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Launching a product on bol: what does advertising really cost?

Lars Hurkmans·Co-founder·25 February 2026·Reading time 10 minutes

When launching a new product on bol you need to advertise, because you're not found organically yet. You estimate the cost of advertising with the average winning bid divided by conversion: that's your advertising cost per sale. In a worked example for computer glasses that comes to roughly 7 to 14 euros per sale, depending on the placement type.

This is part 8 of our product research series. In part 7 we did in-depth specification research for two product types: computer glasses and trail cameras. That showed there are enough specification options to differentiate yourself. Before we calculate profitability in part 9, we need to know what it costs to bring such a product to market on bol. In this article we look at advertising costs at launch: which placement types exist, how the auction works, and how you estimate the cost per sale and your advertising budget.

Why do you need to advertise a new product on bol?

Because a new product has no sales and no reputation yet, while bol puts the best-selling products at the top. Without sales you rank at the bottom and almost nobody finds you. Advertising buys visibility in the sponsored spots, so you still get found and land your first sales.

Bol's algorithm is set up so that the products most relevant to consumers get the highest position, and those are mainly products that sell a lot. Sales are therefore an important factor in reaching the top. A new product doesn't have those yet, so it starts low. In the trail camera category, for example, there were 473 products at the time of recording; as a new seller you quickly end up in the lowest positions. That means almost nobody buys your product, even if you meet all the filters, because most consumers don't look beyond the first page.

On a search results page, the first products carry a sponsored label. They're not there based on organic performance, they've paid for that spot. That's exactly what you want to do at the start: advertise on the spots where consumers search, so you still get found from a sponsored position. If a consumer applies filters, you stay in your sponsored spot as long as you meet those filters.

Advertising isn't free: for every click on your ad you pay bol an amount. That's why you want to know upfront what it costs and how to factor it into your profit calculation.

Which placement types are there for advertising on bol?

There are three placement types: the keyword page, the category page and the product page. You can buy an ad spot on all three, and you want to know the cost of each separately.

• Keyword page. The page a consumer sees after typing a search term, for example trail camera for outdoors. Sponsored products appear at the top. Important: bol's advertising algorithm only shows you on a keyword if you're also found organically for it, and bol determines that organic position largely based on what's in your title. So you need to work the relevant keywords into your title. How to set up that keyword strategy for advertising is covered in improving findability via sponsored products.
• Category page. When registering your product, you indicate which category it belongs to. You're automatically listed there, and you can advertise on it right away.
• Product page. Below a product there's a "you might also like" block, and the first spots in it are sponsored. How expensive advertising on a product page is depends on how relevant your product is within the category and among the other products.

For the category and product page there are only a few figures. For keywords it's more extensive, since there are many kinds of keywords.

What is the average winning bid and how does the auction work?

According to bol, the average winning bid is the average click price paid by the winning advertisers in the auction. It gives an indication of how expensive a placement type is. There are only a few ad spots per page, so sellers compete with a bid for that spot.

The auction works on a second-price basis. If you win the auction, you don't pay your own bid, but the bid of the seller in second place. Bol tracks what that has been over time and translates it into the average winning bid. For the keyword trail camera for outdoors, for example, there were 336 products, with only two sponsored spots at the top of the page, so those sellers have to compete with each other.

What you actually end up paying can be higher or lower than the average winning bid, depending on how relevant your product is. With a poor click-through rate (how many of the people who see you actually click) or a poor conversion rate, bol sees you as less relevant, and then you need to bid higher to win the auction. If your product performs well, it can be lower. In the research phase we don't know that yet, so we calculate conservatively using the average winning bid. Exactly how that auction determines who wins is covered in how bol's advertising system really works.

How do you find the average winning bid for the category and product page?

For the category and product page you read off the average winning bid in MarktMentor, via the Panorama or the product database. For the computer glasses, the average winning bid on the category page was around 58 cents and on the product page around 47 to 50 cents, at an average selling price of 15.99 euros.

The Panorama shows the average winning bid per category, and right next to it you see how that compares to the average selling price. The product database shows the average winning bid for the product page per product; you won't see the category page's bid there directly, that comes via the Panorama or via a single product's visibility insights. If you work with saved groups in the product radar, you see the average winning bid of the product pages for all your saved products in one overview.

The 58 cents, the 47 to 50 cents and the 15.99 euros are this niche's example figures at the time of recording. They fluctuate per measurement moment and aren't a standard; when launching for real, tie them to your own selling price.

How do you find the right keywords and their average winning bid?

For keywords you reverse-engineer the competition: for each relevant product you look at which keywords it's found under, how much traffic those keywords bring, and whether the seller advertises on them. That's how you build up a list of relevant keywords and their average winning bid.

