Etsy Offsite Ads - Attention Getting Marketing

I consult for a lot of Etsy shops and have been asked about Etsy’s new offsite ads policy that was announced yesterday. Here is what it is a nutshell, because a lot of people have not been explaining it correctly.

If you go over to your Stats on your Dashboard and scroll down to “How Shoppers Found You” you will see the bottom left one is called “Etsy Marketing & SEO”. This is traffic that is being sent to your shop for free by Etsy via ads they are paying for with Google, Bing, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest to name a few. They have been doing this for years.

However, as of April, this will no longer be free in the sense that any sales that result from this traffic source will now be charged a 12% fee on the final sales total.

How Etsy Offsite Ads Impacts a Seller

Well, let’s say that in 2019, you had 10,000 visits that came to you via “Etsy Marketing & SEO”.
If 2% of those visits converted into sales, that means 200 sales are now going to be charged a 12% fee.
If your average price is $20, that means 200 x $20 = $4,000.
$4,000 x 12% = $480.
You will now pay $480 more in fees each year.

Therefore, it is a new cost in the sense that for many years, a lot of sellers didn’t even realize that this was a source of their traffic.

A lot of sellers are angry that this advertising is mandatory. However, if Etsy were to take this traffic source away from your shop, your traffic and sales will be impacted. For example, if “Etsy Marketing & SEO” currently accounts for 15% of your overall traffic, and they take it away, then obviously you can expect traffic and sales to drop by 15%. If you keep this traffic source, then it is a new cost that cuts into your bottom line.

Also, the purchase has to be made within 30 days. If the customer purchases after 30 days, you will not be charged the 12%. This did confuse me as it sort of takes away the incentive to offer coupons for abandoned carts.

Another Perspective

There is another way to look at it. It does level the playing field somewhat. I have a lot of Etsy sellers complain to me that Etsy seems to promote certain shops. As I do see a lot of shops’ stats, I have seen cases where “Etsy Marketing & SEO” is the leading traffic source for some, as high as 50% of their overall traffic, and it really isn’t fair. Why should these shops get free advertising from Etsy and others not get it? At least now your competitors, who have been benefiting from all of this free outside traffic, will now have to pay for it.

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Read more Etsy articles here: Selling on Etsy