> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.vortexiq.ai/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Zero-Conversion Promoted Listings, eBay > Promoted listings with spend >$X but zero conversions, wasted ad fees, recoverable next sweep. How to read it, why it matters, and how to act on it. **Metrics type:** [Key Metrics](/nerve-centre/overview#metrics-types-explained) • **Category:** [Marketplace](/nerve-centre/connectors#connectors-by-type) > Promoted listings with spend >\$X but zero conversions, wasted ad fees, recoverable next sweep. ## At a glance > Count of Promoted Listings with material ad spend over the 30-day window but **zero attributed conversions**. The "wasted ad fees" card, every row here is money paid to eBay for clicks or impressions that didn't convert into a sale, recoverable on the next campaign sweep by either delisting, repricing, or fixing the listing copy. | | | | ------------------------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **What it counts** | `COUNT(promoted_listings WHERE spend > $X AND attributed_conversions = 0)` over the rolling 30D window. The `$X` floor is configurable per workspace (default $5 for Standard, $25 for Advanced campaigns) to filter out trivially-small spend. | | **Listing-format scope** | Promoted Listings is fixed-price-only on eBay. Auctions are not eligible to be promoted, so this card excludes auction-format inventory by definition. | | **GMV / fees framing** | Spend is the ad-fee paid to eBay (the "ad rate" applied to the order total when a buyer converts via promoted placement). Zero-conv listings have spend without offsetting GMV, **pure cost, no revenue**. | | **Promoted Listings Standard vs Advanced** | The card aggregates both. **Standard**: cost-per-sale model (only charged if buyer clicks promoted placement and buys within 30 days). **Advanced**: cost-per-click model (charged per click regardless of conversion). Zero-conv on Standard means clicks attributed to no conversion (rare); zero-conv on Advanced means clicks but no conversion (common, often the more actionable list). | | **Multi-site aggregation** | Each connected `marketplaceId` runs its own Promoted Listings campaigns; the card aggregates counts across sites with per-site filtering on expansion. | | **Currency** | Spend is in each campaign's native currency (USD, GBP, EUR, AUD). The card sums values without FX, multi-site spend totals are arithmetic and not FX-converted. | | **Best-Offer-resolved orders** | If a buyer clicks a promoted listing then makes a Best Offer that's accepted, the order counts as a conversion at the negotiated total. The card tracks attribution faithfully. | | **Refunds** | A refunded conversion stays as a conversion in this card (no zero-out). The promoted ad fee is **non-refundable** even when the order is refunded; this is a particular cost gotcha for sellers with high refund rates. | | **Cancellations** | Seller-cancelled orders post-conversion don't reverse the attribution. The ad fee was charged and stays charged. | | **Time window** | `30D` (rolling). The window matches eBay's standard campaign-reporting cadence. | | **Alert trigger** | `>0` (any zero-conv promoted listing with material spend). Driven by `sentiment_key: zero_conversion_spend`. | | **Roles** | owner, marketing | ## Calculation Calculated automatically from your eBay data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading. ## Worked example A UK home-and-garden seller running ebay.co.uk + ebay.com with a mixed Promoted Listings Standard + Advanced campaign book. Period: 02 Apr 26 to 01 May 26 (30D). | Campaign | Format | Spend (30D) | Impressions | Clicks | Conversions | ACOS | Status | | -------------------------- | -------- | --------------- | ----------- | ------ | ----------------- | ----- | ---------------------- | | UK-Standard-AllListings | Standard | £142 | 480k | 2,800 | 38 | 6.2% | Profitable | | UK-Adv-Garden-Tools | Advanced | £88 | 22k | 410 | 6 | 18.4% | Marginal | | UK-Adv-Outdoor-Furniture | Advanced | £64 | 8.2k | 128 | **0** | n/a | **Zero-conv** | | UK-Adv-Plant-Pots-Premium | Advanced | £41 | 5.1k | 89 | **0** | n/a | **Zero-conv** | | US-Adv-Garden-Tools | Advanced | \$76 | 18k | 302 | 4 | 24.1% | Marginal | | US-Adv-BBQ-Accessories | Advanced | \$52 | 6.8k | 96 | **0** | n/a | **Zero-conv** | | **Zero-conv contribution** | | **£105 + \$52** | | | **0 conversions** | | **3 listings flagged** | Five things to notice: 1. **Three listings burned £105 + \$52 with no return.** That's \~£146 of pure ad spend lost in 30 days. The UK Outdoor-Furniture and Plant-Pots-Premium campaigns had impressions but no buyer pulled the trigger; either the price is wrong, the photos are wrong, or the listing copy is mismatched to buyer search intent. **Investigate the listings, don't just delist them.** 2. **Promoted Standard zero-conv is rare and serious.** Standard campaigns are cost-per-sale; you only pay if a buyer clicks AND buys within 30 days. Zero-conv with material spend on a Standard campaign means the seller is paying for *post-click attribution* on listings that converted via promoted view but the buyer returned/refunded outside the attribution window, or there's a tracking quirk. Investigate carefully; sometimes Standard zero-conv is a data artifact. 3. **Promoted Advanced zero-conv is common and actionable.** Advanced is cost-per-click. Listings that get clicks but no conversions are the typical zero-conv pattern; the fix is usually price (often 10 to 15% above competitive market) or photo quality. Pause the listing, fix it, relaunch. 4. **The 12.9% FVF is on top of the ad spend.** Even when promoted listings DO convert, the seller pays both the FVF (12.9% blended) AND the promoted ad rate (2 to 12% on Standard, per-click on Advanced). A 6.2% ACOS on Standard plus 12.9% FVF leaves 80.9% of GMV before COGS, sustainable for typical 35 to 40% gross-margin sellers but tight for low-margin commodities. 5. **Ad fees are non-refundable.