5 Etsy sellers ran Etsy ads for a month, did we make any money?
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- Опубликовано: 23 мар 2022
- Are Etsy ads worth it? I gave 5 Etsy sellers money to run ads, and then we compared the results. THis video tells you if we earned money, lost money, or broke even!
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Thanks so much for "taking one for the team!" I've been eagerly looking forward to this video and it didn't disappoint. Thanks again!
Glad it was helpful!
Whew, what a timely message! I have a new, less than one month old shop and was thinking about ads. I've already had 6 sales and sounds like I'm fine without it. Thank you!
I would still use them on a low budget just to get keyword data if you need it.
The most honest and useful video about ads! Thank you!
Glad it was helpful!
Hey Kara, Greetings from little 'ol England. You, without doubt, give the most valuable and insightful information than any other Etsyer (Let's make this a well known term!) Looking forward to you moving on from 43,000 to 143,000! Keep uploading!
Thank you!
I learn so much from you! Thank you....I've been telling everyone new to this (like me) all about you. THANK YOU!!
You are so welcome
Amazing information! I’m brand new to Etsy and it’s so hard to know whom to trust for accurate, practical advice. So many other channels and bloggers keep promising overnight success without doing any work - that is….IF you buy their super secret, totally legit courses! I’ve only just stumbled on your channel and have gotten so much concrete and realistic information in five short videos than I have in over a month of consuming content everywhere else! Thank you so much for all the work you put into this!
Thanks, i appreciate that. I try to be the non-guru channel.
love that you respond to so many/every (?) comment and the way you treat your channel, it seems determined to me! 💚
I try
Thank you so much!! I will take a loook at these 14 ads campagn strategies!!
You're so welcome!
Helpful info as always! Thanks for being willing to flush money down the toilet for us. 😄
I would say "any time," but I had to think about that!
I'm not happy that you lost money but I am happy that you did the experiment. I would be really interested if you ran the experiment in your vintage shop with other vintage sellers.
I think I'm done giving Etsy money for nothing at this point! But that did give me an idea about something I could do for vintage...
@@KaraBuntin Oooo looking forward to hearing about it.
Following!
I appreciate you posting the test results. My shop is one of a kind item sales and I use Etsy ads everyday. For me they work, but my average order is around $100 so there's some room for profit. Thank you for posting high quality videos to help us learn and grow our business
.
If my items were $100 each I'd probably be using ads as long as the profit was still there. It's not feasible for a lot of shops, though.
Thank you for the reminder to factor in fee costs when calculating profits from ads!
It makes me crazy when people don’t do that, it’s so obvious but everyone seems to forget to do it!
You just confirmed what I been gut feeling. Thanks
Thanks for watching
Thanks for this confirmation. I am definitely not trying ads.
You are so welcome
Thank you so much, I really thought that ads will increase my organic sales. NO more strategic spending!!
I thought so too, so that was surprising
Thanks so much for this video - it confirmed what I thought.
Glad it was helpful!
Love your thumbnail!
It's special for the Facebook group :)
I really appreciate the detailed breakdown and testing this out (and I am sorry you lost money). I've been toiling with adding in ads for a few of my newer products that are in areas with higher amounts of competition. So far I've decided instead of doing that to 1) work on improving my existing listings and the affiliated images 2) try to expand and diversify my listings, getting into similar but distinctly different areas than I was previously in, and 3) refining my social media strategy. So far this strategy seems to pay off. Given what you've shown here I think I'm just going to stick with what I'm doing now.
It wouldn't hurt to try some ads, just watch the cost and your profit margins!
Hi Kara, Thank you for this video. I am a new etsy seller, I sell photography prints and since I open my shop, a month ago I had ZERO sells. I am promoting my shop only through Pinterest. I had 40% discount for the opening of my shop but it was not a success, I was thinking to run ads but after this video of yours I am going to do more research. lot of love from Italy
Be careful about putting things on sale without having them on full price for a certain amount of time, that’s probably illegal in most places!
@@KaraBuntin oh DEAR, Than you for letting me know, I didn't know. So nice to see that you actually read and respond to the comments :)
I feel like the Ads help increase visibility and bring you into higher search. IF a decent product that will sell itself, maybe that’s a benefit for higher priced items? Love all your videos - thank you!!!!!
Michelle
It's the higher priced items part that's the key here, I think. The cost of the ads is so high at this point that you have to have a much higher profit margin to make it worth using. Losing money just for being seen higher in search isn't good.
Ohhhh LOVE this video! Id totally be interested in seeing more experiments with whatever neat things you can think of to experiment with! I'm SUPER surprised to hear you all didn't see continued success after you turned the ads off. I mean I have always totally thought any sales made during running ads would be factored into the actual reason we all get shown in search! (The listing quality score/sales/reviews/ect) I'm curious to know if that might just take time to be factored in... I can tell you I just ran pretty heavy on ads after coming back from being away for awhile. As soon as I stopped the ads the sales dropped off too. My items take 2-3 weeks to be created and ship out though so I wouldn't have thought I would see any major adjustments to listing quality score yet besides proving to sell.
