Let’s say you want to give your shop a little kick in the butt and boost your listings- that’s a great idea! Etsy ads are a great way to gain traffic to your shop efficiently and quickly, and can jumpstart your selling career.

Are Etsy Ads Worth It? How Do They Work?

If you have an already optimized shop with proper listings and keywords then running Etsy ads is definitely worth it and can be done both on Etsy’s platform and other platforms like Google search.

This article will talk about everything from offsite ad fees to conversion rates and seeks to answer the ultimate question of whether or not to run ads, and how to run them well. Let’s get down to business and talk about everything Etsy Ads.

How Do Etsy Ads Work?

Etsy ads, whether they are onsite or offsite, are designed to reach your target audience and show them relevant listings and shops that they might be looking for. This can be done on Etsy’s platform, Google search, or other sites partnered with Etsy.

Sounds simple, right? Let’s break this down a little. There are two main types of Etsy ads– onsite, and offsite. These function slightly differently and have different fees.

Onsite Etsy ads are manually operated by the seller and can be opted in and out of at any time. The seller has control over what listings are being advertised, and how much they want to spend daily on that ad.

Onsite ads are limited to Etsy’s platform and will make it clear to the shopper that the listing is advertised by having a little tag on the bottom of the listing’s thumbnail photo.

Offsite ads are a little different because their reach goes far beyond Etsy’s platform, and you only pay a fee if your product is purchased. Every Etsy shop is automatically enrolled in offsite ads and incurs no startup fee.

Etsy manages where offsite ads show up and can advertise shops as well as just listings. Simply put, the seller has relatively no control over offsite ads, other than choosing to opt-out of them, which we will get into detail a bit later.

Where Do Etsy Ads Show Up?

Onsite and offsite ads appear in different places and have their own system of placement and algorithms. Let’s discuss both onsite and offsite ad placement and how it works.

Onsite

Onsite ads are limited to Etsy’s platform and “compete” with other onsite ads for the top spots in shoppers’ search results. The placement of these advertised listings depends on the quality of the listing (13 tags, title, description, and category selection, as well as listing and shop history) and the bid amount, or how much the seller pays per click.

So, how much do sellers pay per click? Well, that depends on how likely the shopper is to buy the product, and how relevant the listing is to the shopper’s search. This isn’t easily determined because it is incredibly hard to predict human behavior, let alone quantify it.

The range for cost per click (CPC) for Etsy is $0.20-$0.50. This potentially means that, if you are spending, say, $10 per day on your listings, you can get anywhere from 20-50 daily clicks to your listings.

Technically speaking, the bid amount depends on variables such as the shoppers’ search query, how closely their search terms match the listing’s tags and description, what device the shopper is using when on the platform, and even the time of day.

Offsite

Offsite ads can appear anywhere from a Google search to one of Etsy’s Publishing Partners to a site within Google Display Network.

Etsy Publishing Partners? Google Display Network? What even are those?

Etsy Publishing Partners are a group of sites that have partnered with Etsy to show personalized shopping catalogs to potential buyers.

Google Display Network is made up of millions of sites and uses display campaigns (visual advertisements) to connect shoppers to products and services. Currently, there are over two million sites on this network that feature offsite Etsy ads, out of the total 35 million sites.

How Can You Adjust Etsy Ads?

As an Etsy seller, you have some control over Etsy’s onsite ads. As mentioned before, offsite ads are placed and monitored by Etsy’s team of experts and generally cannot be adjusted by Etsy sellers.

Onsite ads are made for listings only, and have virtually no customization other than how much is spent on them. You can adjust how much you spend on an ad by following these steps:

Go to Shop Manager on your seller platform
Select Marketing
Then, click on Etsy Ads
Decide on the budget you want to set. This can be anywhere from $1 to $25 per day for new sellers. More experienced sellers may have an increased spending limit determined on past sales and performance
Click on Start Advertising

After this step, all your listings are automatically enrolled in the marketing campaign. You can manually choose which listings are advertised by following these steps:

Go back to the Etsy Ads page and click on Advertised Listings
Select whichever listing(s) you want to advertise from the list by clicking the Ad on/off toggle. This is where you can also deselect listings from the campaign
Click on Update

If you ever want to change your budget, simply click Manage your budget on Etsy Ads, adjust the amount, and click Update.

