EN Are Etsy Ads Worth it? Discover Ads Backed by Real Cases
Starting an Etsy store and maintaining it without issues is a really difficult task to complete. This level may be a plateau where you have to decide whether you have to promote your shop to boost sales and make a profit in your business.
How much should I spend on Etsy ads and are Etsy ads worth it? These are probably the first questions that pop into sellers’ minds. You are going to read four real-life experiences of sellers who employed these adverts for selling their items on the platform.
You will also find exceptional tips to optimize your Etsy Ads. Let’s see how these strategies worked. Let's dive into it.
Table of Contents
Explore Etsy Ads
If you are new to Etsy, make sure to use the power of promoting your shop to boost sales and get some traffic to your shop. Etsy ads in this sense play a vital role to increase your profit and boost your brand recognition. There are two types of them:
- Onsite Etsy Ads
- Offsite Ads
Onsite Etsy ads in the first place will give you the edge over other sellers not using them. You set your budget daily, and the rest is within the power of Etsy ads. Etsy will show your listings at the right time and place.
Secondly, offsite ads can be a powerful tool for your shop in terms of promoting your items on popular websites such as Google and Instagram. Sellers, of course, have to master some key strategies to use these ads effectively.
Nice to know: Etsy Ads Strategy for Beginners: How to Run Ads on Etsy
Why advertise Etsy listings?
When you are marketing your items both on Etsy or offsite, you want the sales to be made right away, which is sometimes the case. You would also like to make sure that it will fit the bill in terms of reaching the right shoppers. Starting with smaller budgets, you can monitor and reflect on the success of ads as well.
Marketing Funnel
This advertising process takes the sellers from the very first point which is trying to form brand recognition. The essentials of advertisements go on with catching buyers’ attention and they're getting attracted to your items. Finally, simply put, sales are made. Let’s take a look at them in detail.
Forming brand recognition
Raising awareness about your shop comes from different channels such as a visit to the store or an influencer’s recommendation. But onsite and offsite Etsy ads seem to be a perfect choice here to boost your store's recognition.
Making potential customers click on your items
It is at this phase that you make would-be buyers enticed to your shop by a broad range of variables like the listing photo, title, and prices. The system on Etsy ads allows you to optimize your listings and manage them accordingly.
Conversions actualized
When it comes to calculating the average number of people visiting your store and purchasing from your store, making sales is what you have at the end of the day. It means that it is worth the time and money spent.
Good to Know: Etsy Visits VS Views? How do They Maximize Your Sales?
Are Etsy Ads Worth it? Find an Answer by Real Life Experiences
Now is the time to have a closer look at the real cases experienced by Etsy sellers aiming to check whether they worked or not. They also tried to figure out how the algorithm on Etsy ads works, which is an indispensable part of the process.
In some cases, the Etsy ads worked in the way advertisers wanted. Yet, it was not always the way it was. Here, it would be wise to look at the underlying reasons. Without further ado, let's get cracking.
#Case 1: $20 per day on Etsy Ads for ONE listing
The first story is regarding Alicia’s store aiming to spend $20 every day on Etsy Ads for only one listing item over one week. It seems really interesting to promote just one product with that budget and over that period of time.
On her one-week plan, Alicia could monitor ad views, ad clicks, orders, revenue, and budget spent on that specific item, namely a services & pricing portfolio template. She managed all the settings based on that one listing item.
In a period of one week, she was able to get her first order on the third day, which gives an interesting sort of statistics. She did not get an order the following day, though. She received two orders on the fifth day, showing us a fluctuating graph.
All in all, Alicia got 16.2 thousand views, 235 ad clicks, 5 orders, and total revenue of nearly $95. She spent $80 on ads, meaning the Etsy algorithm did not charge her $20 per day based on the number of ad clicks she got.
The negative part of this experience was she did not get the return on her investment, hoping she would earn double the amount she spent. The positive part of it, though, was the ads were boosting the traffic and views to her Etsy shop. So, no definitive answer.
#Case 2: $5 Etsy Ads for 30 days to advertise 108 listings
The next story will be about Heather’s clothing store. Her experience takes us to 30 days of using Etsy ads with $5 a day to promote 108 listings. The astonishing part here is that she got zero sales in 15 out of 30 days! Let's get closer to see what happened.
First off, she gives a great piece of advice saying that advertisers as sellers on Etsy have got to see the whole picture, in her scenario not only 15 days without sales but 30 days of profit and conversion rates as well.
Another important point she made is all about the variety of products she had that attracted the customers. They originally clicked on that specific item, but they ended up purchasing another product. It was 5 out of 14.
