising, they hurt themselves. Not as much as they hurt Google, because they can easily spend the advertising budget elsewhere, but still a case of cutting of their nose to spite their faces.

Re:eBay wouldn't do that

They advertise on Google to draw traffic to eBay

Precisely! Otherwise, how would I know that I can find sinusitis relief on eBay?

Re:eBay wouldn't do that

Is eBay not a big enough player to require Google advertising?

This got me thinking of advertising in general. Do consumers REALLY need another 5,000 Coke commericals nationwide today, too? Are they afraid that we'll all of a sudden forget they exist? Afraid that people who like Coke would switch to Pepsi thanks to those ads so we'd better innundate them with our ads to keep that from happening?

There are defining sites out there on the internet. You wouldn't google for online auctions unless you're looking for an eBay alternative. You wouldn't goggle for user shared video sites unless you're looking for a YouTube alternative.

Or, at least I wouldn't. :)

Re:eBay wouldn't do that

Do consumers REALLY need another 5,000 Coke commericals nationwide today, too? Are they afraid that we'll all of a sudden forget they exist?

It's a good question, it seems intuitive that those brands are so deeply entrenched in our collective awareness and habits that they've sort of transcended advertising. It seems like we could never see another ad for Nike, and we'd still remember them and buy their shoes just as much.

But it's not true. The reason we can tell it's not true is that companies like Nike universally continue to spend gobs upon gobs of money on advertising campaigns, which they could've otherwise kept in their pockets. I think the main reason mega-brands advertise is not because they're afraid we'll forget, but because they're afraid we'll start paying attention (or more attention) to their competitors, or even other industries we'd rather spend our money on. Nike doesn't care if we remember them in general, they care if they're the top brand on our minds when we walk into the shoe store, and that we associate them with all the cool things of today.

In this way, advertising is like an arms race. You may have enough advertising to let people know about your product, but another advertiser is just going to step up their campaign and draw even more attention to themselves (and consequently away from you). Keeping the attention on your brand is what keeps you alive as a corporation, so you have no choice but to increase your advertising campaign to even more intensity...they respond in kind, and the cycle continues.

Of course, the result of this marketing cold war is what we have today: an almost completely ad saturated environment. It's difficult to look anywhere in an urban environment without seeing a logo or advertisement - it's so universal that people start to tune it out as background noise, which simply means advertisers must come up with newer, more subtle or outrageous or manipulative ways of increasing their brand awareness and appeal.

Now we will see who has more behind them

Now we may see no less than a battle between two MAJOR internet players. It will get v dirty v quick. Basically I predict a last man standing type scenario.

It was only a matter of time before someone pulled the trigger because you cant have two major companies, with 2 sets of shareholders co-existing for very long. One will inevitably get greedy.

Paypal useless

I am soooooo glad that eBay will now have competition from on of the top dogs for their
paypal excuse for a payment system. I hope google can actually tie this into your gmail account with higher security, although if eBay will not use this service, I dont know where else except the p0rn
sites where this might be usefull?

Ebay Thailand

Strange, right now, ebay.co.th is still showing as Adwords ads in Google search.

Message To Ebay: This Is Suicide

Knowing how much traffic Google drives through search and Adwords, this move by Ebay is nothing but suicide. It's a good thing - for Ebay - that Google has decided to back down.

Ebay is in a bad position, really, because they don't drive their own traffic. If Google decides to launch an auction website, it'd be a real bloodbath, because Ebay is nothing without it's famously massive traffic, much of with it has to buy.

I suspect that they have an agreement with Google that prevents Google from implementing a simple competitor in the auction space.

What happens if Ebay boycotts Google? We'll get less "buy used baby's from Ebay" spam. That's it.

Re:Message To Ebay: This Is Suicide

It's not suicide. Most Internet users have been to eBay. eBay was successful long before Google showed up and they will continue to be successful because their success is attached to the name, how easy it is to remember, and how quickly you can type "ebay.com" in the location bar without having to go through a search engine.

