Ad Policies

Europe
Welcome to the eBay Ads Policies!

These policies describe eBay Advertising’s philosophy and policies. Our policies are not intended as legal advice or to be all-inclusive. You are required to comply with all applicable laws, regulations, and industry guidelines, including from the FTC and CARU.


If you are an agency purchasing ads on behalf of an advertiser, you must ensure that the advertiser complies with these policies and all applicable terms. We reserve the right to change these policies at any time.

These Advertising Policies were posted and are effective from 22 October 2018.

1. General Policies

1.1 User Value & Experience

Clarity

Your advertisement 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.

1.2 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 banner
  • 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. You must also ensure that the brand logo is clearly visible

eBay will not accept any advertisement that:

  • Has flashing borders or lettering, or any other excessively repetitive animation
  • Contains Flash creative
  • Plays sound without being user initiated
  • 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, libellous, 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
  • 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
  • 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 shop or to a page within the eBay domain.

1.3 Homepage Policies

  • No retail advertisers are allowed, except first party clients, and traffic must stay within the eBay environment
  • No campaigns co-branded with retail are allowed
  • No dating or adult websites
  • Alcohol advertisers allowed, subject to approval
  • Grocery advertisers allowed subject to approval
  • No gambling or gaming
  • Lottery advertisers allowed, subject to approval

1.4 Other Discretionary Policies

  • Financially regulated advertisers allowed, subject to eBay approval
  • Alcohol advertising: must have 20+ targeting applied, and must not be shown against any children’s items e.g. toys, children’s clothing etc.
  • Adult advertising: must have 20+ age targeting applied
  • Third party retail allowed, subject to approval (except on the eBay.co.uk Homepage as described above), but not for competitor marketplaces or eBay Inc. competitors
  • Medicinal/Health advertising: prescription only – subject to approval

2.1 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 refuse any advertising that in our discretion may violate applicable law, industry standards or eBay policy.

2.2 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 colours.

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
  • Adult content, including adult sexual products – subject to approval
  • Illegal drugs or substances
  • Religion or politics
  • Email aggregators
  • Services with fraud risk, such as money wiring services
  • Payday loans – subject to approval
  • Services that breach UK or EU regulations
  • 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 policy

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
  • Alcohol – subject to approval
  • Health, beauty and adult hygiene products
  • Weight loss products or supplements
  • Swimsuits and undergarments
  • Prescription drugs and pharmaceuticals
  • Dating services or sites
  • Non-profit organisations and civil or animal rights groups
  • Tobacco or tobacco-related products, other than ads for eBay shops or listings permitted by eBay

Following sensitive events, we may remove or limit certain advertising.

2.3 Co-Branded Ads

The eBay name and logo are registered trademarks in the UK and internationally. Use of the eBay name or logo is only allowed if an individual or organisation has a written license agreement with eBay. You must request permission from eBay’s Brand Permission team, as well as raising this with your eBay point of contact, for the use of eBay intellectual property, which includes:

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

2.4 Advertisement take down policy

eBay offers an enviable, brand-safe environment for advertisers, However, in the event that an advertiser deems that an ad placement on ebay.co.uk has been served in an inappropriate environment and requires the placement (or entire campaign) to be removed, they should contact their sales representative or [email protected] to request the advertisement(s) are actioned. For direct campaigns, ebay.co.uk will remove the relevant ad placements within two working days. For programmatic campaigns ebay.co.uk will, if required, assist advertisers to change the targeting of the campaign to remove it from the incorrect environment. Based on the complexity of these types of requests this will take between 2 and 14 working days.

3. Third Parties and Third Party Rights

3.1 General

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.

3.2 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.

4. Our Data Policies

4.1 General

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.

4.2 Our use of “Advertisement” and “AdChoice”

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

4.3 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.

4.4 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.

5. Approved Third Party Vendors

Third Party Servers and Technology Providers

Check with your eBay point of contact to verify whether your tag vendor is approved for ad delivery on eBay marketplace sites.

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 the campaign from going live.

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