Automotive Marketing

Jeff is talking about eBay’s recent decision to stop all US advertising on Google’s AdWords network. eBay was the largest search engine advertiser in the nation in March, buying 4.1% of all search ad clicks.

Meanwhile, eBay is still buying Google traffic in other countries. AND this whole issue began because Google was going to host a protest party to start concurrently as eBay Live, the annual merchant conference. Why? Because Google Checkout isn’t a payment option on eBay, and there’s a good reason. The direct competition between these two companies is SO on.

First, eBay announces an auction-style advertising network that will undoubtedly compete with AdWords.

Google Base + Google Checkout = eBay auction competition. These services aren’t integrated yet, but let’s look at what they’re being built up to become.

Post it on Base. Find it on Google.

Find it with Google. Buy it with Google Checkout.

Those are the taglines on the front page of each of these services. Google Base is already creating automotive leads at a rate of mid-level classified sites, and this is because the Google Base API is fueling mid-level classified sites. A few service providers have already announced vehicle inventory feeds to Base, including the company I work for.

You might be thinking, “But Google doesn’t hold auctions. That’s eBay’s bag.” Right, but 80% of all web searches are computed by Google. A new Google buzzword, “Universal Search” is further integrating Google properties into the main search results–just when eBay is stepping out.

I can’t wait until eBay ramps up its text advertising network efforts. Recently an advertising platform developed by the ShoeMoney group, AuctionAds, made it possible for anyone to easily put eBay auction advertisements on their website and make affiliate cash on user registrations and sales. The program signed up 17,000 members in the first 3 months of its existence, and serves about 400,000 clicks a day. Click the last link and read the comments for added “we love eBay ads” impact.

Both of these companies are wrapping their hands around buying and selling products online, and news of increased competition is only going to get better and better.