| eBay came to us with a very specific, yet complex and exciting challenge. They wanted us to lead their emerging channels rapid innovation process, which included the launch of 8 new social channels in 2015. We were tasked with taking a hands-on approach to learning the long term viability of these channels against three core KPI's: Traffic, Engagement and Perception Shift. |
| With it's incredibly passionate community and over 150 million active users, Imgur qualified in terms of numbers and audience. The only problem: the community was equally passionate about not being advertised to on the Imgur platform and had made that apparent to brands. But as one of the biggest marketplaces in the world, where one can find just about anything, eBay had a unique opportunity to speak to the Imgur audience via subject matter that appealed to the community, in a voice that they appreciated. We identified subject matter and items that were popular on Imgur, aligning efforts with eBay's larger marketing calendar, and collaborated with the experts at Imgur to craft original promoted galleries using both community members' and original content to tell the story. Content was credited back to the original poster within sponsored galleries to drive user acknowledgement and provide brand credibility on the platform. Each post was expertly crafted to speak in the specific voice of the Imgur community as to not deliver advertising content but to truly add value and provide relevant content of interest to the community. The community response to the content was overwhelmingly positive. Even the Press noticed! More than once. Promoted galleries include, but aren't limited to: The Ultimate High Flying Father's Day – Featuring Drones It'll Be Worth Something Some Day – Featuring Vintage Toys How Is Virtual Reality Real When Our Eyes Aren't Real? – Featuring VR Tech The Spoiled Cat's Guide To Holiday Gifts – Featuring Cat Toys Welcome Our New 3D Printing Overlords – Featuring 3d Printers Revitalize Game Night With These Awesome Board Games - Featuring Board Games |
| The community loved the content and praised eBay for doing advertising right on Imgur. eBay posts received an average upvote rate of 77.43% and reached as high as 92.53%. Each post had an average CTR of 1.43% and reached as high as 7.79%. The content had an average engagement rate of 2.4%, reaching as high as 10.53%, setting new brand benchmarks for the platforms. From a business perspective, the content generated a total of 15.8MM impressions and 307K engagements. Of all sessions (verified and tagged traffic to site) to ebay.com from the Imgur platform, 71% were generated from eBay published content. This demonstrates how well the content resonated with the Imgur audience, allowing the brand to attribute platform success back to the branded content. Furthermore, eBay content on Imgur generated 207K clicks, which accounted for 68% of total engagements for the brand on the platform. |
