A couple of weeks ago Etsy introduced Etsy Search Ads. Basically, at the top of most general searches, instead of having a row of “Recently Listed” items, Etsy places 4 promoted items that are somewhat related to the search term inserted in the search box. Below the ads are the items in order of “most relevant.” So, generally speaking, if you want to run a search ad on Etsy’s site, you would pick the items in your shops that DO NOT show up on the first few pages of search, so you can get to the top. however, if your items DO show up, then it would be a waste of money to have pay to have the same item appear twice on a search for, example, knit sweaters.
The search ads are based on impressions. An impression is every time the ad appears on someone’s screen. The key is to make a “good impression” so to speak, to encourage searchers to click on your item and, ideally, buy your product. If you buy a search ad, you can track how many impressions your items are getting, how many views are a result of those impressions (how many people actually click on the item) and then, the most important, how many sales have resulted from those clicks.
Because some of my items are on the first pages of their important searches, and some are not, I went with picking only ONE item to use as an ad from my MegansBeadedDesigns shop, and 3 items–3 pairs of earrings– from my Glamour365 shop to advertise. I chose to run them for a week, and maxed my budget at $10. That mean I won’t pay more than $10, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I will reach that amount, as I would have to make that many impressions worth in a week in order to do so. I tried to pick items to run that I thought were the most representative of my shop. Along with trying to make sales, I have also been attempting to use these ads as a way to increase brand awareness.
After 6 days of running my ads, these are my results and conclusions:
For MegansBeadedDesigns I used my green evil eye ring for my ad. My results: Impressions: 6,071, Spent: $6.01, Views: 35, Favorites: 5, Orders: 1, Revenue $8.94. I had used these tags: evil eye, eye ring, ring, eye
So while I did get a sale and 35 new favorites, I have already spent almost as much on the ad as how much I have made in sales FROM the ad. Unless some more of those favorites turn into actual customers, as a profiting venture it hasn’t really panned out. The result from my Glamout365 shop were even worse, but it could be that I used slightly more generic tags in order to obtain even more impressions:
Impressions and Views from Left to Right: Left: impressions: 1243, Views: 2, Center: Impressions: 2,021, Views: 6, Right: Impressions: 1,412, Views: 6
Total results from Glamour365 ads: Spent: $4.80, Impressions:4,676, Views:14, Favorites: 1, Orders: 0.
I had used these tags: blue earrings, earrings, dangle earrings, royal blue, costume jewelry, clip, and dangle.
Obviously, even those I haven’t gotten quite as many impressions as my MegansBeadedDesigns ad, I still fared much worse in my views and favorites results, not to mention no orders as a result either. Of course, I probably should have “wasted” my impressions on tags that were as generic as “costume jewelry” or “clip.” If I run an ad in Glamour365 again, I will follow closer to the choices I made with my MegansBeadedDesigns ad – choosing only one item to advertise, and selecting fewer tags that are more closely related to that item.
Before running more ads on Etsy, I think i would prefer to explore other off-site options. I became a member at Project Wonderful, and have started experimenting with their advertising options over there. When more results come of that, I’ll be sure to share my experience with it with my readers here! Hope this has been helpful to you are what decisions you make with Etsy advertising!