If you ever want to cancel your marketing campaign, here are the steps:

Go to your Shop manager
Choose Marketing
Click Etsy ads
Beneath Show more orders, click the Pause your ads button
Select Turn off ads

This is pretty much the extent to which you can control your onsite Etsy advertisements. Again, offsite Etsy ads are largely controlled by Etsy’s team of marketers, and the only thing you can do is opt out of these- and the only way to do that is if your shop has earned less than $10,000 in the last 365 days. Here are the steps for opting out of offsite Etsy ads:

Go to Shop Manager
Click on the Settings tab
Select Offsite Ads
Choose Stop promoting my products and confirm

Overall, Etsy’s onsite and offsite ads don’t have that much customization, and their placement and frequency depend on complex algorithms that, honestly, are much too sophisticated.

How Much Do Etsy Ads Cost?

Since onsite and offsite ads differ in fees, let’s address them separately, starting with onsite ads. As an Etsy seller, you have the power to determine how much to spend on onsite ads.

Your budget can be as low as $1 a day, or as high as $25 a day. You can choose to spend $5 per listing for five listings, or spend $10 a day and advertise all your listings. This way, you can determine which listing gets how much exposure.

If you know that a particular listing has a high clickthrough rate or is very popular, you can throw all your money into it and advertise that listing alone. Alternatively, if you aren’t sure which listings will gather the most clicks, you can advertise them all.

If you have been on Etsy for a long time, your shop’s maximum budget can increase based on your shop’s performance and listing quality.

Offsite ads are a bit different. Take a seat and get your reading glasses because this is where it gets complicated. While you don’t pay per click for offsite ads, you do incur a fee if the shopper has purchased your product upon clicking an offsite ad within the last 30 days.

If your shop has made less than $10,000 in the last 365 days, you pay 15% of the order that was advertised offsite. If your shop made more than $10,000 in the last year, then you get a lower rate of 12%.

Etsy Fees? – How Much Does Etsy Take Per Sale

In a sense, offsite ads don’t have a limit because they are dependent on your shop’s revenue. However, you will always have enough funds to pay off the fee because it is only 12-15% of your offsite ads sales.

It is important to keep in mind that the fee will never exceed more than $100 per listing, so if you sell a product through offsite ads that cost $1,000, then, technically, you will only pay a 10% fee on that order.

Also, if the shopper purchased multiple things from your shop, through separate transactions, within 30 days of clicking the offsite ad, you will be charged the offsite fee for all those sold products.

How Much Should You Spend On Ads?

There is no golden number for how much you should be spending on onsite Etsy ads, but with some observations and research, you can have a better understanding of the optimal amount that is specific to your shop.

Let’s talk about Return on ad spend (ROAS). This is a formula designed to tell you how effective your ads are in making your sales. The formula is as follows: Revenue/Ads budget.

Let’s say you spent $50 for a particular listing to be advertised and got two sales on that listing through the ad worth $150. That means that your ROAS is 150/50=3:1, or $3 earned per every $1 spent on ads.

So what does this mean for you and your shop? What is a good ROAS number to have? Typically, a good ROAS to aim for is 4:1, or $4 earned per $1 spent. This number is preferred across all industries and isn’t tailored to vendors such as Etsy.

If you see that you are making profits that exceed what you spend on ads, a.k.a a ROAS number of more than 1, you are in the clear and are profiting off your ad campaign. Woohoo!

If you see this trend for a while and wish to invest a bit more in your shop, by all means, go ahead. If, however, you see that your ads aren’t paying out and you are losing money, it might be worth reconsidering how much you are paying for them or at least, streamlining and refining your shop and listings.

Again, Etsy’s onsite ads limit you to $25 a day as a newbie, so it’s not like you can break the bank. Offsite ads will never have a ROAS of less than 1 because, again, they only charge you a fee if you make a sale.

Are Etsy Ads Worth It?

Etsy ads are definitely worth it if you have all your ducks in a row. This means optimizing your shop, putting a lot of care and effort into your listings, and making sure to categorize them properly.

If you are seeing a high clickthrough rate (how many clicks you get per ad shown) and a decent ROAS, that means that the ads are definitely worth it for your shop. If you are not happy with the return you are getting from ads, there might be potential issues that need to be addressed.

This could be anything from poor product photos, to insufficient product descriptions, to a lack of SEO utilization, to bad shop ratings. You will need to pay special attention to each of these things as you invest in ads, and know that the returns might not be positive right away.

Give your shop time to grow and experiment with different advertising listings. Some might outperform others, and some might need more attention before they can be advertised.

Etsy ads are powerful tools that can drive the right audience to your shop if you have taken all the steps to prepare for it.

So what are you waiting for? Go out there and start bringing new customers to your shop today with Etsy ads! If you’re interested in really taking your Etsy shop to the next level get in touch with us today!

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