eBay is to cease all regular ad deals to focus solely on programmatically traded campaigns for a week, as part of an ad trading experiment in the UK.
The move will see the online marketplace start the trial in the UK during the third week of February 2015, with participation from brands including O2.
Under the new scheme, advertisers will only be able to buy ad inventory on eBay’s UK site using its programmatic technology for that week.
eBay has been investing heavily in automated ad-buying systems, appointing a new head for a programmatic advertising division after seeing the share of its ad transactions conducted automatically surge.
‘Programmatic’ refers to digital ads which are bought automatically using a software program, rather than the traditional method of human negotiation. Such deals now account for more than half of the advertising seen on eBay.
Online advertising umbrella body the Internet Advertising Bureau has seen the changes automated buying has wrought. It predicts that, this year, 46 per cent of all online display ads will be bought this way, compared with 28 per cent in 2013.
The experiment is being led solely out of the UK, but eBay’s other international divisons will be watching the outcome closely.
