When you go to  buy a new pair of shoes, how do you know which pair will fit better?

Of course, you try them on. You might even try a few pairs before you decide which ones are more suitable.

This post isn’t about buying shoes, although the point of trying things out before deciding on a winner is more to the point.

It’s the same with online advertising. Its best to try things out before you decide upon a winner. As an eBay seller you also advertise online. But how do you know if your eBay listing really is a winner?

Well, I have a new free tool you can use to find out and it’s called eBay Best Match Split Tester.

This nifty little tool allows you to input the click through rate (CTR) and the number of clicks for two similar eBay listings – The best internet marketers and online sellers are ALWAYS split testing something. It’s called beating the control – If you sell on eBay you might call it eBay Best Match optimization.

You have one listing and you always test something to try and beat it – that’s how you constantly improve your listings.

When you list something on eBay you should always place a second listing that is the same as the first listing but with one thing that is different. You should be doing this to test which eBay listing is the most appealing to your market, or which eBay listing gets more clicks from potential buyers.

eBay will show you the click through rate and number of clicks for your eBay listings.

To find your CTR and number of clicks in eBay goto..

– ‘My Account’ Tab

– Click ‘Search Visibility Analytics’

– Enter your eBay listing item number OR chose from the category list

– Your item list will appear, now click ‘Run Report’

– eBay will show you your ‘Unique Click Through Rate’ and the ‘Number of clicks’ for your listing.

Enter these numbers into the eBay Best Match Split Tester and compare to your second test listing numbers.

Here is an example of two similar listings but one had a different image.

Notice eBay listing A has a unique CTR of 1.61% and 281 unique clicks.

eBay listing B has a unique CTR of 1.26% and 221 unique clicks.

The difference between eBay listing A and eBay listing B might seem small at first – But it’s not.

The fact is, eBay listing B is 100% better than eBay listing A.

The difference in 1.61% and 1.26% based on the number of clicks each listing has, is a HUGE difference.

The actual numerical difference of 0.35% actually means that eBay listing B is 100% more effective at getting clicks than eBay listing A based on the number of actual clicks each listing received. The number of impressions is huge so capturing more clicks is vital to make more sales, wouldn’t you agree? (See the difference in sales listing B has to listing A in the example)

You don’t have to know how the numbers work as such, because the eBay Best Match Split Tester does it all for you. All you have to do is keep testing your eBay listings to make more sales and use the free eBay Best Match Split Tester to tell you which listing is the best one for eBay Best Match.

Watch the eBay Best Match Split Tester Video here >>

>> Free eBay Best Match Split Tester Video <<

eBay is saturated with products and if your search standing is not up to par your products are literally a needle in a haystack and will never be found by anyone.

How do you know if your product is a hot eBay product if potential buyers can’t even see your eBay listing?

People who buy from eBay generally search eBay in 2 ways.

They will type in a search term into the browser and hit the search button. eBay automatically shows best match items first but then they will chose the ‘show products with lowest price and shipping first’. Basically they are searching for the lowest priced product. It’s not a good thing to try and succeed by only listing the lowest cost products because someone else will inevitably be willing to work for less than you and eventually they will undercut your prices and you will be working for peanuts!

The second way people search eBay is with best match. To be found in eBay best match you need good feedback, good dsr ratings, an optimized eBay title and a product that sells when clicked on. Free shipping also helps.

But how the heck can you get sales in the first place to get a good search standing?

My eBay Best Match Boost Tutorial shows you a way to get around a low search standing but another simple way is to use the lowest price search on one or two of your lowest priced products to get traffic into your store.

If you sell a lot of a lower priced product you probably wont make much profit from those sales however, your search standing will increase for all your products. That includes any new products you list.

If your new higher priced products do sell well, your new listings will stay near the top of eBay best match search results and usually on the first page in a smaller niche category.

If your product continues to sell well, it might even appear on the first page of the search results in the ‘next level up’ category (the parent category), and that’s when you’ll get lots more sales.

Is the eBay category your selling in flooded with competition? Tell me by posting a message below..

Recently I was invited to attend a telephone conference and put a few questions to some of the heads of the eBay Best Match European Team and I asked a couple of awkward questions about eBay best match tips and eBay best match optimization. Some of the main points I will mention here.

How does the eBay best match work?

If you are ‘tech savvy’ you will know that search engines operate based on a mathematical formula namely an algorithm and eBay’s best match search is no different.

Key factors that influence eBay Best Match Optimization

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• Free shipping helps. Buyers like to see free shipping and eBay’s again rewards listings with free shipping. Yes if you include your shipping costs in your selling price you will pay a percentage to eBay in fees. eBay say “The amount of extra sales you generate by using free shipping will offset the small increase in the amount of fees you pay”

• It was confirmed that Feedback percentage is not as important as Dsr’s when it comes to determining search standing in eBay best match. High dsr ratings and seller status will affects search standing more than your feedback percentage.

• Keywords are important. Do not include any keywords in the title which are irrelevant to the product. If your listing obtains more search impressions and the buyer is not looking for that particular product this will have a negative effect on search standing.

• DO, include as many laser targeted relevant keywords in the title as possible. Basically anything that a buyer would type in to buy the exact product you are selling. For example people looking for Ipods are not looking for ipod skins so you would not include the word skins in your listing title and vise versa.

Some of the main points which came directly from the horses mouth (Tom Wagstaffe from eBay’s European best match team) are summarized here;

• Sales history is important, listings with more recent sales get more best match points

• The number of search impressions divided by the number of sales a listing receives is important. The eBay best match algorithm calculates a conversion rate for every buy it now listing. When a potential buyer types in a relevant keyword into the eBay search bar, every time a listing is displayed on the search page it gets an impression count. If the buyer clicks through and buys the product then that counts as a sale. Suppose your listing had 50 search impressions and generated 2 sales from those impressions, the conversion rate would be calculated like this;

(Number of Sales) ÷ (Search Impressions) x 100 = (conversion rate percentage)

2 Sales ÷ 50 Search Impressions x 100 = conversion rate of  4%

Listings with higher conversion percentages receive more eBay best match brownie points and the eBay Best Match Boost listing strategy shows you exactly how to make your buy it now listing conversion rates soar.

Anyone who grabs a copy of the eBay Best Match Boost listing strategy will also get to download the complete 50 minute conference call on MP3, where I get to ask a couple of questions confirming these key points with eBay’s top dogs. On this MP3, Tom Wagstaffe from eBay’s head office also reveals insider information on how to make sure you’re an eBay best match maverick!

eBay Best Match and related eBay articles:

• Ten tips to sell your unwanted presents on eBay (timesbusiness.typepad.com)
• eBay is a Style Barometer: Plaids, Rocker-Chic and Leather Jackets are Hot, Says Constance White (beet.tv)
• What eBay Can Teach the U.S. Treasury (blogs.wsj.com)