Hi All,
I've read in a couple threads that people don't know about their Shop Stats (SS) or didn't realize the Shop Stats tool was even available. I think SS is amazing and it's helped me increase my views.
Where are my Shop Stats?
Your Account (top right) > Shop Stats (far left under orders)
What are they?
SS measures the amount of views and activity your shop is getting. Right away you should see a little graph, which might take a few moments to load. There are four boxes going across the top, views, favorites, orders and revenue. If you click the word "favorites" in the second box, you can see that your graph changes to reflect the amount of favorites you got today. Play around with it...cool, huh?
http://www.etsy.com/blog/en/2011/etsy-success-shop-stats-insights/Different time periods:
There's a little drop-down menu over the graph that says "Shop Stats for Today, Yesterday, Last 7 Days, etc." Click different time periods to see how your views change. Did you have a drop in views this weekend? I did, which is probably because I'm not that active on the Internet on weekends. Conversely, I get more views during the weekdays when I'm more actively making treasuries, listing, editing, updating, etc.
Traffic Sources:
My traffic sources come mostly from Etsy itself. If you have a Facebook page, your Top Traffic Sources should list how many views you are getting from Facebook. If you are only getting a few views, then maybe you should work on promoting your Facebook page. If you promote your FB page already but are only getting 4 views from it a day, it may not be worth it to continue putting so much time into FB! Learn to not just read the stats, but interpret what they mean and how you should change your selling and/or promotion strategy to optimize views and sales.
Top Traffic Sources on Etsy:
Again, this shows you what people are doing *within* Etsy to look at your shop listings. Click on the little "?" symbol to get a description for what each thing means.
Top Keywords:
This, in my opinion, is the most important thing!!! Click Today, Last 7 Days, This Year, etc. to see what your most popular search terms are. The words and terms which show up most often should be used in your titles and tags whenever applicable. If you make flower themed jewelry and you see that your top keywords are "pink flower necklace," or "flower accessories," then use those terms for all items that fit those descriptions! If you see that "flower earrings" has 100 search hits for this past year, then maybe you should add a couple more of those listings since items tagged with "flower earrings" are bringing traffic to your shop! If you always tag your flower jewelry with "rose garden jewels," but do not see any of those words in your top keywords, then maybe you should use them less often.
Why are Shop Stats important?
There are a lot of threads about how to get more views, more hearts and eventually more sales. With the new emphasis on titles, tags and relevancy, it's important to know which terms work for you. SS allows you to see what times of day, what traffic sources and what keywords are working for your shop. If you spend forever on Facebook or on Blogger, but only have a handful of views in a given week from those sources, then your SS is telling you that your current promotion methods aren't necessarily working for you. On the other hand, if you see that you get a ton of hits from your blog, then you should continue updating your blog to maintain site traffic.
Strategy:
SS will allow you to get better insights into how people are viewing your shop. If you always list your items late at night, but notice your graph says that you get most views around noon, then add a treasury around noon, or list an item around noon, since that's the top traffic time for you. Keep in mind, though, that Etsy is on East Cost time in the United States. Most of Etsy's users are also American. Build a strategy based on your top traffic sources and keywords.
For more statistical information:
Visit www.craftcult.com and use the heart-o-matic tool (in the second tab on the top). Type in your shop name and use the heart charts for additional graphical data. These tools take a while to get used to, so play around with them and don't get discouraged! No one is an expert in the beginning, but the valuable information you gain can help you improve your shop and make more sales.
Google Analytics:
This is another helpful tool. It's more powerful, and thus, more complicated than SS or craftcult. It takes a few minutes to set up, and about 24 hours to activate. You do have to have a Google account to use it, but it's absolutely free.
Etsy Shop Stats info:
http://www.etsy.com/blog/en/2011/etsy-success-shop-stats-insights/Craftcult:
http://www.craftcult.com/Etsy Google Analytics:
http://www.etsy.com/blog/en/2009/tech-update-etsy-web-analytics-now-available/Please add comments to list additional information or insights! If I made a mistake above, please correct me. If something isn't clear, please ask a question!
Aman
