Promoted listings... worth it?

[Former_Member]

I recently started an Etsy shop in hopes of selling the occasional item or commission on the side, without overwhelming me as a full time working parent. So I haven't had that much time to post new listings or improve photography, though it is on my to do list...

My question is, once I get those listings up to snuff or at least to my liking, if I'm still getting virtually no views and no sales--should I try promoted listings? Is everyone doing it? Does everyone have to do it at first just to get initially noticed? Do you end up making the money back?

Etsy seems to have its share of "quit your day job" success stories, but I don't see any "manage to sell 1-5 items a month while keeping my day job and my sanity" stories...

Thanks guys.

May

[RayOfLightJewels]

Everyone I've talked to has had no or very little success with promoted listings. A good way to eat up any profits, that's about it. You are better off expanding your offerings (earrings, bracelets, rings?), putting in more items, researching the best tags and titles and promoting to people who like your style (target audience) either on social media , local advertising or in person.

[Former_Member]

Promoted listings are referred to by the old-timers as a "newbie tax"- everyone makes that mistake when they're new. I haven't heard of more than a handful of people who say they made that money back.

The "sell a little and keep your sanity" stories aren't popular because people WANT to hear about the sellers that make it big. It inspires people to list a lot and work hard at their store, and inspires new sellers to keep going. AND just like the regular news, it becomes news if it's a rare event. :-) Please know that there are a lot of people who are happy to make just a few sales in between their regularly scheduled life.

[Former_Member]

I'm saving the step of convo'ing you, in case others have the same question- your listings don't say there is anything over the drawing to protect them. Is there a cover, or is it exposed paper? Very pretty!

[Former_Member]

I have had pretty good success with Promoted Ads since October. I have spent $35 and got $265 in sales through PAs for last 12 months (though current PAs have only been going since the fall 2014). I keep my bid low and my per day at $1. That being said, if you don't have good SEO, good photos, a quality product and a lot of items in your shop you would be wasting your money IMHO.

[Former_Member]

This probably sounds like a dumb question and I tend to over analyze everything, so am I to understand that--if one should choose to do a promoted listing--you'd have to pay anytime someone clicks on your link? Seems like a lot of people may end up paying more for some of their listings rather than making a profit.

[FITnessBITsy]

We do have great success with promoted listings - even better when I switched the prices between $0.02 and $0.05 per item! I originally had them mostly at 10, 15, 25 cents. I read a lot of forum notes about promoted items to learn this. But now our items are shown often and they get many links. And I finally see that spending $1 per day is bringing in way over that. I re-evaluate every week or so. If an item doesn't get many clicks after being shown, I know I need to reconsider the picture. I unpromote items that don't get clicks. My goal it to get people to the site. Our stats for the week ending today: 15900 impressions, 288 clicks, $6.44 cost, $650 revenue. I worked many hours figuring this out. If you put time into it and evaluate the results, it may be useful. You won't know unless you try.

[BluToonMoon]

There are so many ways to promote for free!
I have never paid for any type of promotion, just utilized social networks, word of mouth, the forums, anything!
I'm far from quitting my day job(s), but I've done perfectly fine with free promoting. I am only doing this as a hobby, not trying to make it full-time, but I average about 2 sales a day so far, sometimes more...so I'd say try free first!

[Former_Member]

May,

Just thought I'd throw my 2 cents in here. I tried promoted listings for about two months, with a dollar a day. On some of my favorite items I went above what the suggested bid was, to make them show up in searches more often. I got a lot more clicks per day than I do now, but I never made a sale off of them and ended up spending about $50 on it. Literally in the first three days of stopping with ads I got three sales. Not sure if it is coincidence, but I can certainly say I won't be paying for promotions again! I hope whatever you decide works well for you!

Krista

[FITnessBITsy]

Here is a test - go to Google and type in some words that would likely turn up your products. Look on the right. Do you see anything like your product? Do you see your product? Search Fitbit Charge Cover. Do you see some Etsy photos on the side? That is my promoted listings at work. You also need to read all the shop settings. There is one about Etsy promoting. I suspect most sellers haven't changed the default on this and therefore don't have many viewers.

[BMonteDesigns]

Thanks for posting this May!! It was precisely one of my questions! Fitness Bitsy I just googled your cover and it was one of the first that popped up on the sponsored Google images. So promoted listings enabled that to happen? And if I am willing to pay 0.05$ a day that should be enough to get my listings promoted without killing my profits? I feel like because I just started i am so worried to spend more than I am making which is not a lot since I just opened my shop last month.

[TheButtonBird]

Where in the shop settings do I need to change to get more viewers from promoted listings?

I've tried promoted listings for 2 months and have seen high expenses for very low views. Feel like my views have been very very low this year, is anyone else seeing this?

