Reprinted from: Auctionbytes-NewsFlash, Number 1568 - June 25, 2007eBay Cites Privacy Concerns in Ban of Google CheckoutBy Ina Steiner AuctionBytes.com June 25, 2007eBay renewed its advertising campaign on Google AdWords US on Friday afternoon after having pulled the ads for 10 days. eBay spokesperson Hani Durzy said the spending will be "significantly less than before," but also said the paid-search advertising is not static and would fluctuate.
eBay said the 10-day suspension was part of a marketing test. "From our point of view, it was a very successful test, we learned a lot, including that we are not as dependent on Google Adwords as some may have thought. Turning it back on was always our intention." Durzy said the length of the test was deliberately designed to coincide with a full-auction cycle in order to get statistically significant results - eBay auction listings can have a maximum duration of 10 days.
The timing of the test came after Google had invited attendees of eBay's annual conference to an off-site party to learn more about Google Checkout, a payment service that lets sellers accept credit card payments from shoppers. Google marketed the party as a way for sellers to learn about the service, and also to protest eBay's ban of Google Checkout on eBay.com and its cessation of talks to integrate Google Checkout into eBay's ProStores web-hosting service. Other companies who have been barred from exhibiting at eBay's conference have had off-site events in previous years, including Overstock.com, Alibaba, and PayPal.
The spat between the companies escalated and resulted in Google canceling the party and going silent to media inquiries, and in eBay publicly chastising Google for crashing its conference. On Friday, Durzy called the way Google marketed the party "inappropriate."
Not mentioned in the media brouhaha was Yahoo, which eBay allowed to exhibit at the conference, and which also held an off-site party during the conference. Yahoo's party was held in conjunction with PESA, an organization of high-volume PowerSellers, which had entered into an agreement with Yahoo to promote Yahoo PayPal Checkout, a service similar to Google Checkout but which uses eBay's PayPal service.
When asked how he would classify the relationship between Google and eBay considering the dust-up over the Google party and the marketing test, Durzy said "complex" and said it has always been that way. The companies are valuable partners and continue to be. "Google remains our valuable partner and delivers text ads on the international sites and continues to drive good traffic to the eBay site - even during the marketing test, it drove traffic through organic search, natural search."
Durzy continued, "Google has attempted to make forays into areas beyond their core competencies, some into areas we've been doing for more than 10 years. We are paying close attention to anyone who tries to deliver the same things we provide to our buyers and sellers. We haven't seen an impact on the areas of our business. We've said that before." Durzy said Google Base drives traffic to eBay, that Google Checkout is not the same as eBay's PayPal service, and as for Google Talk versus Skype: "just look at the user numbers," he said.
Some eBay sellers reported a decrease in page views when eBay pulled its ads from Google. Durzy said eBay is not releasing specific results of the test publicly, but said it varied widely. "The connection to what a handful of sellers were seeing and what we were seeing is unclear at best."
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