Solving the right problems

Instilling the value

C2C and SMB seller segments contribute to almost half of eBay’s annual revenue. While adept at their core business, they often find themselves navigating uncharted waters when it comes to advertising and marketing. The intricacies of crafting compelling ad campaigns, deciphering industry terminology, and allocating budgets all contribute to general reluctance to experiment at scale. Consequently, they hesitate to invest in advertising, fearing missteps or suboptimal outcomes. Scaling up experiments becomes a daunting task, as the unfamiliar terrain poses challenges. Bridging this knowledge gap and empowering sellers with practical advertising skills is crucial for unlocking their full potential in the marketplace.

To begin unlocking the value proposition of advertising, we needed to ensure the contextuality and timing factors. Quite simply, the value of anything grows exponentially at a time of a dire need. When would sellers be most receptive to discover a remedy that could energize their sales velocity? What could be more relevant than meeting their needs right there and then, as they dissect the incoming selling performance data, meticulously turn it into insights and, subsequently, into next best set of actions?

Solution: integrate with seller experience

Meet sellers where they already are, where their consideration is at the highest along their familiar daily working journeys. This means intrinsic awareness of core seller mental modes and contextual timing of advertising ingress points at macro and micro decision making intersections within the seller tool set.

Reporting & measurement

In the dynamic realm of advertising, performance data acts as our strategic compass. Picture it as a lighthouse piercing through the fog, revealing what strategies yield results and what falls flat. By meticulously tracking key metrics—click-through rates, conversion rates, return on ad spend, and more—we gain actionable insights. These data points not only validate our efforts but also empower us to optimize, iterate, and fine-tune.

However, there’s a critical caveat: data quality reigns supreme. Garbage in, garbage out. Accurate, reliable data ensures the seller compass consistently points true north.

Here’s a common seller sentiment we have observed: “What can I afford based on the sum of acquisition, fulfillment costs and the operational overhead?”. Instead, each dollar spent on advertising should be seen as investment, rather than an extra overhead or operational expense.

Solution: clear and usable reporting tools

Provide sellers with clear access points to quality ads performance data. Ensure that reporting surfaces deliver understandable, usable and actionable insights.

Efficiency

Seller’s time is seller’s money. Building new experiences based on familiar means lessens the change aversion and makes for an easy engagement.” encapsulates several crucial principles that resonate with the fundamentals of product design.

Every moment spent by a seller navigating a platform or interacting with features directly impacts their efficiency and productivity.

By minimizing the time required to adapt to changes, we respect the seller’s time investment. Familiarity with existing patterns and workflows allows sellers to focus on their core tasks rather than fighting a steep learning curve.

Solution: qualify solutions

Continually validate design hypotheses through testing sessions with sellers. Itemize observed frictions and aggregate behavioral patterns. Translate these quantified observations into UI and interactive standards for releasing new functionalities.

Advertiser guidance

The abundance of data, ever of highest quality, often leads to a paralysis in translating that data into actionable insights. Additionally, sellers struggle to map the available advertising products to their specific seller needs, around their specific inventory type. This leads to chronically high attrition rates for advertising products as sellers fail to properly diagnose the problems through incoming data.

Solution: deeper personalization

Funnel reporting data into clear and actionable recommendations. Highlight subsequent success and/or available solutions for efficient post-flight management.

Outcome clarity

Derivation of false insights is certain to deepen seller frustration and impact continuous adoption. Erroneously committing to an action aimed to solve a valid problem will exponentially exacerbate the challenges faced by sellers.

Solution: stack-rank data criticality

Collectively validate and align on the importance of incoming metrics. Avoid data pollution and develop a group standard of clarity, based on combination of quantitative and qualitative insights. Aim at delivering clear, at-a-glance, well-structured reporting surfaces that underline the most pressing priorities.