Marketplace advertising means surfacing your products on Trendyol, Amazon and Hepsiburada through sponsored formats on the right searches, and managing ad spend against an ACOS target. A marketplace shopper already arrived to buy something — the ad simply puts your product at the front of the shelf at that exact moment.
ACOS: The Compass of Marketplace Advertising
ACOS (Advertising Cost of Sale) is the ratio of ad spend to ad-driven sales. There is no universal good ACOS: a high ACOS is normal during a launch (you are buying visibility), while for a mature product it should stay below your profit margin. To see the full picture, track TACOS as well (ad spend as a share of total sales) — in healthy growth, advertising also lifts organic sales and TACOS declines over time.
Listing First, Ads Second
- Advertising a weak product page is like carrying water in a leaky bucket — the clicks arrive, the conversions do not.
- Title: it should include searched terms naturally, not read as a pile of keywords.
- Images: the first image earns the click, the rest do the convincing — use-case and detail shots are essential.
- Review management: pushing a low-rated product with ads only raises your costs; fix the review problem first.
Three Platforms, One Strategy
- Trendyol: the highest volume in Turkey; campaign periods (Efsane Günler) call for a separate budget plan.
- Amazon: the most mature ad infrastructure; the discovery-to-harvest system (auto to manual) works most clearly here.
- Hepsiburada: a strong audience in electronics, home, and mother-and-baby categories; relatively low competition means faster visibility.
- If the budget comes out of one pocket, management should follow one strategy — a team that can compare platforms side by side shifts budget to the most efficient channel.
How Advertising Affects Organic Ranking
On marketplaces, ads and organic are not separate worlds: the sales velocity and conversion rate that advertising creates also lift a product's organic ranking. Well-managed advertising builds a self-reinforcing loop — ad sales lead to higher rankings, which lead to organic sales, which lead to more efficient advertising.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which marketplace should I start with?
Start with the platform where your category is strongest: Trendyol when volume is the priority, Amazon when you are targeting global reach, Hepsiburada when you want to avoid heavy competition. Analysis turns that decision into a data-backed one.
Can you grow on a marketplace without advertising?
It is getting harder for new products and stores — the first page is full of ads. Advertising is the investment that kick-starts organic growth.
How long does it take to see results?
Traffic starts on day one; getting ACOS to your target and seeing the organic effect usually takes 4-8 weeks of optimization.
If you would rather leave this to a specialist: take a look at our Marketplace Ad Management service, get your free AI Visibility Scorecard, or request a proposal for a 15-minute call — let us map out your roadmap together.