The rumors have been flying around for a while.
Feeling pressure from Google’s increasing e-commerce presence, eBay needed a formidable partner to beef up its already mammoth search engine marketing campaigns. Today, eBay and Yahoo announced a partnership agreement that aims to do just that and more — leaving questions about the ongoing relationship between eBay and Google. The auction giant is one of Google’s largest search engine marketing customers.
Bill Cobb, eBay North America president, said in a statement posted on eBay’s Announcement page, “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,” Cobb wrote.
He claims 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.
With tens of millions of users, eBay already has plenty of marketing muscle behind it, but Cobb admits the company’s 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,” he said.
Another area eBay will work with Yahoo! on is improving our keyword ad program, Cobb added.
“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.”
This summer, eBay and Yahoo! will also be testing new text ad placements on some eBay pages, including testing sponsored search ads for complementary products and services, said Cobb.
He emphasized, however, there will be no ads placed on ‘view item’ pages.
In addition to the search engine initiatives with Yahoo, eBay also announced that PayPal will now be the power behind Yahoo’s Wallet service. A co-branded browser toolbar is also due.
But that’s not all.
“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,” said Cobb.
Cobb said all programs will be implemented fully some time in 2007 and applies only to eBay and Yahoo in the United States.
Catherine England, eBay spokeswoman, told ECommerce-Guide today the company’s partnership with Yahoo doesn’t leave Google in the dust. “Today’s announcement will not impact how we work with Google or any of our search partners. We will continue to work with a variety of partners to help bring people together on eBay’s platforms to trade and communicate,” she said.