For me my BEST listing was started out on ads. I cant quite put my finger on it but this thing gets more ad views faster than any other listing. Its high in ALL stats too! I can tell that Etsy just REALLY likes it! BTW, all my listings are pretty much the same just using different fabric.
I was surprised about the lack of continuity after the ads were turned off, too, that's what surprised me the most.
Thanks for your research and investment!
My pleasure!
Thank you. I am an etsy seller myself.
We pretty much all are here!
I'm having the same issues, I keep telling myself it will help with future sales, your experiment has only discouraged me more about selling on Etsy at all.
You don't need to use ads to sell on Etsy, though, And they can work for people with a higher profit margin who can absorb the cost of the ads. You just have to be really careful with it and not set the ads up and walk away.
I am sorry that you lost money but I really appreciate your testing Etsy Ads.
No worries!
I totally agree with that. End of last year Etsy put lots of ads themselves on Google and I got a lot of sales from Google ads every day, but it didn't affect my organic sales at all...I was thinking the same thing, if this item sold a lot, why I don't get also organic sales...Glad to hear it is also confirmed with even paid ads by the seller.
Interesting…
This is scary !! I will never understand why they made that big change on Ads a few years ago. I didn't use them but I saw a lot of people benefiting from it...😞
I used to make a lot of money from ads. Sadly, they don't work for me anymore.
I remember when etsy first started and signed up. When they allowed sellers to go the "manufacturing" route many sellers saw sales turn negative. I appreciate this video and the comments so far. It has def made my decision that esty is a rip off in my opinion. Yes, "some" sellers are making a profit; but it seems to me esty's original intent is no longer a viable avenue for the handmade seller. Just to try to make a sale seems too, too, tedious and time-consuming. Again, thanks for your informative video.
It’s not a rip off, but nobody is guaranteed to make money selling online no matter where they’re selling. I think the problem with Etsy is that there are so many people online saying that it’s super easy to sell on there, but it’s not any easier than anywhere else.
I agree with the findings. I dropped my spending budget to as low as Etsy would allow because I saw no results and spent WAY too much money. I am so frustrated with Etsy.
Their ads used to work a lot better when we could control the bids.
Thanks for the video - very helpful and interesting (and not surprising) results. I have wondered if Etsy no longer tells you what the shop name is (but instead says "Ad by Etsy seller" because of people like me who would not click on the ad and go directly to the shop so that the shop would not have to pay for the ad. It makes it much harder to find the seller unless, as you say, the shop logo is on the photo. Etsy keeps sending me emails saying I should restart my ads.
That could definitely be one of the reasons for hiding the names.
Since I’m switching out my store to digital, I turned on Etsy ads just to try and drive some traffic to these new listings. Especially since changing to digital has tanked my daily sales, well duh because it’s just like starting over. But anyway I’m not expecting to make money or keep them on, I just wanted to see if I could make some traction. Thanks so much for sharing your knowledge. It is much appreciated.
No problem!
I ran an etsy shop for more than 10 years. The many changes through the years got on my nerves and really put me off. For me, the whole thing went pear shaped when Josh Silverman took over. My shop is on hold since 2019 and I can't bring myself to open it again.
It's not as bad as people seem to think it is, compared to other platforms. Etsy definitely has its MASSIVE weaknesses, but the fees to sell on it are still lower than other platforms, and it does have a good reach for customers.
My experience was a look at the ad graph.. I got the feeling by the total drop once I stopped ads after 1.5 months than Etsy was punishing me for stopping ads. Maybe I misread the graph and it really just means how often AD LISTINGS were seen. I turned on the ads again and seem to get fewer responses than before. I am too new at Etsy to really know what is happening. But I have been not only shutting off keywords that were not targeting the right audience for my promoted product, as well as copying the most popular search terms and putting them in exact word order into my titles or tags. I learned early on to NOT market my nudes (fine art drawings or painting) because the porn market on Etsy surprised me and thus, the word "nude" would suck my ad budget completely, and to the horny audience, not fine art... so there. Thank you for this analytical video.
I'm sorry but I'm laughing at the mental image of the horny audience on Etsy. I believe it, you should see some of the keywords that the Google search tools say that Etsy is found for, it's pretty disgusting!
I recently did this as well. I made a few sales and ended up paying 1/4 of sales into ads. Having lower priced items, this was a total fail, but it was just something I had to try. I will say I was happy when I turned them off.
Me too, I wasn't sad to see that "You're missing out" notification they show you. I didn't feel like I was missing anything but my money while running the ads.
I do a nice little bit of sales in digital items - been watching my ad spending closely as an experiment. YTD I've paid $135.94 for ads and I've made $138.77 (I set it to $1/day, but for a bit of time I upped it to $2/day, nothing too crazy.) So according to Etsy, break-even. I've now shut them off for the next little while and we'll see what happens. Almost makes me think it's a scam for etsy to just make more in fees...
That's not a break even, though, because you paid all the fees on those sales!