Paypal and Checkout

I ditched Paypal when I couldn't reject a credit card payment (I didn't accept them). Assuming Checkout doesn't have the same issue, it'll be my preferred method of payment/receipt for the long-haul.

I PRAY Google takes eBay down at some point.

...and this is coming from someone who does fairly significant business through eBay.

eBay's fees are ridiculous now, and PayPal even moreso. eBay has continually raised their fees year after year, taking a far too large cut of small items. What's worse is that 2.9% + 30 cents bit on PayPal transactions, whether or not it was actually funded through a credit card. I understand needing to pay yourself back should someone actually pay with a credit card and get small fee on top of that, but when money is moved from one PP account to another, that costs them $0...not to mention that PayPal's fee is done on the TOTAL, not the pre-shipping price, so they end up taking 2.9% of the money that you're supposed to have to ship the item as well. ...and since eBay and PayPal are so closely knit, and almost everyone on eBay only uses PayPal to pay, trying to use any of the smaller players is pretty much futile. The only payment service that can reasonably knock PayPal off of its pedestal is Google Checkout, and eBay knows this.

Between those two things, I'm losing well over 10% on any item that doesn't cost a huge amount of money. They wonder why people do stuff like use eBay contact info to sell outside of eBay and to list $1 items with hundred or even thousand-dollar shipping cost to avoid paying eBay as much as they can.

eBay claims that they want to have payment services with established track records or something like that. Just wait a year or two, and then possibly sue for inclusion, or at least under some law about anti-competitive acts? If Google could get GBay up...

GBay + "do no evil" = death of eBay.

So hard to choose sides

I mean, on one side we have google, a tremendously useful tool that has saved me countless hours when troubleshooting problems/doing research.

And on the other side we have paypal who called me a liar on the phone because I told them that they, not I, made a mistake

So hard to choose sides!

Re:So hard to choose sides

This is obvious a fake post.

I mean, come on, someone claiming to have actually gotten Paypal on the phone? How likely is that?

"We're Paypal. We don't care. We don't have to."
-apologies to SNL.

Death of the one trick shop

Now its down to who blinks first, im guessing that Google either have:

A) An ebay alternative (Killer? )
B) The resources to create one pretty quick.

We will have to see what countermeasures Ebay can conjour up. My guess is not a lot because Ebay, to my mind at least, is a one trick pony.

The BBC is spinning this...

This is not what it seems. I read this article on the BBC earlier today and it annoyed me then.

Their use of the word "angry" in the headline is preposterous. This is shamefully hyperbolic sensationalist tabloid journalism -- something the BBC is pandering to more and more -- they really need to fire some editors. Also, it seems to me that someone in the Richmond offices of eBay has the ear of someone in the BBC, eBay gets an astonishingly high amount of free publicity from the BBC (The BBC does not allow advertising -- um, yeah, sure...). Again, they really need to fire some editors, I'd be astonished if at least some of them were not taking backhanders every now and again -- it certainly looks that way.

Why would a medium sized corporation be "angry". And particularly in this case, although eBay is the largest user of Adwords, eBay is still a very small company compared to Google. eBay has no alternative to Adwords. It's use them, or fail trying something else.

While I'm personally convinced that eBay's management are far from the sharpest executives out there, they are at least smart enough to realize that they need Google much more than Google needs them. Sure, there's some Corporate game playing around checkout etc, and perhaps this move is simply a reflection of that. eBay, like any firm, needs to try to assert themselves occasionally to negotiate better deals. This is business. This is not news.

If Google was planning their own negative party then perhaps it would be good for someone to examine their mission statement -- while not exactly evil, that action isn't something that would give any company the moral high ground.

This is all a storm in a teacup. The whole thing reeks of publicity stunt. Publicity stunts are things the BBC falls for regularly -- especially where eBay are concerned.

Godwins Law invoked on eBay/Google spat ..

"It's no secret that part of Google's plan for world domination is to replace eBay, which involves selling products via Google Base and paying for them using Google Checkout. However, Google isn't yet powerful enough to launch the expected blitzkrieg, so the two companies maintain friendly relations under what's been compared to the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact [guardian.co.uk] signed by Von Ribbentrop for Germany and Stalin"

Who said that amateurism on the Internet was leading to the death of real journalisim ..

