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Setting up shop in Etsy is just a fraction of the work needed to successfully sell your merch, the real battle begins once you start putting your sales hat on.
Just like every other store, existing in a saturated marketplace like Etsy alone won’t be enough to get more customers.
It’s going to require a tremendous amount of planning and effort.
Marketing your store is a vital element in running a business.
If you want to sell on Etsy like a pro, here are the things that you should do!
Optimize your listing
For starters, do your listing right – make sure it’s optimized with the right keywords, description, and content.
Just like Google, marketplaces like Etsy use search engine technology to filter products and aid customers in finding the product that they are looking for.
Keyword optimization
The first step in accurately matching your products with the relevant searches made by customers in Etsy is to integrate the right keywords into your listing.
To do this, you must first conduct keyword research.
There are various methods to do keyword research.
You can start by running a quick Google search containing your products and determine the most common words used in the search research.
Or, you can use keyword research tools and find more specific keywords related to your products or niche.
We’ve done a deep dive on this in our SEO strategy for Print-On-Demand stores blog, check it out to learn more about keyword optimization for Etsy stores or for your merch store on whatever platform.
Once you’ve learned the dos and don’ts of optimizing your keywords, top it off with the following tips to make your listing as content-rich and relevant as possible.
- Keep titles short and sweet.
- Your title should describe your items accurately
- Your product description should describe your items accurately.
- Use clear and high-quality photos.
- Your photos must be enticing.
- Do extensive price research and price your products competitively.
- Provide a clear and complete breakdown of your purchasing details and conditions like shipping rates and time and discount conditions if there are any.
Run Etsy Ads Campaign
Realistically speaking, if you want fast results with minimal effort – ads are the way to go.
Fortunately, with Etsy, you don’t need to run ads outside their platform to bring in more traffic to your store – you can run ads on their platform.
Etsy Ads can help you expand your reach within the platform by advertising your products in Etsy search results.
This will cost some money though, but it can guarantee more reach and sales overnight if done right.
To be fair, Etsy’s Ads feature is easier than Facebook’s and Google’s, you only need to set a budget, and their tools will automate the process for you.
They will automatically identify the right places to put up your ads and the right people to sell your products to. Your only job is to make sure your listing contains accurate information about your products.
Setting up your Ads in Etsy is easy.
Here’s how you can do it.
- Log in to your Etsy account and look for the “Shop Manager” option in the menu.
- Next, click “Marketing” then “Etsy Ads”.
- The Ads interface will simply ask you to set your daily budget – the maximum amount you’re willing to spend advertising your items per day. The lowest budget you can allocate is $1, and you can simply change it anytime.
- Click the “Start Advertising” when you’re ready to run your ads.
Offsite Advertising
If you want to expand your coverage overnight, bringing your ads game outside Etsy is one of the most proven and tested methods you could take.
The good news is, you don’t have to look outside Etsy to do that because they also run an advertising platform that extends throughout the web, from search engine results to social media platforms like Facebook.
How to be included in Etsy’s offsite advertising?
Etsy’s Offside Ads however takes effect automatically once your store is up and running.
Basically, you don’t have any control over it and where it’s going to appear.
However, Etsy does provide a set of criteria to increase the chances of your listing getting included.
You can refer to Etsy’s offsite advertising checklist if you want to know more about it.
The whole point is, if the quality of your listing is the best among the rest, it will be considered for their offsite listing.
On top of that, if you want your listing to be displayed in a specific network or website, you need to optimize your listing based on the specific website’s criteria.
Say, for example, you want your listing to appear on Etsy’s Facebook ads, aside from improving your listing quality, you also must make sure that it complies with Facebook’s advertising policies.
You can refer to the following sites for their respective advertising policies:
Meanwhile, the same thing applies to curated Ads shown in Etsy’s publishing partners:
While sellers are automatically enrolled in Etsy’s offside ads program, it does not necessarily mean your listing will be included.
You still have to outperform other stores since they’ll be picking the listing with the best quality.
If you’re a new seller, you can also opt-out of this program if for some reason you want to.
If you’ve been on the platform for quite some time, there will be some conditions for you to follow so that you can opt-out and these are the following:
- If you made more than $10,000 USD on Etsy in the past 365 days, you’ll be required to participate for the lifetime of your shop and you’ll get a discounted advertising fee.
- If you made less than $10,000 USD on Etsy in the past 365 days, Offsite Ads are optional. But you can still use the service at a cost, although you don’t have to pay upfront you only pay a fee for every successfully converted ad.
Social media
The benefit of Social Media in e-commerce marketing cannot be understated.
It is where people can be found organically, the only challenge is finding the right people, those who will buy your products.
With Etsy, this task will be a tad less difficult.
They have social media tools that can let you share updates about your listing or store, promotions, milestones, or what have you to different social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest with just a click of a button.
Here’s how you can do that:
On your Etsy account dashboard, click Shop Manager > Marketing > Social Media > Social Accounts.
Then choose the social media platform in the list that you want to connect to your shop to.
Just Follow the log-in instructions because it will be different per social media platform.
Once your Etsy store is connected to your social media page, you can directly share your listings there.
While this is all well and good, that’s just the basic stuff that you can do to leverage from social media’s vast userbase.
There are various ways for you to make use of social media as a marketing tool for your merch business or Etsy store.
Here are some ideas you can glean from.
- Start a Facebook, IG, or Twitter page.
- Start your own community and invite potential customers to have a more direct communication line with them.
- Run ads on Facebook, Instagram, and even on Pinterest. This can cost money but the result will be faster, in many cases it can be overnight.
Sky is the limit in social media once you understand and learn how to make it work.
hank you for reading, and we hope you found this useful. If you have any questions or you want to follow us for more related discussions, follow us on Twitter.