@@KaraBuntin and because my items average about $3 each, I'm already paying a s*** ton of fees. It's a no-win situation. now that I've shut off the ads I'm sure my traffic will drop stop.
I joined you same issue, I have been running ads for 2 years now.
I would be interested to know what the average price was of the listings advertised in your experiment.
Two were around $2 for basic downloads, two were around $8 for patterns, and one was at $10 for wall art.
You can get a boost after you turn ads off for a product BUT it has to be a product that was generating sales + favorites. So I had a couple of products that sold through ads but was also click-happy - meaning the ROAS wasn't great and eventually fell below two dollars tho they were getting regular sales.
So I turned them off BUT all those clicks ended up giving the products 100+ faves apiece so when the ads got turned off I still made regular sales of the products. So it seems to be a combination of signals, not just sales that will determine whether an item continues to sell once the ads are turned off.
I don't know, I don't think that's always the case across the board. My listings were getting favorites and sales but they were dead after ads. There are too many moving pieces to say that one or two things is responsible.
Guys, guys, etsy ads was working nicely couple years ago, I had a couple stores on etsy, I put daily 5$ on digital product, and I make sell with etsy ads almost any time, and now this not happen anymore, they made some changes and now only etsy make it. I try with digital product phisycal items result is the same.
I get the same rate of return as you're getting on ads. Between 2x and 3x. The problem with only being able to shut off keywords is that you have to wait until you get enough views/clicks. Plus you still can't use your brain to choose a keyword that you *know* will work.
I know, that's irritating and I would be so much more willing to use ads if they gave us credit for having brains.
I have a digital product and have run ads multiple times at a loss. I have found that ads increase traffic to my site, but I have yet to make a sale on the ad itself. :( The ads run by Etsy itself do create sales for my shop (at a cost for each sale, right.) so I'll just let them to the ads and I'll keep my ads turned off.
They just don't work for my shops at this point. Give me CPC control back and I'll use them consistently.
Etsy ads only work for products $50 and up and usually cost u 20-30% of your gross sale then u need to take the others fees ..
Yeah, you really do have to have a higher price point now if you want to make a profit with them.
Hmm this is interesting. I have used ads for a long time because I always seem to have that “Revenue from Ads” higher than what I “Spent on Ads”. But am I missing another expense that I should be considering an added cost here? I have a low budget for ads, $4 per day. I run the ads on a lot of my products but not my top top sellers that are a bit tedious for me to make because I don’t want a ton more orders on those. Last 30 days revenue from ads was $463 and what I spent they show $148.28. But again, am I missing something? I know there are still fees, but I wouldn’t think my general Etsy fees would eat up that much profit.
You have to add the $148.28 that you spent on ads to the cost of your expenses. So if your profit for the $463 in sales would normally be $200, you subtract the ad cost from that, and your new profit is around $52. If it took you 5 hours to make those items, you just made a little over $10 an hour. If you didn't calculate all of your expenses into that and have to take out your Etsy fees, the basic 6.5% transaction fee on $463 in sales is about $31, so your new profit is now $21. You have to look at the big picture and not just the ad money spent vs what you got back from ads/
I have had my Etsy shop since 2008 I only use the Etsy ads 2 times in all those years, they definitely did not work for me, I had months when I made good profit without ads, I bring traffic from social media and other people send me traffic from RUclips, so ads for me are a big no.
They don't work for me anymore, they used to but not now, sadly.
Kara, if we put our logo in the first image, does that affect our “offsite ads” eligibility? Will they still advertise us other places?
Yes, it will still show up. This is something that people think google cares about but they usually don’t care.
Exactly Etsy Ads don’t work point blank. I’ve wasted so much money on ads it’s shameful lol
They used to work really well for me, but noooooo not anymore
I wonder if it would be a different result if the experiment was with higher price physical items?
The higher the prices, the better the chance that you can actually make money. I used digital this time because there are so many people on RUclips telling new shops to sell digital or pod and to use a lot of ads to start out so that it will give your listings a higher quality score.
I had no idea I could turn off the irrelevant keywords off..just learned something new.
Just pay attention to it, because it doesn't seem to be helping much!
Hi Kara, thank you for the video. My question is: where I can find the section where I can turn off the key words that don't fit my product in my Etsy shop? I am running Etsy adds but can not find that section you did mention. Thank you
You have to go into the individual listings now, they don't make it easy to find. I think that this shows it: ruclips.net/video/6vf1tmw6Lm8/видео.html
@@KaraBuntin Thank you so very much, I will look into it.