Godwins Law [killfile.org]br>
-- br>
"we both made shells for the Nazis, but mine worked, dammit!", C. Montgomery Burns

Fun Experiment

I am sure all of you have done this, but notice that when you google for eBay [google.com], the first and only ad is for Google Checkout (thinly veiled as an ad from buy.com). While Google does not manipulate search results by hand, they definitely mess with the Ads :))
Cheers!

Hypocrisy? Or just sour grapes?

Wait. Let me get this straight. eBay can deny their customers the ability to use alternate payment methods (Western Union, Google Checkout) in an anti-competitive move to try to force people to PayPal, which eBay owns. That's just a-OK. But if Google tries to take advantage of the opportunity to make people aware of Google Payments, which eBay is denying their paying sellers to implement, all hell breaks loose and eBay gets all upset!

Don't get me wrong. I like eBay and PayPal. I've never had a bad experience with either of them. But I found it to be more than coincidental that very shortly after eBay bought PayPal suddenly they have to ban Western Union and other payment services, citing "consumer fraud protection". Oh, f**king spare me!! I used Western Union several times for my auctions with no problems at all. Even eBay's sellers tools will reject the submission of an auction if the words "Western Union" are found in the description!

So, now Google decides to take advantage of an opportunity to make themselves known to eBay customers, and eBay gets all pissed off? Wow.

Greed Ego and Why Ebay Sucks

http://news.com.com/Google+cancels+rain+on+eBays+p arade/2100-1024_3-6190905.html [com.com] goes into much more detail.

You have to love Ebay's comments as to why they dont allow Google Checkout, it reliability is unproven. Which of course translates into we dont get anything out of allowing their service and are much happier double-dipping on our "customers". Their real fear is that people would ditch paypal in droves, which is true, I dont know anyone who really likes paypal but its the only choice you have in dealing with Ebay. Ebay may be surprised to find that accepting other forms of payment would bring people back to ebay. I hated paypal so much after being ripped off for a second time that I just stopped using ebay completely, a better choice of payment options might tempt me back. I did still find myself led to Ebay by google often when searching for specific items.

I'd like to see the real numbers on traffice from google to ebay, I have seen it listed as much as 10% and as little as 2%. Still it looks like this hurts Ebay more than Google, I havent seen any numbers suggesting revenue from Ebay totalling more than 1-2%. If I was Google I'd stick to my guns and not allow them back until checkout was declared acceptable.

Is Ebay mad or just angry?

mad enough to pull their ads with Google.

If they are "mad" to pull the adds then they have done so possibly error and definitely without the proper thought applied; however if they are "angry" about the situation then it seems like an understandable business move.

But where will I buy my search results now?

This is horrible! Now, when I search for "software interrupt," I won't see "Looking for software interrupt? Find new and used software interrupt and thousands more items on eBay!"

This is going to make things much more difficult.

BEWARE of Google Checkout

this may be a little OT but.....
I was recently in the market for a big ticket item and once I found the one I wanted at the price I was willing to pay I began the checkout procedure. I had been seeing the Google Checkout buttons on many of the sites and the allure of getting a little bit more taken off my purchase convinced me to sign up. I mean HAY! this is Google after all so it must be great. I dotted my i's and crossed my t's and completed the purchase. Within minutes I received an email from Google Checkout that my transaction had been denied and that I needed to correct the information and resubmit. Turns out since it was such a large amount Amex flagged the charge and contacted me to confirm I had made it (Kudos to them I say). I authorized the charge and resubmitted it to Google Checkout. I got the same note saying the charge was refused. I called Amex and they informed me the charge was never resubmitted. I tried again with the same results. I tried to contact Google Checkout support only to discover that there is no such thing. If you try hard enough you can find a contact form and fill it out but all I ever got were canned responses about being sorry for the inconvenience. I opened a complaint with the BBB and the only response I got was more of the same canned "We're sorry for the inconvenience" emails with no assistance on fixing the problem. I ended up cancelling the order and going to a brick and mortar to get my item. I expect better from a Google property and I won't be using the service again anytime soon. I've had my problems with PayPal but at least I was able to correspond with some who could actually help me.

