The business model which has so successfully monetised the advertising strategy of the big search engines will be hoped to achieve big rewards for the online retailer. The system, named 'eBay AdContext' will roll out sometime this week, and while initial competition from the search engines will be fierce, it is expected that the size and strength of the eBay brand will ensure that the market will slowly bend to the addition of another big player.
With popularity high and a huge user base, eBay is in the position of being both a newcomer and an old hand at the business of online competition and marketing.
Michael van Swaaij, eBay Research's chief strategy officer revealed the news in Las Vegas this week.
"It's a way for websites to get an additional monetisation stream," said Mr Swaaij, explaining the impetus for webmasters to add the adverts to their pages.
A valuable stream of revenue for smaller web publishers, such as small site owners and Bloggers, the introduction of eBay adverts could well provoke the introduction of a swathe of new Blogs and sites exclusively focussed on the buying and selling of goods through the eBay system. Ostensibly this will then direct users who click through to eBay pages on the product with the option to make a bid or an immediate purchase of the relevant product. This system could eventually replace the need to visit and search on the eBay site at all, as simply searching on a search engine and clicking through to one of the top results could take you to a third party page or site with eBay links set up to drive through traffic on that particular topic.
One could almost ask - what need for the eBay site at all?
It's a question that raises issues all too familiar to the search engines in their drive to effectively monetise their traffic. It looks like one more big name will be joining them this week.
