Etsy Ads - How It Works
Here, we delve into tips on budgeting your ETSY ads and the ‘do’s and don’ts’ that we recommend you follow.
You can use Etsy ads to advertise the products you have within your store. The great thing about Etsy ads is you don't necessarily have to divide your daily budget between all of your items. At the bottom of each listing, you’ll see the check box for if you'd like each item to be part of your Etsy Ads campaign. You can edit these whenever you fancy. So you can have two listings advertised at once or all of them. It’s a flexible system that gives you control over what you wish to advertise.
When you have Etsy ads turned on you will find this question at the bottom of each listing whilst editing.
Sorting your SEO before activating Ads
Before you implement anything to do with your ads Etsy strongly recommend you research Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) on your listings beforehand. Having ads active is only a good idea when you have the correct traffic going to them.
Before activating your Ads it is essential that you know what traffic to bring in. If your listings do not meet the search criteria then all you’ll end up with is pointless views and a poor conversion rate (conversion rate is the percentage of successful purchases made by those who have seen your item).
When and where your ads are shown
Your adverts will appear within the Etsy search results and browsing pages, as well as on the Etsy app where it may show as a ‘similar listing’ and other market pages. What’s more, Etsy shares that they place adverts in areas that they think will drive the greatest performance. Etsy goes on to say that a buyer searching for certain products, and when/why they are doing it, helps them ascertain whether your product is right for them or not. For example, your keywords may clearly state that a product is 'gift for dad' and 'gardening quotes' - which could be the perfect product for someone searching for a gardening gift for their dads birthday.
What countries your Ads are viewable
Etsy will share your product ads in locations that your product is available. For example, if you only ship your products within the UK then adverts for your item should not appear outside the UK. You’ll be able to change your settings at any time within your delivery preferences, so if you decide to begin shipping an item elsewhere then the advertising conditions will extend to include those areas.
How do Etsy calculate the cost per click of my adverts?
The infamous world of algorithms makes its appearance in this section. Overall the predicted sales from an advert click is usually decided by how likely an individual is to purchase it. If the algorithm decides the buyer is likely to buy a listing then the Cost per Click (CPC) will be higher to ensure that your advert shows above others that are less likely to sell.
Setting your daily budget
The best piece of advice I ever read when it came to Etsy ads was simple: only daily budget what you can afford. It sounds simple, and in fairness it is, but you can easily overlook it and throw £10 without thinking about it. You can begin advertising with Etsy ads from $1USD (around 70p) per day - this means that once the allowance is used then Etsy will no longer advertise your product for the remainder of that day.
Note: You can increase the allowance whenever you like. The maximum about you can spend on advertising budget per day is $25USD (around £18 GBP).
It's really important to weigh up the chances of sales and the possibility of earnings when budgeting for your ads. If your items, for example, are under $2 (around £1.45 GBP) then there would be little point in you spending triple that on adverts - you'd have less expense just giving the products away and having no fees to pay! So, before you activate or increase your daily budget make sure you know how many items/of such items, you have to sell to make that back in profit. That way you'll also know how much profit is left and if it is worth using ads in the long run.
Remember with your stores that you should use Etsy Ads in conjunction with other platforms. Uploading your products and turning on your ads doesn't mean that sales will roll in. You should always continue to use the likes of social media and your own website blog, for example, to showcase your store. You should see Etsy Ads as a possible way to gain more traffic, not all of your traffic.
What Etsy ads look like
Your adverts will typically show in a row of other relevant adverts throughout the search pages of Etsy. It purely depends on what users search for, as to what product of yours will be on display.
Your advert will look exactly like any other listing on the search page, except it will have a small ‘ad’ link placed next to the product name.
Are Etsy ads worth it?
Well, personally yes. But I can understand that each and every shop is different. The best piece of advice I was given when I first started using ETSY Ads was as follows: Only put in what you can afford - there is no point setting your Ads to be ridiculously high and there is little chance of you making that amount back.
Do: Calculate if ETSY ads are for you and if so, budget correctly.
Don’t: Fully rely on Etsy Ads to bring all your traffic/sales.
So that's it! Our ETSY Ads roundup. Let us know what you think and if you think we've missed anything out let us know in the comments!