Advertising's effect is very easy to measure

1) compare your total quarterly sales (minus the cost of the ad campaign) after your ad campaign to the previous (ad-free) quarterly sales.
2) ???
3) Profit!

Promotion works in the same quantifiable way:
1) Clip out all of the newsmedia references to your product and multiply that media line rate by 2 and invoice client.
2) ???
3) Profit!

Haters Unite

It continues to amaze me how Google can spawn legions of fans regardless of their industry. To me Ebay has been the killer app of the Internet for so long and continues to remain relevant. Where else can I sell my crap for way more than it's worth. Craigslist? That's for the lowball deal hunters. You bet my 4 year old navigation software is worth the same as I paid retail for it, at least on Ebay that's true. Yes their fees keep climbing, but so does that bidding mania. But once again Google can do no wrong.

How the discussion really went ...

googleguy1: hey, I got a prank here I want to put on-line for just a few secs
googleguy2: nice! If you would post that ad on the e-bay frontpage it will make great coverage!
googleguy1: and they won't even notice!
googleguy2: hahaha but we cannot do that, it's immoral!
googleguy1: naah, if you press enter, I typed in the command for you
googleguy3: hey whatcha doing?
googleguy2: want to make free commercials of Checkout on the ebay site?
googleguy3: how do you mean?
googleguy1: just press enter and you will see!
googleguy3: No I don't if I don't know why?
googleguy2 and 1: just press enter, it's a minor thing!
teamleader: oh, just press enter, here, *tap* I did it for you!
googleguy1: woooooooot!
googleguy2: let's go eat something, I'm hungry
googleguy3: hey I know I nice restaurant nearby here, I'll pay.

Fuel Rods?

Does this mean we can no longer find fuel rods on ebay?

Paypal

I haven't used Paypal since they canceled the BillPay program.

Is eBay a search engine?

Simple question, simply answer (I don't care if you say "yes" or "no" -- the reasoning would interest me more)...

Wrong...

You're seeing eBay guides, pages.ebay.com and/or pulling from either a local or ISP cache.

I tried yesterday, and again just now and nada. No eBay seller item links on the radar. No items being sold, including bowling balls.

Re:wrong

From TFA:

But in a contrite manner, Google cancelled its rival function a day before it was due to happen and stated on its blog: "After speaking with officials at eBay, we at Google agreed it was better for us not to feature this event during the eBay Live conference."

They cancelled their "party."

Re:Fine with me

I would be more interested in EBay results on Google's search if they actually HAD those results. Any time I've ever been looking to buy something, and saw an EBay ad on Google, it got no results when I clicked, despite the fact that the item WAS on EBay.

Admittedly, I never search for simple things like 'bowling ball', but rather the exact item I want, but still... The ads were always pointless when I would want them, and useless when I didn't.

Re:Ebay/Google

I would think that EBay was independent enough for people to know the name and use them without the use of Google or any other advertisement (aside from television).

Exactly. eBay is like Google; you don't go to Yahoo to find Google, and so you don't go to Google to find eBay. This was a calculated decision, not necessarily a bad one. If people believe it was a suicidal decision, recall the numerous fee increases that caused the community to throw up their arms in revolt. You would think that was suicidal, but eBay is still just as strong.

Re:Fine with me

I have print outs of the results for my name and the name of a (now former) cubicle-mate on the wall of my cubicle. Both have eBay adverts for our names. If you click on the link, then it goes to an eBay search page, which says 'no results found.'

I'm amazed Google didn't reject eBay ads for spamming long before eBay decided to pull them. Other Google ads have often been sufficiently relevant that I've actually bothered clicking on them. eBay ads I click on just so it costs them, and they have to pay for the stupidity of putting meaningless adverts up.