Etsy add clicks all getting used up every night at midnight….is a bot clicking our adds?

[BunnyRabbitToys]

Every morning i check my etsy add stats.  And every day, there is a big spike at 12 am that uses up almost all my clicks and then tapers off sharply to no clicks by morning.  Every single day and ive been checking the add stats, changing the setting to “today” and looking at that graph for a month now and its the same every day!   I only sell to the usa, so all my clicks mysteriously happen when my customers are in bed asleep. And these clicks at midnight never translate to sales.  They never generate sales.  So is there some computer bot just clicking on everyones adds at midnight.  Is it an etsy thing or maybe one of my competitors?  Can anyone else check their etsy add stats for the day and see if they also have this big spike at midnight and then sharp drop to nothing?   I feel like im just wasting my money paying for add fees!  And im not new to etsy, im a long time seller.  Any help would be much appreciated.

thanks!

[NanaLetha]

First of all not everyone sleeps all night. Many people work at night. Etsy Ads are a big waste of money if they are not turning into sales.

[BunnyRabbitToys]

Yes you are correct, but the fact that there is a giant spike every single day at exactly midnight, then tapering off to nothing i think indicates its highly unlikely that its real people who all just happen to be clicking on my add every single  day at exactly midnight.   And i think imagree with you, im juat wasting my money on these add fees it seems.

[NoFrogsAllowed]

It is also possible, although not likely, that someone is clicking on your items on purpose 

[CostumeCoutureNaomi]

I would not be surprised if they are mostly bot clicks.

I read an article recently about tiktok from some tech security blog.  The article said that between 75%-90% of tiktok ad clicks are by bot accounts.  The article said tiktok was the worst website for bot clicks on ads, but I am sure other platform, including Etsy, use bots to drive ad revenue.

[BunnyRabbitToys]

Thats what i was afraid of.  Thanks for letting me know.  I think i will probably just quit the adds for awhile, or perhaps turn them off at 9 pm and then back on again in the morning and see what that does for me!

[ArtDollsbyJD]

If you suspect click fraud you can report it to Etsy.

I have not had that happen in all the years i have used the ads from the very beginning.

@BunnyRabbitToys   If you turn them off and then back on, you might as well stop them altogether.  It takes about 24 hours for the ads to gather steam and find placement. 

[BunnyRabbitToys]

I talked to etsy via chat, sent them screen shots of the graph showing howmit looked the same every day….the guy said he would have someone check into it and get back to me and then i got a n email saying they “didnt see a pattern” even though the screen shots showed the identical spikes every day…and then the rest of their email was the same old generic cut and paste info on “ways for etsy sellers to improve sales”. Waste of my time.  

[BootifulLabels]

Just because you only sell to the US doesn't mean you won't get clicks from people in other countries.  The clicks you get overnight your time may be buyers in other countries.  ALL buyers can see your listings, those outside US will simply see a message that you do not ship to their location.  

[DaysofYoreTreasures]

@BunnyRabbitToys @BootifulLabels 

From Etsy:
Your ads will only be shown to buyers in countries that you ship to.

[CarpetCollectionAU]

When I look at my Stats and use the "Compare to same time last year" the lines on the "Graph" seem to follow an almost identical path up and down during the day.

I have interpreted this to be telling me that 

1) The algorithm has worked out when / what time of day to best to display my Listings

2) My Etsy Ad spend will closely correspond to the times of the day Etsy chooses to more prominently present my Listings

Also, it is my belief that the Etsy Ads Budget resets at midnight each day. Is your whole daily budget being used up at Midnight? Or is it just that there is more money available for Etsy to spend at Midnight, so more opportunity for people to see and click on your Listings.?

[BunnyRabbitToys]

So what you are saying is etsy wastes my add money showing my adds to people outside the USA….locations i dont sell to?  Whats the point of having to specify in etsy the locations you sell to if they dont use that info to target your adds to the countries you actually ship to?  And to answer your question, it doesnt eat up all my money every midnight but for sure a major chunk of it, and its always right at midnight…what are the odds of that?

[KanjaniCraft]

I had this problem too. So now I switch off my candle ads (which I only sell in the uk) at night. Don’t know if that’s a good thing algorithmically or not but it works for me. As they were being clicked at night by my international buyers who buy my pins.

also only advertise your absolute bestsellers - I only advertise 2-3 out of 145 listings, and only if their ROAS is high. 

[BunnyRabbitToys]

Thank you i will try this for sure!

[AAANativeArts]

Your ad day starts at midnight. If you have a small budget, like $1 per day, or you are spreading that across dozens or hundreds of listings, it will be used up quickly. It takes roughly 100 clicks to the same product page to make 1 to 3 sales, on average. So if you are spreading your ad dollars across a lot of products, none of them are likely to get enough clicks to make a sale for quite some time. You are better off to run ads on 5 or 10 products for a few weeks, gather some statistics to figure out what is working, then run them on something else for a few weeks.