@Kara Buntin The problem I have selling vintage from a price cushion perspective is that, in some cases with certain items in my shop, those exact same items are for sale in other vintage shops on Etsy. The only differentiation between me and them is the condition of the item (sometimes theirs is better, sometimes mine is better) and the feeling the buyer gets about one shop being more appealing to buy from than another. So if my Swingline stapler is 20% higher than the next guy for no perceivably valid reason in order for me to pay myself and have cushion against Etsy fees & ads (if I turn them on) etc., then people won't buy from me because I'll be "too high." Right? How do I solve this pickle? ☹️🤔 Thanks 🏅
There's no way to solve price comparisons between the same thing, because that's just how people shop when they're looking at different businesses that sell the same thing. The differentiator is what you mentioned, condition of the item, and the quality of your business. If you want to charge premium prices, everything else needs to be premium. Photos, branding, reviews, packaging, etc. For vintage the condition of the item is going to be a big deal as far as how much you can charge, so providing a ton of information about that can help. If the competition is showing 4 photos, use all ten, plus the video. If they're using all ten plus the video, start a youtube channel so that you can do a deeper dive into talking about the item, and provide the link in the listing and a QR code that goes to the channel in the listing photos. The more you can develop trust with your customers, the more likely they'll choose you over someone else.
@@KaraBuntin That makes sense... premium pricing, premium everything else. Photos are pretty good. Can always be better, and I'll continue to improve there. I always use all 10 photo boxes. Haven't ever done a video yet. I will. My reviews and packaging are thumbs up. I'm going to work on getting photos into my About section of what my stuff looks like as I'm getting ready to seal the box and ship it out. I think people will be drawn to that. It's special. Not just a bunch of random leftover bubble wrap and packing peanuts and a motley looking recycled box... Working on my branding. Opened my shop last August. I got a domain name yesterday and will begin working on that (thanks to your regular directive just about every video I've listened to so far: "get a website" "get a website" "just get a website" haha... I love your whole way of communicating!). I also felt a strong inspiration as of yesterday, officially, to start a RUclips channel where I talk for a couple minutes about an item. I think it'd be great. Thanks for the feedback. 🥇
My coworker and I sell in the same category. She does Etsy plus and runs ads and I don’t. So far this month I’ve made more money than she did but I don’t know if it’s because I have an item that sells well in March. We will see if my sales continue in April. I did ads once but it wasn’t for very long and low budget so maybe I should try them again.
It's hard to compare two shops because even if you're selling the same thing there are so many other factors at play. But ads will take a chunk of that away so yeah, not always great for the profit margin.
I am new and running $1.00 per day. No sales. Digital downloads.
That's really low based on how much Etsy is charging these days. With a normal 2-3% conversion rate and 25 cents a click, you'll need to spend $25 to make 2-3 sales. Depending on how much you charge for your digital products, it's probably not going to be profitable.
Etsy is the one who makes money, not you!
@@dakotalake9084 For low-priced digital products that's probably going to be true
Do you get views? Maybe your thumbnail is too mainstream or the not the right tags
I lost $$ with ads also. I will think twice about using them again.
You really have to watch them, they don't work all the time.
Ads don't really work during slow times, I barely broke even January to April. I turned ads off, started charging for postage and uploaded at least 4 listings a week and have started making more of a profit. I'll probably turn them back on in September to December and only advertise 3 or 4 that I know will sell. Pinterest is like free advertising so I'm working on building that up.
I know people who do well with ads, but they just don't work for me at all at this point. It's disappointing because I used to make a lot with ads, but if I can't control the CPC then it eats up too much of my profits and it's pointless.
What a bummer that the ads didn’t help boost the listings enough to help with organic sales.
I use ads off and on - mostly close to holidays to boost holiday listings. One of my other goals through ads is to gain repeat customers and build a stronger customer base.
That's the weirdest thing about this, I thought that might be the only reason to use the ads.
Hi I wounded if you would be interested in a live chat in regards to Etsy and how it's been over the last 7 ish years. Things we noticed how things work etc. Think it would be a great to do the video to help others out there. Hope to hear back from you
I’m so brain dead about Etsy right now I’m going to have to pass, but you should do a video yourself if there’s something you think would be good to share.
So I just did this for my Easter bunnies. Listed them and ran $25 for 3-5 days It worked for me. Turned off the adds and listing is a best seller now. But it’s a seasonal/holiday item so it will fall off soon
One of the things I was advertising this time was seasonal too, so that told me nothing about consistent sales on it
Ain't Etsy grand?! I usually don't criticize them, but they have been a hot mess lately!
yeah, this was worse than I thought because of not getting the increase after turning the ads off.
When you run Etsy ads, can you decide what the ad looks like and what sales copy it has, or does Etsy use your listing for the ad itself? On another point - I ran two ads on Pinterest for two different items in my Etsy shop. I ran them for one month with each ad having about 3.00 per day spend. Pinterest reported that I got a lot of views, a few clicks which were linked directly to my Etsy items that I advertised, but the end result was no sales directly from those ads. I did like that I was able to completely design the ad to my liking in Canva. I stopped the ads since I received no sales, but the weird thing is from the moment the Pinterest ads started to run, it was as if Etsy shut down all my normal traffic. This probably sounds crazy but what if they got upset that I advertised elsewhere and penalized my traffic for it? Yes it could just be coincidence but I have had no sales at all since May 4th.
That’s a coincidence, but i wouldn’t run outside ads to an Etsy shop. Pinterest ads tend to increase saves on Pinterest but not sales on Etsy. Etsy just uses the listing, you can’t design it.
I had Etsy ads on for 2 days and lost $35 with no sales 😅
I usually get sales but the cost of the ads makes it not worth it!
