EBay Resumes Google Advertising

EBay resumed its Google AdWords advertising today, but not at its
former levels.

“We are now slowly turning AdWords back on, in a much more limited
way than before,” eBay spokeswoman Catherine England told
internetnews.com in an email.

Last week, eBay spokesman Hani Durzy said the company was “experimenting” with other methods to optimize traffic
to its site. The move followed Google’s recently canceled plans to
host an event in Boston, the site of this year’s eBay Live conference, to
protest a clause in eBay’s terms of service that prohibits merchants
from using Google Checkout.

But Durzy said that while eBay was pleased Google canceled the
controversial “Freedom Party,” the timing of its experiment was mere
coincidence.

Still, there seemed to be a bit of love loss between the long-time
partners/rivals and a source familiar with the matter said the
connection between eBay’s displeasure with Google’s Boston party and
eBay’s decision to withhold its enormous ad spend was real.

So it’s no surprise that though eBay came back to Google today, it
was with announced reservations.

“The test we began last week was successful,” England said.

“We found that we were not as dependent on Google AdWords as some may
have thought. By re-allocating our marketing dollars to our other
partners, such as Yahoo!, AOL and MSN, we were able to increase
traffic and find efficiencies that will enable us to drive more value
to our sellers and partners going forward.”

In a statement emailed to internetnews.com, Google said eBay remains a valued partner: “Over the last seven years, we have worked closely with eBay to drive customers to their site and build value for their business and the business of their sellers. We look forward to a continued partnership.”