You do this via a product's visibility insights in MarktMentor. For a computer glasses product in the research, the average winning bid on the keywords was around 1.13 euros, versus 58 cents for the category. So the keyword pages are considerably more expensive than the category pages. Within those keywords there's spread: in the example, seven keywords were cheaper than 50 cents and seven more expensive than 1.50 euros.

Next you look at which keywords actually deliver traffic, since not every keyword is equally relevant. The impression distribution showed that most keywords gave few impressions and that one keyword stood out: it accounted for about 20 percent of all this seller's keyword impressions. The data showed the seller was actually advertising on it too: the average winning bid was around 95 cents, they sponsored it on 16 of the past 90 days, and ranked in second position. The broader search volume showed that the main keyword, blue light glasses without prescription, also appeared in ten other search queries. So by using a specific keyword like that, you immediately get found on many variants too.

Repeat this for several competitors, and you'll see the same keywords recur and find new ones, such as computer glasses, screen glasses and blue light glass. You also pay attention to category choice: one seller had their glasses classified not just as computer glasses but also as gaming glasses, pulling traffic from two categories. You build up that overview of all relevant keywords with their average winning bid in MarktMentor's niche explorer, where you search bol's keywords. For the computer glasses, the average of the relevant keywords came out to around 1.01 euros.

How do you calculate the advertising cost per sale?

You divide the average winning bid by the conversion rate. The conversion rate is what share of visitors buys; for the computer glasses it was around 7 percent, fluctuating between 6 and 7 percent. You pay per click, so at a conversion rate of 7 percent, you need about fourteen clicks for one sale. The average winning bid divided by that conversion rate gives you your advertising cost per sale.

With the three placement types from the computer glasses example, that works out as follows:

You get the conversion rate from the Panorama. Whether these amounts are a lot or a little depends on the selling price you choose, and this cost per sale stays roughly the same whether you sell a cheap or an expensive model, because it's based on the average winning bid. These are illustrative worked examples from this article, not expected results: conversion fluctuates, and what you actually pay differs with your own product's relevance.

How much advertising budget do you need to launch?

You estimate that by determining how many products you want to sell through advertising. In the example you buy in 500 computer glasses and sell half, 250 units, through advertising to build a strong organic position. Multiply the advertising cost per sale by those 250 units, and it costs about 2,071 euros via category pages, 1,678 euros via product pages, or 3,605 euros via keyword pages.

The idea behind this is a common launch strategy: you advertise heavily at the start to generate sales and thus build an organic position, then scale advertising back afterwards. These advertising costs belong in your marketing budget, and therefore in your profit calculation. Many sellers do work through their purchase and shipping costs, but don't properly account for advertising costs, and as a result end up not being profitable. You can also take the average of the three placement types as a single budget figure.

The 500 units, the 250 through advertising, and the amounts of 2,071, 1,678 and 3,605 euros are again illustrative worked examples. They depend on your average winning bid, your conversion rate, your selling price and how many you want to move through advertising. In part 9 we factor these advertising costs into the profit calculation.

What does advertising cost for the trail cameras?

For the trail cameras the method works the same way, but the amounts are higher. The average winning bid for the category and product page was around 1.16 and 1.40 euros, and on keywords around 1.92 euros on average. Across the board, advertising for the trail cameras is therefore more expensive than for the computer glasses.

For the trail cameras, you read the average winning bid for keywords more quickly via the Panorama, using the keyword insights. That's an overview of all keywords linked to the category, with each keyword's category relevance and average winning bid. The higher the category relevance, the more relevant the keyword: the keyword trail camera was used by about 60 percent of products and was therefore relevant, trail camera night vision turned out to be highly relevant, while something like SD card 128 gigabyte was much less relevant.

Filter, for example, on keywords with at least 10 percent category relevance and sort by search volume, and trail camera for outdoors, with night vision and wifi with app come out on top, with wildlife camera as a possible synonym for trail camera. Terms like solar panel and professional are less relevant. Among the remaining relevant keywords, about 60 percent cost more than 2 euros on average and about 20 percent cost less than 25 cents. We cover the full cost and profit calculation for the trail cameras in part 9. These percentages and amounts are also example figures from this article, not a standard.

Summary: what does advertising cost at a launch?

• Why advertise. A new product has no sales and starts at the bottom, since bol puts the best-selling products at the top. Advertising buys visibility in the sponsored spots.
• Three placement types. The keyword, category and product page. On a keyword you're only shown if you're also found organically for it, so you work the relevant keywords into your title.
• Average winning bid. The average click price paid by winners in the auction. You pay the runner-up's bid, and what you actually pay differs with your product's relevance.
• Cost per sale. Average winning bid divided by conversion rate. In the computer glasses example, about 6.71 to 14.42 euros per sale, depending on the placement type.
• Budget. Estimate it based on how many units you want to sell through advertising to grow organically, and factor it into your profit calculation.
• All amounts are illustrative worked examples, not expected results.