** If a converted promoted order gets refunded, the seller eats the FVF (refunded by eBay) but NOT the ad fee. High-refund-rate sellers should prefer Standard (cost-per-sale) over Advanced (cost-per-click) and watch the [Promoted ACOS](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/ebay/promoted-listings-acos) card alongside [Refund Rate](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/ebay/return-rate). ## Sibling cards merchants should reference together | Card | Why pair it with Zero-Conversion Promoted Listings | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | [Promoted Spend](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/ebay/promoted-listings-spend) | The aggregate spend figure. Zero-conv is the wasted slice. | | [Promoted ACOS](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/ebay/promoted-listings-acos) | Ad-spend-as-percent-of-attributed-GMV. Listings with material spend but ACOS above gross margin are *worse* than zero-conv (you'd lose money even on conversions). | | [Promoted Waste Alert](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/ebay/promoted-listings-waste-burst) | The real-time alert version of this card; fires when zero-conv spend crosses workspace threshold. | | [Top Listings](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/ebay/top-listings-by-revenue) | The complement: listings driving most revenue. Compare to identify whether zero-conv listings are genuinely poor performers or just under-promoted. | | [Total Revenue](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/ebay/total-revenue) | Economic context: zero-conv £146 on £100k of monthly GMV is 0.15%, irritating but not material; on £5k of GMV it's 3%, a meaningful drag. | | [Marketplace Fees](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/ebay/marketplace-fees) | The fee total includes promoted ad spend; reducing zero-conv directly improves the fee % of revenue. | | [Google Ads Spend](/nerve-centre/google_ads/google_ads_spend) | Cross-platform ad-spend context for sellers running both eBay Promoted and Google Ads. | | [Amazon Sponsored Products](/nerve-centre/amazon/sponsored_products) | Marketplace peer; Amazon's PPC equivalent has similar zero-conv patterns and tools. | ## Reconciling against the vendor's own dashboard **Where to look in eBay Seller Hub:** > [Seller Hub → Marketing → Promoted Listings → Campaigns](https://www.ebay.com/sl/promote) > Filter columns by **Conversions = 0** and **Spend > \$X** to recreate this card. Available for both Standard and Advanced campaign types. The campaign-level "Performance" tab also exposes per-listing zero-conv data; click into a campaign to see which listings within it failed to convert. **Timing, settlement, and reporting-lag table:** | Topic | Detail | | ---------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Timezone** | Promoted Listings reporting uses Pacific Time for US accounts (account timezone for non-US). Vortex IQ normalises to UTC. Boundary effects average out over 30D. | | **Settlement / payout impact** | Ad fees are deducted at order settlement, **not** at click time. So a click today on a Standard campaign that converts on day 28 is billed at settlement on or near day 28. Advanced campaigns bill per-click within 24 to 48 hours of the click. | | **Promoted Listings cost reporting lag** | Spend can lag conversions by 24 to 72 hours in the API. Zero-conv counts may briefly include listings that just-converted within the lag window; the card auto-corrects within 72 hours. | | **API throttling** | The Sell Marketing API has a 5,000 calls/day baseline. The card refreshes every 4 hours. | | **Attribution window** | Standard: 30-day click-attributed conversion window. Advanced: per-click immediate attribution. The 30D card window deliberately matches the Standard attribution window. | **Why our number may legitimately differ from Seller Hub:** | Reason | Direction | Why | | ---------------------- | ------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Spend floor** | Theirs may include all listings | Vortex IQ filters by `spend > $X` (default $5 Standard, $25 Advanced) to surface meaningful waste. Seller Hub shows every listing including trivially-small spend; manually filter to match. | | **Attribution window** | Either | Standard's 30-day click-attribution can include conversions outside the displayed reporting window. Toggle Seller Hub's attribution settings to match for parity. | | **Refund accounting** | Same on both | Refunded conversions stay as conversions (don't zero-out). Both views agree. | | **Multi-site display** | Ours blended | Seller Hub shows per-marketplace; Vortex IQ aggregates by default with per-site filter on expansion. | **Cross-connector reconciliation against other connectors the same seller may run:** | Card | Expected relationship | What causes legitimate divergence | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | [`amazon.sponsored_products`](/nerve-centre/amazon/sponsored_products) | **Marketplace peer.** Amazon's PPC equivalent (Sponsored Products) has identical zero-conv patterns. Cross-platform comparison is useful for spend-allocation decisions. | Independent populations, used for peer-benchmarking. | | [`google_ads.google_ads_spend`](/nerve-centre/google_ads/google_ads_spend) | Cross-platform ad spend context. A seller running both eBay Promoted and Google Ads can compare zero-conv waste rates to allocate budget toward the more efficient channel. | Different audience, different intent signals; treat as separate optimisation surfaces. | ***
Same-shape marketplace peer (for sellers running multiple marketplaces) The same zero-conversion-spend pattern exists on Amazon Sponsored Products. This is **not a reconciliation**, the campaigns are independent. The cross-link helps multi-marketplace sellers run shared campaign-hygiene playbooks. * [`amazon.sponsored_products`](/nerve-centre/amazon/sponsored_products), Amazon Sponsored Products zero-conv equivalent.
