eBay soft-launches services advertising
eBay Advertising has soft-launched ‘eBay Local Services Ads’, a new product designed to help local service organisations reach new customers and grow their businesses.
It’s the platform’s first offer for service firms and is initially being piloted in the UK, with Germany also trialling it this month.
Businesses such as plumbers, hairdressers, DJs and cleaners will be able to use the platform to serve their own ads and offer their services to relevant eBay customers in their area.
With access to one of the world’s largest shopper audiences, businesses will be able to expand their reach and effectively target customers using eBay’s wealth of data and insights on customer search and purchase behaviour. According to eBay users will also be able to engage shoppers earlier in the shopper journey.
Bert Bassett at eBay, who has headed up the project, commented, ‘eBay wants to become a marketplace for services as well as products – and we think that this is a great place to start. Our Local Services Ads will particularly help small service-based businesses to use our inventory to target local, relevant customers. And crucially, we’re helping them reach users when they’re already in a buying mood, and when we know they’re in the market for a particular service, to deliver maximum ROI.’