YES, I turned ads off for like 9 months. Then I came out with a digital product that is sold for $97. That product alone took off, and its made me 13x ROAS and it is ABSOLUTLY worth it. I also had a bestseller last year that was $10 and it was worth it for that one. I guess it has to be a really popular product and it certainly helps if it has a higher price point. Also, the $97 product isn't in a super saturated niche.
Another thing, when people get to the listing having related products listed in a photo (upsells/cross sells) seems to help up the average cart value, making the ads even more worth it
It's definitely about the price point right now, because with the average conversion rate it's going to cost a decent amount to get to one sale
Just started a store after a month really questioning if selling digital files is worth it. The cost far out ways the profit. Etsy when it first started was a whole different animal back then.
If you're using a lot of ads as part of the strategy that's going to kill your profits with digital. I don't use ads in my main shop unless I'm testing something specific out, but you don't have to use ads at all if you send traffic in other ways.
I've done shows and galleries and consignment for years and want to switch to online sales. I've never really liked Etsy since it started allowing manufacturers to sell on it, but I can't count the number of people who have asked "Do you have an Etsy store?" So I was going to start selling on Etsy but it's so time consuming and stressful to even get started. I'm very computer savvy, but all the steps - getting good pictures and figuring out how to wow people with my packaging and all the other hoops to jump through are driving me crazy. Last night I dreamed I was being chased by a bear. I think it was Etsy. Is it worth it?
It is definitely worth it, and everything that you're describing isn't unique to Etsy. Any platform that you sell on online will require good pictures, SEO, blah blah. But the fact that you can reach so many more people online than you can in person makes it worthwhile. What isn't a good idea is only using one platform, but that's my topic for my next video, so watch for that on Thursday.
@@KaraBuntin I definitely will! Thanks for the reply!
I spend roughly 5000 a month on ads and get 15.000 back so for me it works. I have my budget set to 1000 a day but etsy only spends max 250 like they are not pushing my ads more
For me, that wouldn't work because I want more than a 3X ROAS because my products are on the lower end of the price range. It totally depends on what you're selling, and for me there's the time involved to make things, so any decrease in my profits gets to go into the "is it still worth making this thing" consideration tumbler in my brain.
But are your average price points higher? Etsy ads seem to only work for shops that sell higher profit margin items. That’s pretty cool it’s working for you!
Yeah I made 2 sales off ads and between the fees and shipping I didn't really make it I lost out on profit basically all fees came out of my sales leaving me with a 3 dollar profit😅
nope...Tha's why I don't use ads!
Damn, Etsy ads really work for me. I’m selling digital products and have an ROAS around 5-6. BUT I only advertise items that are over $50 (digital product bundles). I also have to manage them every day and switch off unrelated keywords.
They really only work if your products are more expensive. If you're selling digital at around $50 that would make sense that they would work because what I'm seeing is about a 30 cent per click cost, and if you look at a normal conversion rate of 1-3%, that means you would have to spend anywhere from $9 to $30 to make one sale. If it's around 3% conversion it would be about $9 to make the sale, which if you're getting $50 for that would be a little over the 5X ROAS, but digital doesn't have the materials cost, so you'd keep $40 minus fees for sale, which is fine. Foe me, if I have something that costs $16 to buy, and I have to spend $9 to make that sale, that's basically the entire profit on that item, so I'm working for free and actually losing money because of the cost of materials and fees. If Etsy changed back to letting us have any control over ANYTHING other than budget and listings advertised I would be all over ads, but it's just not a system that works for lower-priced items at this point. Also, I'm still bitter because when I controlled the CPC I was making around 20X ROAS...
Switching off the irrelevant terms doesn't really do anything, they say it's a test but I don't know what they're testing, they keep showing things for stupid keywords.
@@KaraBuntin You used to get 20X ROAS with the old ad system!? Wow!! I'd be bitter too!! I'm new to Etsy, so I never used the old ads. Hopefully they switch back.
@@mikky454 Yes, it was glorious. Then Etsy took over promised to do better than sellers could do on our own, and tanked my ROAS to 2-3X.
Before I went on Vacation Mode, I would get about 3.5x ad spend from sales.. compared to my total sales ad spend would be about 12-15% of Total sales, ... when Etsy showed my shop name on the Ad, I didn't mind, because I used to think of it like a billboard,, It was just good exposure..., and got eyes on my shop name.. Now, that I am back from a 6 week break, it will be interesting to see what stats I get... so far not great.. I feel like I "have" to advertise to get things going again, however.. I am wondering if anyone uses outsourced marketing people as an alternative, and what is the verdict on that?? I am a full time seller, and would like to get those numbers up as fast as possible!! :) thanks
I wouldn't use outsourced marketing people for an Etsy shop, ads would be cheaper. Running ads to get a few sales started might help, but Etsy is pretty good at figuring out that you're back from vacation and getting things back to where they were, as long as you send traffic to get the ball rolling.
Thanks !
