eBay:
I’d like to share an important piece of news with our Community. eBay and Yahoo! have signed an agreement to work closer together in ways that will benefit both of our communities of users. I want to explain some of the details of this agreement and how they’ll benefit both buyers and sellers in the eBay marketplace.
Here are the main areas of agreement:
Increased inclusion of eBay sponsored and web search results on Yahoo!
We know that for eBay sellers, it’s all about buyer demand. As a part of this agreement, eBay and Yahoo! have agreed to collaborate in the area of sponsored search (that is, purchased keywords) and web search (content on the Internet that is indexed by Yahoo!). The net result is that eBay sellers will benefit from a more comprehensive inclusion of eBay pages on Yahoo! Search, and an increase in sponsored search results across Yahoo!’s U.S. pages.For example, on the web search side, eBay and Yahoo! are collaborating on technology to improve the way eBay.com pages are delivered for indexing by Yahoo!, in order to expand the number of eBay.com web search results on Yahoo!. In sponsored search, the two companies will collaborate to allow Yahoo! to accept many more keyword purchases from eBay.com, improving eBay’s inclusion in sponsored search results.
These efforts will mean that Yahoo!’s millions of users will have more access to eBay listings, and eBay.com sellers should benefit from increased traffic to the site.
eBay looking to Yahoo! for best-in-class search marketing
The sales, implementation, and management of ad space on the Internet is a highly specialized function, and Yahoo! is a leader in this area. While eBay serves up many graphical ads on the site today, quite frankly, our own advertising infrastructure is not as robust as it could be. Instead of investing in more infrastructure for eBay, we’re pleased to be partnering with Yahoo! who can provide this service as a benefit to our buyers and sellers.Another area eBay will work with Yahoo! on is improving our keyword ad program. We realize that sellers have wanted better service and support than has been provided through our current eBay Keywords program. I believe eBay’s marketplace will benefit from leveraging Yahoo!’s strengths in this area.
Over the summer, eBay and Yahoo! will also be testing new text ad placements on some eBay pages. For instance, we’ll be looking at placements at the bottom of search results pages if there are no matching items found. We’ll be testing other placements on a limited number of search results pages, too, as a way to learn what works well for eBay buyers and sellers. This will include testing some sponsored search ads for complementary products and services – for example, a buyer searching for a hair dryer might be presented with sponsored search ads for related items like shampoo or hair brushes. To be clear, we will not place ads on view item pages.
Our number one concern is ensuring that the changes we make are right for our sellers and buyers. As we test, we’ll be monitoring the impact of any changes carefully, as well as listening to your input.
Additional areas of the agreement
PayPal is rapidly becoming the standard way to pay on the Internet. Today, we’re very pleased to announce that Yahoo! has decided to have PayPal exclusively power their own Yahoo! Wallet. Plus, we’ll be working with Yahoo! on a co-branded version of the eBay Toolbar. Finally, as e-commerce continues to evolve rapidly, Yahoo! and eBay have agreed to work together to explore click-to-call advertisements via Yahoo! Messenger with Voice and Skype, which would allow internet users to call merchants directly through their advertisements to pursue a transaction.This agreement applies only to eBay.com and Yahoo! properties in the U.S. and does not extend to any of our international markets. You won’t see changes overnight on eBay, as both companies will be taking a careful approach to any site changes we make that includes substantial testing in 2006 before full implementation in 2007.
I believe this new agreement between Yahoo! and eBay leverages the best strengths of both our companies — and in doing so, benefits both our communities. I invite you to share your comments or questions on eBay’s partnership with Yahoo! – please write to me at billcobb@ebay.com.
Sincerely,
Bill Cobb
President, eBay North America
No comments yet.