Advertising Policies

eBay Advertising Philosophy

eBay Advertising delivers performance at scale for marketers. We enable marketers to meet their objectives by reaching shoppers at every stage of the shopping journey, to drive consideration, trial, and purchase.

General Policies

User Value & Experience

Clarity

Your ad should clearly show your logo or company and product or service offering.

Messages must be clear and understandable. Simple, short, and consistent messages work better. Make words easy to read and avoid small font.

An ordinary person must be able to make an informed decision about any offer in your ad. This means your ad and landing page must have appropriate disclosures. See requirements for third party display advertisements below.

Respecting Users

Your ad must be suitable for eBay’s community.

You may not deceive users into providing their personal data without their consent. You may not misuse their personal data, including reselling to other companies who may misuse such personal data.

Ads should not block user flow or disturb the user. Ads should provide a clear distinction between third party ads and other site content.

eBay will not accept any advertisement or landing page that steals the cursor’s focus or controls the user’s web browser.

Quality of the Ad Creative

Industry Best Practices

Direct response messaging should have one clear call to action.

All ads must be clickable on the entire space.

Images, videos, logos, and text must be of high resolution, good quality, and legible. Please use animation carefully. Keep animation smooth and fluid, using slow motions and gentle faders.

eBay will not accept any advertisement that:

• Has flashing borders or lettering, or any other excessively repetitive animation;
• Contains Flash creative;
• Contains fake functionality, such as HTML drop down menus or search forms;
• Contains contact information, including phone numbers, unless part of your brand or company’s name or with eBay’s approval;
• Features or links to any defamatory, libelous, shocking, disrespectful, offensive, threatening, exploitative, controversial, or discriminatory material;
• Contains rich media expandables, floating ads, or pop unders;
• Contains any spyware or malware;
• Redirects to any unregulated user generated content; or
• Is misleading or deceptive in any way.

For any third party display advertisements, your landing page:

• must be fully functional;
• must match the offer being made in the advertisement;
• must open in a new window; and
• must contain easily accessible, full terms and conditions of any offer you make in your ad.

Ads for items that are available for sale on eBay should link directly to that item, to your eBay store or to a page within the eBay domain.

eBay adheres to the IAB creative guidelines listed here for all standard IAB placements. Custom placements or high impact seasonal placements may have different specs.

Custom Placements and High Impact Seasonal Placements

All custom placements and high impact seasonal placements must adhere with eBay policies. We will work with your team for any custom placements or high impact seasonal placements on the eBay site, which may require the use of eBay fonts and colors or adherence to the seasonal style guide developed by our marketing team. Backgrounds for custom placements will typically use a plain white or light gray color.

Ad Content

Compliance

It is your responsibility to ensure that all product claims, warranties, guarantees or other assurances comply with applicable laws and regulations.

We reserve the right to not display any advertising that in our discretion may violate applicable law, industry standards or eBay policy.

Brand Consistency

We reserve the right to reject any advertisers in our sole discretion. We do not accept any advertisement that competes with eBay in our sole discretion. Your ad may not mimic the eBay brand, including copying the eBay brand colors.

We do not accept advertising related to or encouraging any sensitive or offensive matters or that conflict with the eBay brand, including, but not limited to:

• Illegal gambling;
• “Bait and switch” tactics;
• Products with exaggerated, questionable, or unrealistic health claims;
• Promotion, glorification, or any suggestion of violence, crime, sex, obscenity, military conflict, terrorism, hate speech, or unlawful activity;
• Firearms, ammunition, weapons, or explosives;
• Nudity or adult content, including adult sexual products;
• Illegal drugs or substances;
• Religion or politics;
• Email aggregators;
• Services with fraud risk, such as money wiring services, payday loans, credit repair, or escrow services;
• Services that may be illegitimate or illegal, including “Free Money” or “Work At Home” offers, Ponzi schemes, or fake IDs;
• Surgery or body enhancement services;
• Any securities (such as a stock or note);
• Websites primarily focused on collecting personal data for remarketing or other purposes;
• Any other item that is listed on our Prohibited and Restricted Items.
• Any ads containing the above will be removed immediately.

The following types of advertisements are restricted and require eBay’s prior written approval:

• Online retailers that sell items they do not manufacture;
• Casinos and legal gambling;
• Health, beauty and adult hygiene products;
• Weight loss products or supplements;
• Swimsuits and undergarments;
• Prescription drugs and pharmaceuticals;
• Dating services or sites;
• Nonprofit organizations and civil or animal rights groups;
• Tobacco or tobacco-related products, other than ads for eBay stores or listings permitted by eBay;
• Alcohol, wine, or adult beverages, other than ads for eBay stores or listings permitted by eBay.
• Following sensitive events, we may remove or limit certain advertising.

Co-Branded Ads

The eBay name and logo are registered trademarks in the United States and internationally. Use of the eBay name or logo is only allowed if an individual or organization has a written license agreement with eBay. You must request permission at our Intellectual Property Permission Center for the use of eBay intellectual property, which includes:

• Any use of the eBay logo;
• Any use of eBay screenshots; or
• Any use of the eBay name in books, on merchandise, or for sponsorships, including conferences.

Third Parties and Third Party Rights

Generally

You are responsible for not infringing or violating the intellectual property rights or any other rights of third parties. We reserve the right to remove any ads that we suspect may violate a third party’s intellectual property or other rights in our sole discretion.

If you believe your trademark or copyright has been used improperly by an advertiser, please reach out to that advertiser or report this violation in our VeRO program. More information can be found here.

Competitive Messaging

Negative competitive messaging is not acceptable. Messaging must be relevant and can indicate advantages (competitive features, pricing, etc.) of your product over a competitor’s. However, any messaging that contains disparaging content is not acceptable.

Our Data Policies

Generally

You may not use data collected, received or derived from your eBay ad campaign, including targeting criteria, to build or augment any user profiles, including user profiles that are affiliated with any device or unique identifiers.

Use of our site is subject to eBay’s privacy policy.

Our use of “Advertisement” and “AdChoice”

We reserve the right to place “Advertisement,” “AdChoice” and/or other labels to denote advertising in connection with advertisements served on or off the eBay site.

More information about our AdChoice program can be found here.

Data Management Platform and Customer Match Policies

If you seek to transfer data to us through a data management platform or other customer match functionality, you represent that the data you transfer was collected lawfully and consistent with applicable laws and industry regulations, and that you have the necessary rights to leverage such data for targeting.

Pixel and Tagging Policies

Pixels and/or other tagging technologies require our prior written approval and must be for counting or other approved purposes only.

All tags must be secure, and all calls within a tag must be secure.

Blocking tags are not permitted.

Approved 3rd Party Vendors

3rd Party Servers and Technology Providers

Approved tag vendors are below. All other third party tags require our prior written approval.

Implementation instructions must be provided for inserting the click and impressions macros so our ad serving technology can serve the creative properly and track clicks and impressions. Our ad serving technology does not keep track of where macros should be inserted in non-approved third party vendors. Failure to provide instruction can prevent an on time launch.