I've never made money from ads. Even if I sell something with the ads on, I'm still at a loss. It's funny when I turn ads off that etsy will say that I'm missing out. Yes, I am missing out on giving more money to etsy.LOL I think ads only work for those that have high cost items or for those people that sell one of a kind items that nobody else sales. But unless your have high prices with very high margins then ads is not the way to go. I think that's why most talk about advertising on social media cause they know that the only one that gets anything out of those ads are etsy.
Yeah, that "you're missing out" thing is funny. I totally agree that advertising higher-cost items is the only way that this is going to work for most people at this point. If they gave us CPC control back I would use ads all the time, but if I can't plan my own budget then it's not worth it.
The ads are useless. I get a sale boost if I run a sale. I’m having an end of March sale and it pulled me out of that slow slump. I also just started uploading product videos to Pinterest and tiktok and my visits went up. Hoping it will bring more sales.
With a sale you can also control how much you'll be "spending" to get the sale, too. Not so with ads.
Gotta say not listing the shop in the add reallllllllly frustrated me lately.
I don’t like it either
Add your shop's name (or logo) on your primary listing image.
Just curious- has anyone tried radio add to drive traffic to Etsy or other e-commerce stores?
I highly doubt that would be effective. The only time I listen to the radio at this point is when I'm driving, and I can never remember the names of businesses later.
@@KaraBuntin thanks Kara. I am a 20 year e-commerce vet. This is my first year on Etsy. Hard to make any definitive judgement because this has been my worst year ever. This of course has much to do with the economy. I can say that Etsy ads have driven much traffic to my shop. I did turn off Etsy SEO ads though because of the outrageous cost involved. I do $1.25- $1.50 a day and it seems to help. Social media ads have been a flop. Have you tried them? I am only on one of the six available platforms (fb) and none of the others.
@@roberttassone7676 At this point I'm not doing any advertising at all because Etsy ads don't work for me. Well, I do have to do the offsite ads but I don't do those willingly. If something starts selling a ton on there on Etsy I take it off of Etsy and put it on my website. I do see that Etsy is hinting about a change in Etsy ads, though, so I'm hoping that they take the advice I've been not-so-subtly mentioning in the investor presentations I do with an investment firm. We shall see.
@@KaraBuntin Just checked my stats. $1.50 a day spend on Etsy ads only increased traffic by 10%. It's a numbers game for certain ..
No doubt, ads don't help in organic search later because they want you hooked on ads.
Well technically they’ll increase the listing quality when it sells, but you have to sell something with the ad to begin with.
I’m tempted to try ads because I just opened my shop a couple days ago, and having been a frequent Etsy customer recently, I’ve become aware of several new shops just through ads while browsing my niche of products. (The listings weren’t that great of quality though, and I wasn’t going to buy the product anymore since I was about to start making it myself). But it does seem to put it in front of more people. I have had few views on my listings aside from myself on my buyer account and my parents. One thing I tried was listing with shipping on OfferUp also, and those got WAY more views. Like, almost a hundred within 5 minutes. But no sales there either, maybe because the audience is different. I know it is an in-demand product in general since the top shops sell around 15 a day. But, I am tired of this “spend money to make money” game. I always end up spending the money and not making it back. 😓
You really have to watch it carefully!
Patience is the key. Optimize tags and thumbnails, look at your descriptions, are your pictures outstanding? Ask yourself these questions, I just started on 3th September and I just have 13 Sales.
@uzmKila how is ur etsy shop?
I paid 20 USD s day and got zero sale from ad. Once I off the Ad I start getting favourites and one sale
That seems to happen a lot.
I agree! This also happened to me! No sales with ads once ads got turned off BAMB sales!!
Watching this video I got really concerned that the money we put into Etsy ads this month will be a total loss... We are new at Etsy selling handmade accessories from Europe, with a current $10 daily budget for ads (for drive-sales short-term goal), we tried to increase visibility and awareness but changed it after a week. No result, only clicks & views but even not much...
You have to watch Etsy ads carefully, they don't work for everyone. They're presented by a lot of people as an essential aprt of sellign on Etsy but if they're not helping you make sales you'll get the same results and save the ad money if you turn them off.
@@KaraBuntin yeah, that's definitely correct but compared to another common business of a friend, only the Etsy ads (but with a huge ads budget) work in order to get clicks/visibility cause we are located in a very small country and i think that does not help us expand the business as well...
I never really did get a lot of sales from ads on Etsy and I noticed that my traffic dropped after I cancelled it....my traffic dropped
yeah, i'm just not seeing it work for me. The ads do work for some shops but not all.
I searched for my one item that I advertised with Etsy ad and can’t find it !
I had the same experience... No views after I turned off ads.. the ads didn't generate any sales
What do you suggest doing then if you are an Etsy Plus subscriber so you get the $5 a month. Turn the ads on and then turn them off every month so you at least spend the $5? Is that a total waste then because it restarts every month?
