With Promotions Manager , sellers create discount promotions that draw attention to a set of items by offering discounts on the item's regular sales price.

The Marketing API works with listings that have been created with the Trading API as well as items that are managed with the Inventory API.

Perhaps the best thing about promotions is that eBay lets sellers create item promotions for free. There is no fee associated with creating item promotions and there is no fee associated with selling items that are part of a discount promotion.

Note: The Marketing API is available to any seller who has an active eBay Store subscription. For details on the Promotions Manager requirements and restrictions, see the Marketing API Overview.

Discount promotion types

Promotional discounts can be a either a percentage off the standard price of an item, or a monetary amount that's subtracted off the standard price. With Promotions Manager, discounts can apply to either one item, a set of items, or an entire order.

You can configure two types of discount promotions using Promotions Manager:

  • Item price markdown promotions – A straight-forward monetary or percentage discount off the standard price of a listing. Sellers "markdown" the price of a selected set of listings.
  • Item promotions – Known as "threshold promotions," these are more nuanced than markdown promotions because the buyer needs to meet an established "threshold" before the discount triggers. By configuring threshold promotions, you can create discounts such as:
    • By 1 Get 1 Free
    • Spend $60, Get 20% off
    • Buy 2, get 10% off, Buy 3 get 15% off (Volume Pricing)

This rich set of operations lets you create client-side dashboards where you can use getPromotions to populate a seller's dashboard, then offer management actions on any of their currently-configured promotions.

Highlighting Promotions Manager discounts

Listings in active promotions are highlighted with teasers that draw attention to the discounted items. Teasers are placed in all eBay buyer flows and they can display on Search Result pages, the View Item pages of promoted listings, and within cart and checkout flows.

Linking to your promotions

eBay helps you promote your discounted items by creating an Offer page for each promotion you run.

The URL for the Offer page is static, so the link you use doesn't change if you modify the promotion. eBay also creates an All Offers page for every seller who runs promotions, giving sellers a way to publicize all their promotions at once.

Because the Offer and All Offers pages are hosted by eBay using static URLs, sellers can advertise their promotions by publishing those URLs on their social networks, websites, and other marketing collateral. With static links, sellers don't need to worry about their links becoming stale as they update and modify their promotions.

Creating effective promotions

You can use the Marketing API to:

  • Merchandise and cross promote seller items
    Cross-promote items by featuring them in a related-items module on the promoted item's page. This works best when you highlight other eligible items that are related to, or complement, the other items in the promotion.

    While a Buy 2 or Spend $50 discount encourages interest in the items you list, being able to view related items in your inventory encourages positive buyer behavior. Even if a buyer doesn't purchase the discounted item, seeing related items has its own appeal and it’s a great way to encourage buyers to explore what else you have on offer.

  • Manage margins
    The Marketing API lets you choose the promotion strategy that is right for your business. If you don't think a flat discount is the best option for your target audience, then you can implement a 25% off if you spend over $75, or perhaps a 15% discount if you buy 3 or more. The wide variety of discount types means you can craft appealing promotions while managing your margins in the process.

  • Combine Promoted Listings with discount promotions
    Use a Promoted Listings campaign to raise the visibility and showcase your discounted items. Here, when buyers view your discounted item's View Item page, you can promote the other listings in your store using cross promotions. By combining promotion types, buyers can be exposed to the other items in your store each time they click through to a View Item page via a Promoted Listing.

For more information on how to create effective promotions, see the Seller Center.

Reporting on discount promotion performance

Sellers can track the performance of their promotions with two types of reports. Call getPromotionSummaryReport and getPromotionReports to get statistics that can help you gauge your promotion activity and effectiveness, which can help you target future promotions.

Promotions Manager on Seller Hub

While sellers can take advantage of the Marketing API to create and manage their item promotions, they can also create and manage promotions using Promotions Manager (an app that's hosted by eBay on Seller Hub).

While the Promotions Manager application offers a nice GUI to set up and manage promotions, if you're creating sets of promotions, then the Promotions Manager interfaces in the Marketing API provide a powerful way to automate the creation and management of seller promotions.