The overall numbers demonstrate that Etsy ads were worth it. Heather got nearly 31K ad views, 377 clicks from these views, 14 orders, and earned nearly $507. She spent almost $155 on the ads. After taking out the fees, she earned an extra $271.
Heather suggests using Etsy ads if sellers sell items with high-profit margins, meaning it is not suitable for low-profit margin items. She got 3% of her revenue from paid listings, which in return gave her an organic traffic algorithm for her store.
It also comes down, she states, to different factors such as your niche, variety of the items, the season of the year, and of course what is trending across the globe.
#Case3: $1/day vs. $10/day Etsy Ad budget comparison
This case is all about multiplying your budget on Etsy ads could mean multiplying your sales or profit or not. It allows us to see the full picture by comparing two different parameters, yielding really interesting results.
For the first ad campaign which was spent only one dollar per day, the seller got nearly 5.800 views, 35 clicks, 2 orders, and almost $20 of revenue. He spent $8.48 on the ads, showing that it would be wise to multiply the budget.
But subsequent statistics on different items show that if you spend $10 dollars on the same item for one day, it does not guarantee the multiplication on sales but sales and impressions. Similar numbers on clicks and views, yet no sales at all plus the nearly $12 you spent for the ads.
In a nutshell, increasing your budget on Etsy ads per day does not guarantee a direct increase in sales. It is vital, though, on Etsy to know that running an Etsy ads campaign entails an algorithm and takes 30 days to optimize it.
#Case4: $10 per day on Etsy ads for two weeks
Mariela running a personal care shop in the last case gives a portrait of what it is like to advertise items through Etsy ads for $10 per day for two weeks. As a side note, she doesn't spend a lot of money on Etsy, instead, she uses Shopify for the promotion of her store.
She used 9 listings for this campaign. During these two weeks, she got nearly seven thousand ad views, and 100 clicks, she had no orders and no revenue accordingly. She spent $30 on the ads.
One of the reasons why Etsy ads failed here, as Mariella states, is not using Etsy’s auction budget listings which require you to increase the budget. Perhaps she could use it for a longer period of time.
4 Noteworthy Tips to Optimize Etsy Ads
It would be of crucial importance to sellers on Etsy to optimize their Etsy ads by deciding on the most appropriate listing items. Here, three killer hacks will definitely assist you in getting the most out of it.
1. Marketing all the listings in your shop
It all comes down to what sort of budget you have, a higher budget or a limited one. Bear in mind that running an ad campaign on Etsy necessitates at least 30 days for the algorithm to optimize and yield the best results.
2. Featuring bestsellers to boost revenue
Giving priority to top performers is what should be done to increase the profit you have made over a certain period of time. Deciding on a listing that gets the highest return on advertising spending sounds like a really smart choice.
3. Promoting the new list of items to have a fresh start
If you have brand new products and want to see which ones are fitting customers’ needs and interests, then making use of Etsy ads will be a great option in search placement on the platform.
4. Discover Top-Selling Items on Etsy
You can explore top-selling Etsy items with the EHunt Product Ranking tool. The list is updated every Monday and the tools offer you to discover:
- Best Selling Items: It sorts products in descending order based on sales to find quickly recent top sellers.
- Rising Chart: It sorts items in descending order based on their sales growth rate to find quickly recent potential products. Growth rate = (current cycle sales - previous cycle sales) / previous cycle sales.
In Conclusion
When it comes to promoting your items on Etsy, two fundamental questions stand out: how much do Etsy ads cost, and, more importantly, are Etsy ads worth it? The answers to these questions are not clear most of the time.
This is partly because there are positive and negative parts of Etsy ads. Four important case studies have been analyzed in this article to get the full perspective. So, go ahead and give it a go by starting with smaller budgets.
FAQs
There are tons of questions regarding Etsy ads and it will be significant to take a look at the most relevant ones to better understand the Etsy ads system. It will certainly help you connect the dots.
How much do Etsy ads cost?
It really depends on the budget of the shop owners on Etsy with onsite ads starting with a minimum of $1 per day and more based on your financial situation.
Offsite ads on Etsy, on the other hand, charge you only if you make a sale coming from websites with high traffic, approximately 12% of the sales completed.
How much should I spend on Etsy ads?
If you have a broad range of items in your Etsy shop, you are more likely to spend more than usual to promote your listings to the fullest.
Should the listing in your store be limited, you can feature your best performers and pay less for the ads. It is also related to your budget as well.
How long does it take for Etsy ads to work?
It usually takes a minimum of one month for Etsy ads tools to optimize your listings based on the unique algorithm Etsy uses. So, sometimes it may be misleading to think that it is not worth trying especially after having used it for a short period of time.