I turned my Etsy Plus off because the ads don't work for me at this point, and that was the only reason it was worth it. If you do have Etsy Plus I would definitely use that $5 ads credit, you might get a sale from it, but if that's the only reason you're using Etsy Plus and the ads aren't getting you any sales, you have to look to see whether Etsy Plus is worth it. I know it ends up being $24 a year, but I'd rather spend that on lattes if it's not giving me any benefits.
@@KaraBuntin great response. Thank you!!
@@KaraBuntin I am getting ready to turn off my Etsy Plus. I originally wanted it for the cool banner, but if people are not going to my shop page, then they don't see it. It takes time to keep track of the ad money, only lasts for days (if I set the budget at $5 per day) and Etsy always tells me there is not enough data to tell me what search terms people used.
@@Wendathena I turned mine off when I stopped using ads, and at one point they had started messing with how the banner looked, so I was paying for nothing.
Ads definitely don’t work like they used to. Every shop is different so other’s mileage may vary. This month so far my revenue is five times greater than my ad spend. Last month revenue was not quite twice my ad spend and I spent a LOT more on ads.
Ads do bring traffic to my shop and a lot of the traffic is repeat buyers. I think buyers are looking for that “thing” they bought before but don’t remember the shop name (or can’t spell it, LOL). When searching for that “thing” they want the ad comes up, it’s what they were looking for and, boom!, a sale.
That being said, I spend very little on ads. I “went wild” at $3 a day for a couple months and barely made twice the revenue of the ad spend and I realized less profit. Too volatile for my thrifty heart!
I’m back to $1 per day which is 3-4 clicks but it has always worked for my shop (knock on wood). It might not work for somebody else’s shop. Every shop is different.
You really have to watch the ad spend and the return on investment as far as profit goes.
@@KaraBuntin No kidding! I’ve said it before, I will NOT go into the red just to buy ads. I watch closely I will turn them off if the ROAS goes below my “comfort zone” at any point.
@@KaraBuntin Yes and of course, having to wait to see if sales come in later makes it difficult!
I'm a fairly new shop with not many sales. I turned ads on to my least visited listings to try and drive traffic to them. I am getting views but still not many clicks so I'm not spending more than $1 a day but still no sales. I'm having a hard time driving traffic but I'm just losing money even if not much. My IG seems to be a waste because nothings coming from there. I'm in process of a website and have a goal of May 1st to launch it. I swear I'm on etsy daily trying to tweak things or check on it
Etsy is really erratic right now, it’s probably going to be more difficult to start a shop and get traffic because search is crazy right now.
@@KaraBuntin I turned a bunch of search terms off. People are looking for candle dust covers and candle jars and I come up... but I'm selling candles and use those terms to describe my items, but it seems they come across to the wrong market in the search... if that makes sense? Maybe I need better seo terms.. I also saw people selling name brand used clothing and I think you're right etsy is going to turn into ebay.. (think you mentioned that in another video)
@@rachaelg.4804 The problem is that because Etsy adds words to the keywords in your listing, you can change your SEO and they might still show your listings for the wrong things.
@@KaraBuntin oh etsy.. hope the search can figure it out soon!!
I spent 5.00 a day for 7 days...my end result...in the hole for 35.00.....
You have to be very careful with the budgets or you’ll be broke
This is depressing. If Etsy ads won’t work for organic sales or lead to profit… what will?
Etsy ads don’t work for everyone, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t work for organic sales or profits. I still make over $100k a year on Etsy without ads.
@@KaraBuntin thanks for the replay! Are ads worth it for a brand new store, considering it will most likely run at a lose?
@@kieranwayne6007 It could be if you just want to gather some intel about how Etsy sees your listings.
Etsy ads consistently bring sales and good profits to my business.
My items fall into the higher price range $300 plus so maybe thats the difference.
That’s the difference!
I run adds and for more than a month and I earn from them. Also Etsy creates a NEW listing from your chosen item to promote so it doesn’t influence your original item. So imagine you get double listings in front of people! Ads won’t help you if your items don’t have customers for them. Also from my experience it makes sense with only good selling items to promote them, often people that came through the add purchase something else in the shop.
Etsy doesn't create a new listing for ads, it's the same one. When you get sales on the ad it goes toward that listing's sales stats.
@@KaraBuntin but they are both shown in search. How can you explain that? One is with ad and the other one normal. And we pay for click doesn't matter if it sells. I think only from the "forced promotion" items we pay only when it sells.
@@hasen-nasen6537 It's the same listing, one is just an ad and one isn't. It doesn't mean that there's a different listing, it just means that Etsy shows the same one in two places on the page.
This is long: I ran ads for a month, while watching your progress. Selling handmade. My views went way up (yay). Favorites went up (yay). Then I got a sale (yay), BUT, it was from a customer that for some reason, clicked on the ad...and bought two things completely different. And he did it again a week later, buying just one item.
After the month, I turned off the ads. Views didn't plummet, but were erratic.
The buyer came back to ask for a custom order (oh no), which thankfully I had to research yarns, so held off his purchase past 30 days after the last day of ads. (I know, I know, get money up front for custom orders...)
Gross orders $320 Ad spend $34 (I started at $1/day, raising to $2/day after about 10 days - seemed like I had more views on $1. Weird?)
