Leveraging Technology & Automation to Drive Growth Utilizing CSS for eBay

Insights

CSS publishers were a key pillar of the growth strategy for EPN (eBay Partner Network Partner Network) in early 2018, working with multiple partners in active regions across Europe to occupy more of the valuable inventory space on Google Shopping. 

Fast forward to Q4 of 2018, eBay Partner Network procured the services of Accelerations Partners affiliate management services to oversee the next phase of growth for the program. Incubeta was an early recruit by AP to provide further inventory coverage across Google Shopping in the UK. 

Entering 2019,  Incubeta fell a long distance behind key GMV drivers on the program. To compete, Incubeta knew they needed to invest in their technology stack and infrastructure for feed processing, with a period of 6 months taken to put themselves in a position to download, process and serve at scale. 

The investment, time and patience from all partners drove success  seeing Incubeta drive a GMV contribution of £4,7 million in 2019. These numbers were achieved alongside the introduction of an incrementality metric by the eBay Partner Network analytics team, expansion across Europe and budget constraints, all presenting unique challenges for publisher/agency and brand to work through together.

2020 presented unique challenges due to covid related traffic and demand levels impacting the budget requirements for the program. This again challenged the partnership with budgets restricted for long periods of the year, requiring understanding and flexibility to operate within the constraints of budget caps.

2021 has seen a range of strategic projects come to fruition which included collaboration with the SMB seller team at eBay, working with Incubeta’s CSS to promote new to platform sellers through Google shopping. The initial collaboration was a success and supported a second campaign with a much larger budget during Q4 peak. 

 

Strategy

We ran Google Shopping activity via a comparison shopping domain on a category level commission payment model.

All activity was then tracked and attributed via the EPN platform, with activity deduped against all digital channels.

From here we delivered incremental shopping GMV which was accessed on an ongoing basis. Providing insight on campaigns performance and opportunities to drive incremental growth.

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