How to Get Targeted for Bonus eBay Bucks Offers

Question

Perhaps the most common question I hear in one form or another is:

How can I get myself targeted for bonus eBay Bucks offers?

eBay releases lucrative bonus Bucks offers most months of the year, and around four times per month. (See Ebay Bucks, Gift Card Deals, & Timing Your eBay Purchases for lots of useful info on eBay Bucks and bonus offers.) Some people, including myself, get these targeted offers consistently while others complain of never getting them.

How to get yourself targeted?

Short Answer

I don’t know.

Long Answer

First, to get eBay Bucks at all, you need to enroll – it is not automatic.

Second, you still won’t get bonus offers if you aren’t subscribed to receive spam emails from eBay. Here’s how to subscribe for that: go to Account Settings (found on the top left of the page, under your name), then Communication Preferences (top-left), then Promotions and Surveys (bottom of the page), then General Email Promotions.

Personally, I enrolled in everything. Here is what my account looks like:

Screen Shot 2015-12-16 at 12.48.46 AM

‘Okay, Okay, but I’m still not getting the offers!’

I don’t know any other tricks. It’s odd that some of us get these consistently and some of us not at all. A few possibilities:

  • Maybe only mildly used accounts get these offers? No way, too many indicators that this is not the case.
  • Maybe only newer accounts get Bucks Offers? I doubt this will hold water.
  • Maybe only older accounts get Bucks Offers? Again, this probably won’t hold.

Conclusion: I don’t know.

Bear in mind that eBay allows us to have more than one account. Although you’ll probably want to keep your main account with all the positive feedback for selling purposes, you can open up a second account and use that one for buying. Maybe the new account will get targeted with bonus offers for reasons which are unclear.

Note: eBay does not allow us to enroll more than one account in eBay Bucks. When trying your luck on a new eBay account, first un-enroll the current account from eBay Bucks and then enroll the new one in eBay Bucks.

Tips & Suggestions

In the comments of this post, there are a few suggestions on how to get yourself targeted. Here are two that I found interesting:

  • Russ has an interesting theory that if you click-through eBay’s marketing emails, that gets you targeted for bonus offers. Try for a month or two clicking on some of their ‘Mystery Deals’ and other offer/ad emails and see if that helps.
  • Mark says he called in and asked the to target him. Although they claimed not to have any power to do so, he hasn’t missed a bonus offer since.
  • Readers suggest that accounts which are active in that you make purchases, earn eBay Bucks and generally browse the eBay site, are more likely to get targeted.
  • Mike suggests simply opening a new eBay account and hopefully the new one will get targeted. First un-enroll your old eBay account from eBay Bucks then enroll the new account in eBay Bucks; eBay allows us to have multiple accounts but only allows us to have one account enrolled in eBay Bucks.
  • Another reader suggests un-enrolling from promotional email, then re-enrolling a few days later.

Also, note that once you get on the wagon you should continue getting the offers. The main thing is just to get on that promotional list in the eBay system and then you just stay on it indefinitely.

Reader Input

Does anyone have a trick to get targeted with bonus offers? Did you ever do something that triggered it? Any patterns you saw regarding who gets them and who doesn’t?

Please let us know. There are many people who would like to hear…

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28 Comments
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Kevin Busbee
Kevin Busbee (@guest_576893)
April 3, 2018 00:17

Buying something!! lol Works everytime for me, I thinks that will trigger the promo offers because its enticing to purchase something and then you go and use your offer to purchase something else! Great Strategy by Ebay…Double the sales!!

Brandy
Brandy (@guest_408896)
May 21, 2017 14:45

Vie had my account as a buyer only since 2009. I get all the offers and mostly only purchase during them. At first I think I only got one or two a month but then I started to always keep my cart full waiting and made 2or more large purchases during those periods and now I get them all the time.

xgerman
xgerman (@guest_261607)
May 23, 2016 13:35

I got eBay bucks promotions for a while and then it suddenly stopped. Not sure what changed that.