I didn't see any irrelevant keyword searches. I started with 10 items, only four had any increase in views over normal in a week, so I shut ads off on the six. Shut ads off of two the next week. None of the ads sold that item.
That's not a bad ROAS considering how crappy it's been lately.
Etsy close my shop down didn’t give me a solid reason what can I do?
Keep trying to contact them, be persistent as long as you know you weren't doing anything wrong. If you have copyright infringement in your shop they won't open it up again, though. If you owe money, pay your bill, that might open it up again.
Same thing here. I opened it Sunday afternoon and was closed down Monday morning. Less than 24hrs!! I didn't get no email to tell me why. I've entered my email on an etsy/help page and it said they would send me an email. I still have not received a email!!! I even called them just a few minutes ago and the guy was very RUDE & HUNG UP ON ME!! That's not very professional!! Do you have any other thoughts or ways to contact someone? It's discouraging cause I've sat on this dream for 2 years and finally stepped out of my comfort zone and done it to only be shut down
Not sure if I did I didn’t even got started yet I used a picture as a place holder I’m thinking it might be that I can’t get through to speak to anyone 🤷🏽♀️ it wasn’t hand made 🤷🏽♀️
@@naturesway6784 If it was a brand new shop that's pretty common, and it was probably that you used a photo of something that wasn't allowed to be sold on Etsy. Watch this to see how to send them an email or get a phone call back ruclips.net/video/p2ecXJEJvV4/видео.html
@@kimberlylee3593 IT's pretty common for new shops to be shut down because they use a system run by bots to close things down. Then human will come in and check it and reopen the shop. Watch this video to see how to contact them about it, email is better because the phone reps don't have anything to do with shop closures so they're told to hang up on people and not discuss it.
This was depressing… TBH. We do over 250k annually on Etsy and I’ve never looked at the ads. Just spent XX amount; so for the past 12 months my add spend has been almost EXACTLY my profit margin. Turned those bad boys right off. So last year we created 20k worth of items we profited 0 on 🤦♀️
That's what they're counting on, people not paying attention.
If you ever need a guinea pig to run an add campaign on a freshly created seller account for - let's say 100$/day - count on me 🙌🤣🤣
never again!
Running $500 per day for ads. I’m on day 7, and I’m making lots of sales but not enough to cover costs
Then why are you still spending that much in ads? Yikes
@@KaraBuntin I’m trying to trust the process, I was watching another RUclips and she said Etsy rewards people willing to max out their ad budget. It isn’t spending the whole budget, im just going to let it go for a month and see if it works itself out!
@@AestheticallyJess_ nooooo....Etsy loves it when people throw a bunch of money at them and you might get sales, but your products and pricing aren't the same as everyone's. I got sales during this experiment but the profits were eaten up by the cost of the ads. One formula doesn't work for everyone, so if the ads aren't profitable for you don't throw your money down the toilet.
@@KaraBuntin I was doing really well prior too; now I’m afraid if I turn them off too soon it will mess me up worse! 😅
@@AestheticallyJess_ Turn them off and see if you start making money again, that's the deciding factor! Right now you're losing money so how could it get worse?
Who makes money on ads? Etsy!
I sure don't anymore. You really have to have a higher price point to make a decent profit on them based on the cost per click they charge now.
@@KaraBuntin I sell fairly expensive heirlooms and have tried with and without ads and no difference in the number of sales.
$500 loss :( thats not a good look for etsy
nope
The algorithms are designed to make them money…not us. They took 50% of what I made last year. When I turned off my ads…sales continued without them but they slowed way down. Thousands of irrelevant views. I lost so much before I discovered what was happening. They treat us like employees and not independent businesses.
IT's a marketplace, s their interest are to make money but also for us to make money so they can make money, but primarily for them to make money. What I don't' like about the ads system (other than it not being profitable) is the total lack of control over our own ad campaigns, and the lack of data that we get form them.
@@KaraBuntin agreed. I’m opening a retail store next weekend and launched my website so I can get away from Etsy.
Currently spent $50 in one week.. ZERO.. Orders lots of Views and clicks.. No orders at all.
The idea that ads guarantee sales is a myth
same here... and i got a sale even before start running ads
@roadtothehunt hey how is Etsy going?
@@palakush7650 still weak.. I'm transitioning out of it now, I've started networking and boosting my own community through Discord, my website is doing far better.. Etsy can do one.
So Ads are for Loosers. Please everyone turn your Ads off!!
It depends...They work for some people but it mostly depends on the price point. There's no one-size-fits-all.
Absolutely right. Etsy wins and us suckers lose.
girl you have to clean your background lol
Nope, I actually work here so it's never going to be a super clean, organized space.
😂😂😂
Been running ads for 3 years and always make money from them. Maybe it's your products.
Etsy ads used to work for me when they let us control our CPC, but the amount they charge now doesn't work for things that are lower price points.
@@KaraBuntinAgreed. When you’re selling digital items for less than $5 ad spend just does not work for me. In my other store selling jewellery I have ads on four products because they have higher price points.