[Former_Member]

Also would like to know what you mean by changing a shop setting to get more viewers from promoted listings?

[FITnessBITsy]

Sandy and Katie - this option is SO hidden that I bet most people don't know about it. I just searched and searched and was about to give up and tell you it went away. Under promoted listings, go to the option for search engines. I am almost certain that most sellers do not click on the Enable! I see so many postings in the forums about no views/sales. This is the first time I am sharing since this is a team. Please try it out and let me know if you see a difference. It might take a while to get all the search engines up-to-date.

Barbara - minimum is $1 per day, but if you set your items at 3 to 5 cents, there is a good chance you won't spend the full dollar every day.

FB

[Former_Member]

It has not been worth it to me. I make the occasional sale here and there because I don't have a lot of items in my shop and need to do a lot of work on my photography, SEO, and just in general on my shop. I've tried promoted listings a couple different times and there has been no noticeable difference in views or sales.

[maydaylabels]

fitness betsy, shopping engine ads (largely google product listing ads) have nothing to do with promoted listings. The two things are separate. You can be listed under gpla without paying for promoted listings, etsy pays for them

[FITnessBITsy]

I don't know if it is the promoted listings or the listing ads, but I do know that I use both options and our products come up on google on the first page. If you haven't tried either, it is worth a try to see if it makes a difference. But you have to work at your promoted listings to make them work for you.

Only you can decide if they work for you. How much revenue doesn't tell you how much profit. If you make $100 in revenue and have $50 in profits, would $10 of those profits be worth it. (10% of revenue of the promoted items purchased). Ida's example shows she spent 41% of the revenue from promoted listings to promote. How much of her profit on those products is left? Our stats for the last 30 days shows I spent 2% of revenue from the promoted listings to get those promoted listing sales. That isn't 2% of all our revenue - just of those items that sold from the clicks on the promoted ads.
My stats for last year show that promoted listings cost me 8% of the revenue on those sales. This year is 3% but the last 30 days is 2%. Changing the prices of my bid prices has dramatically make a difference.

We've only been in business since August, but I 'work' every day to improve our shop somehow.

[Former_Member]

Umm promoted items doesnt have anything to do with google....thats promotion for "ads" first and like 3rd lines in any internal search.

Yes etsy submits our products to google shopping...well kinda it submits "likes" but thats not the same "service"

[FITnessBITsy]

Ok - sorry. I assumed some of the promoted listings were also outside of Etsy. So I just typed Fitbit Charge Bracelet in the Etsy search. 1st line (!) had ads and all 3 were our products. Next line had 1 of ours. If 3 of ours come up on the 1st line, I'm willing to pay for that.
AND make sure the shopping ads are also enabled. I'm not sure why a shop owned wouldn't want that, but if you don't explore the promoted listings menu, you won't find that.

[FITnessBITsy]

I found some get info here:
http://etsyjewelryfx.blogspot.com/2014/11/etsy-promoted-listing-guide.html
It was in the 'regular' forum.
Good luck to all. I'd love it if some of you write back with your experience.

[Former_Member]

Fit bit.... ok first of all these are adorable and sending link on to my mom cause she would love something like that for hers.

Here is another side to think about...YES "Fitbit Charge Bracelet" shows up. on the first page. Your SEO must be solid for that term cause your "naturally" Bam right there #1 natural position which would be second row. No you didnt pay for that ..... and your is kinda a perfect example why it' can be a waste of money.

If la la Buyer comes along and types in Fitbit Charge Bracelet you already had a solid standing to be shown to the customer........they would have found you! So for That term its possible your spending funds where you didnt need to be.

[FITnessBITsy]

Breanna,
Thank you for sharing with your mom!

True. I guess if we are on the first row anyway we wouldn't need to promote. But now that we are paying so little for so much revenue, I'm okay with that. I used to turn off the campaign mid-week so it wouldn't cost $30 per month but now I just leave it on.

I just learned about the "View all Promoted Listings Revenue" on the right side above the graph. I am a dummy. I thought I had explored the entire Etsy offerings. Wow. More cool data.

[Former_Member]

I have set my promoted listings budget to $5/day, have left the automatic bid on, and rarely use up my daily budget. My sales from promoted listings always more than pay for them. In my mind it is just another way to get my listings viewed.

[Former_Member]

Thanks, this discussion was helpfui. My original paintings show up a much larger percentage of the time than the rest of my listings. Now I just need to figure out WHY!!!

[Former_Member]

Hi!
I recently opened my second shop and I decided to try promoting on Etsy. I followed advice from Fitness Bitsy with low bid 0,02 with daily budget $1 but nothing is happening . Impressions are very low in 3 days just 200 impessions .. today 5 ?!? Clicks 0.. Then I tried to raise bids to 0,05 and 0,1 but again nothing. Why is that? What do you think?
Thank you!