Dan
Dan (@guest_209241)
December 16, 2015 13:53

Just as a data point I noticed I wasn’t getting targetted until I started making enough purchases to be able to redeem an eBay bucks voucher. Once I redeemed that, bam, I was on the list.

Homer
Homer (@guest_209232)
December 16, 2015 13:37

Another data point. I’m only occasionally active on eBay and started looking at a few things after about a year of inactivity. I did not subscribe to ANY promotional emails, but was twice targeted with eBay bucks (4x/5x) in the last couple of months.

SteveX
SteveX (@guest_209202)
December 16, 2015 12:21

Just my take. I rarely (only if i really need something) buy when i dont have an offer. I get targeted regularly. (If not each time)

Just conjecture, but if i were ebay.. if you buy without bucks bonuses constantly, i would not target. Why give more money to a user whod buy anyway?

However, if your a person who can be prompted to buy with an offer, they should target you.. they certainly have enough data on their users to fo that.

i cant specifically quantify that, but if i were ebays marketing/dev team id sure try to write that code.

Russ
Russ (@guest_209198)
December 16, 2015 11:57

Step 1: Opt in for all their emails
Step 2: Open many (or all) the emails when they come
Step 3: Click through to ebay every few days from the latest email
Step 4: Repeat steps 1-3 for 3-6 weeks
Step 5: Enjoy ebay bucks offers when they start coming in
Step 6: (optional) set up a filter in your email program to move all the ebay emails to another folder (just remember to check it for bucks emails)

Why I think this works: email marketers track opens and clickthroughs. If you show you actively respond to their emails, they will keep sending more and more of them. You need to look like a hot prospect.

My 10+ year old account was never targeted for bucks offers. I opted in to their emails back in May but still didn’t get the offers. In August I started opening and clicking through, then in Sept I started getting targeted and have received nearly every offer mentioned here on DoC.

Evan
Evan (@guest_209265)
December 16, 2015 14:36

I don’t know. It really doesn’t apply to my situation. I enrolled for eBay Bucks about a year ago, opted in for promotional emails. Didn’t get any offer until late April or May. I then started being targeted and I got almost every offer until late September. At that point I made a big gc purchase with 5x bucks and a discount coupon. Haven’t been targeted since, for about 3 months now. I occasionally click through the emails they send, keep getting a lot of junk from them, but now bonus bucks.

Evan
Evan (@guest_209267)
December 16, 2015 14:37

*no bonus bucks

Karen
Karen (@guest_209667)
December 17, 2015 20:35

I have the exactly the same experience.

Parkerthon
Parkerthon (@guest_209194)
December 16, 2015 11:42

Just a thought, but its no doubt a database app thats picking accounts to send offers to. Perhaps some of the least fortunate could try unsubscribing and resubscribing to the marketing email options. Could trigger something that fixes your account in the system.

Parkerthon
Parkerthon (@guest_209193)
December 16, 2015 11:39

Since signing up for the bare minimum in marketing emails 6 mo ago I haven’t missed a single offer. I am a long time ebayer(1999) and I buy/sell on my account. Opened new account for wife. She hasn’t missed any either in 2-3mo now. Definitely a mystery why some people don’t get targeted as often as others.

Mark
Mark (@guest_209192)
December 16, 2015 11:39

I manage 4 Ebay accounts (my own, wife’s, mom’s, dad’s). For a long time my account was the only one not getting targeted. Several months ago I called up Ebay and straight up asked them to start targeting me with increased Ebay bucks offers. The rep said it wasn’t up to them but the marketing dept, they couldn’t help me, etc. I said OK and hung up.

I haven’t missed a targeted offer since 🙂 Just call and ask, y’all.

JJ
JJ (@guest_418838)
June 11, 2017 11:45

I just called eBay cusotmer service 1 (866) 540-3229 (Sunday AM). Got connected to a rep in the Philippines (I believe, from the accent). She said the promotion is given out randomly, and there was no way for her to add me to any list. Maybe I’ll try calling technical support 1 (866) 961-9253 tomorrow… spent enough time on that today.