## Known limitations / merchant FAQs **What's the difference between Standard and Advanced Promoted Listings?** **Standard** = cost-per-sale (CPS). You're charged an "ad rate" (typically 2 to 12% of order total) only when a buyer clicks the promoted placement and converts within 30 days. Lower risk, higher floor on ROI. **Advanced** = cost-per-click (CPC). You're charged per click regardless of conversion. Higher control over placement, higher zero-conv risk. Most sellers run a Standard-base + Advanced-targeted-keywords mix. **My Standard campaign has zero-conv listings, isn't that impossible?** Almost, but not quite. Standard only charges on conversion, so most listings show either positive conversions or zero spend. Zero-conv with material spend on Standard usually indicates: (1) a buyer who clicked promoted, converted, then refunded outside the 30-day window, or (2) a tracking attribution lag. Investigate carefully; data artifacts are common here. **My Advanced campaign has lots of zero-conv listings, what should I do?** Three quick filters: (1) **Price competitiveness**: are zero-conv listings priced 10%+ above market? Reprice or pause. (2) **Photo quality**: are zero-conv listings using stock photos vs lifestyle shots? Refresh photos. (3) **Listing copy match**: do the keywords driving clicks match the actual listing? Refine. **Are ad fees refundable if the order is refunded?** **No.** Promoted ad fees (both Standard and Advanced) are non-refundable. If a converted promoted order is refunded, the FVF is refunded by eBay, but the ad fee stays charged. High-refund-rate sellers should avoid heavy Promoted spend on refund-prone categories (apparel, footwear) or prefer Standard over Advanced. **My multi-site campaigns: should I aggregate the zero-conv counts?** Yes for spend totals (cumulative waste); no for action prioritisation (each site's listings are independent). Drill into the per-`marketplaceId` view when triaging. **Does Best Offer affect promoted listings?** Yes positively, slightly. A buyer who clicks a promoted listing and submits a Best Offer counts as a converted click *if the offer is accepted within the attribution window*. So promoted listings with Best Offer enabled tend to have slightly lower zero-conv rates than BIN-only promoted listings. **Why doesn't my eBay Promoted spend reconcile with my Google Ads spend?** **Different ad systems.** eBay Promoted Listings shows ads inside eBay search results / category pages to eBay buyers. Google Ads shows ads in Google search results / display network to web users. Independent populations, independent budgets. A seller running both should compare *waste rates* (zero-conv as % of spend) to allocate budget, not absolute numbers. **Is there a "today" volatility?** Yes for Advanced (CPC bills per-click within 24 to 48 hours). Today's zero-conv count for Advanced campaigns can swing as new clicks land and conversions catch up. **Use the rolling 7-day or 30-day view** for stable reads, that's why the alert window is `30D` not `1D`. **The card flagged 3 listings but I think the data is wrong, what now?** Wait 72 hours and recheck. The 24 to 72 hour spend-reporting lag means a listing that just converted may briefly appear as zero-conv. If the listing remains zero-conv after 72 hours with material spend, the data is solid; investigate the listing. **Action playbook when this card alerts:** 1. Sort flagged listings by spend descending. The biggest-waste rows are the highest-priority fixes. 2. For each: check price competitiveness vs the eBay search results for the same query. If overpriced, reprice 5 to 10% lower or pause. 3. Audit photo quality. If using stock photos, swap in lifestyle / scale-context photos. 4. Audit listing title vs the keywords driving the spend (visible in Advanced campaign keyword reports). Mismatch = refine title. 5. If still no improvement after 14 days, delist from the promoted campaign. The listing can stay live as organic; just remove the ad spend. *** ### Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre *Zero-Conversion Promoted Listings* is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across eBay and 70+ other ecommerce connectors. Nerve Centre runs the detection layer; Vortex Mind investigates the cause when something moves; Ask Viq lets you interrogate any number in plain English. [Start for free](https://app.vortexiq.ai/login) or [book a demo](https://www.vortexiq.ai/contact-us) to see this metric running on your own data.