Facebook Ads For Etsy Shops Step 4

Last week we went through most of the steps to create your Facebook Ad. Today we conclude with the last step, paying for your ad.

As I stated earlier, I think you should point your ad to your Facebook business page so that you have multiple opportunities to entice your fans into buying.  So your Objective should be to "like my page" thus insuring a steady stream pf people viewing your page.

Name your campaign whatever you like. I usually ad a number to the end so I can keep things in order. The smallest amount you can set to pay is $50 lifetime budget. If you choose that you will be able to set the date range. I choose to set my budget at around $1.60 a day. Same budget as $50 a month but it makes it so that I never spend over a certain amount in a day.

Price per click will vary greatly. I propose going with their suggested price per click. If they give a range, pick the upper number. I have yet to have to pay their estimate. My price per click is around $0.08 but my range is shown as $0.06 to $0.28

Tomorrow I will try and sum it all up for you. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Facebook Ads For Etsy Shops Step 3

The next part of creating your ad is to target who you want to see the ad. First is location. I target the US, Canada, United Kingdom and Australia. I want the audience to be able to read my ad. Some people will create ads in other languages to have show in other countries. If you do not ship outside the US there is no reason to advertise outside the US. You can get really specific as to where you want your ads to show right down to the zip code.

By now you should know what the gender and age range of your average customer is. For me, it is women age 25 to 55. I do not bother advertising to men. Nor do I advertise to women outside the age range of my average customer. Does that hurt me? Probably not.

The next field is "Precise Interests." This is where the fun begins. Start off by typing the style of what you do. Do not be general here. If you make jewelry out of only felt, don't start off with "jewelry" use "felted jewelry" so that you can hone in on your customer.

You'll notice as you are creating your ad and setting up your target audience that the ad will change to your right to reflect your changes. You want to try and reach a manageable amount of people. 157 Million people is not targeted. Aim for less than 100,000 people in your reach. In fact I have had the best luck advertising to 5,000 to 10,000 people. Remember, nothing you do is set in stone and can be changed at any time.

I recommend that you target only people who are not already connected to your page. Why advertise to people who are already following you. The idea here is to get more fan to your page so that you can advertise to them on a daily basis. You will eventually post a picture of an item that is just what they have been looking for. You would not be able to do this if you pointed them to your shop one time with your ad.

That is all for today. I will be back on Monday. In the meantime, have a great weekend!

Facebook Ads For Etsy Step Two

Choosing the text for an ad is probably the most difficult part of creating the advert. You may want to start by choosing the picture first. Remember it will be much smaller when it is in the ad so make sure that it is able to be recognized once it is shrunk down.

Avoid things like "Click Here" or "Click Now" or "Like It" and stick to simple text that represents your product. Using your tag line might work if you have one. You are limited to 90 characters and that includes spaces. You do have a character count to show you how many you have left.

You may end up changing this multiple times during the campaign. I change mine about once every two weeks or so. I also change out my picture. I want to keep it fresh. You can actually over saturate your target audience to the point that they ignore your ad.

Leave landing view on Timeline unless you have a landing page ap of some kind. If you don't know what I am talking about, there will be a post about it soon. Take your time and make sure you have what you want for the picture and text. Take a couple of days and try a few different ones and see what you think before you commit.

That is all for today. The series will continue tomorrow. Let me know if you have any questions.

Facebook Ads For Etsy Step One

The first step in using Facebook ads is to go to http://www.facebook.com/advertising/ while logged into your personal account. If you are currently using your Page, Facebook will instruct you to switch over to your profile. After you reach the page listed above click on the green box "Create an Advert" in the upper right corner.

That will being up the page above. Here is where is gets tricky. Some people think you should aim people to your shop URL and I disagree. I think you should point the Ad to your Facebook Page.  That way you can advertise to those who like your page over and over again. Pointing them to your shop is a one time deal. Having them as a fan means they have to go out of their way to "UnLike" you.

You are able to also promote a specific post or story on your Facebook Page. Here again I think just getting people to "Like" your page should be the goal. The more Fans you have, the better chance you have at having some of those fans buy from your shop.

Tomorrow I will go through some of the things that you need to do with your ad and some of the things you don't need to do.  Let me know if you have any questions!

Etsy Shops And Facebook Ads

Why would you choose Facebook for your next ad campaign? It works, that's why! Before I start telling you how to sign up for the ads I want to take a minute to make sure that we are all on the same page. For the ads to work you need to have a working knowledge of Facebook. You also need to be active on Facebook. Which means that you need to devote some time to it every day.

Your business Facebook Page should be all about your business and very little about your personal life. Sure it is okay to talk a little bit about yourself, after all people want to know you are human. What they do not want to know is what you drank last night or what political party you support or what church you go to. Save that for your personal profile. (If you do not already have a Facebook Fan Page you may want to read these previous articles on them: Facebook Fan Pages For Your Shop, Using Facebook Fan Pages to Increase Business, and Making Facebook Work For You)

If you cannot engage your fans there is probably no point in advertising your page. If your shop is a mess there is probably no reason to advertise your shop. So, it may be time to do a little spring cleaning in your shop. Without the foundation of a well organized shop and an engaging Facebook Page you would just be throwing away money advertising.

Think on that and come back tomorrow to find out how to get started with Facebook Ads. Let me know if you have any questions by leaving a comment or emailing me at MarketMyShop@gmail.com

Etsy Search Ads Revisited

Recently, I decided to give Etsy Search Ads another go. It was a small test. I ended up spending $14.65 and got a total of 13,948 impressions. Out of that I received only 81 views and 2 favorites. During the same time I posted to my Facebook Page (http://www.facebook.com/TangledMetal) around 15 times and my Twitter feed (http://www.twitter.com/TangledMetal) around 45 times and received about 45,000 views, 275 favorites and five sales.

I know I am not really comparing apples to apples but it looks like to me that Etsy Search Ads are not working for me. I have to ask myself what am I doing wrong. The answer? I am using Etsy Search Ads, that's what I am doing wrong. Last year I used Search Ads for about 3 months and got one sale that barely offset what I paid for it. I think the only reason I made a sale from it was it was close to Christmas.

This last experiment has shown me that my $14.65 would have been better spent on Facebook Ads or in purchasing a Twitter service to schedule my Tweets like HootSuite. If you have had a better experience with Etsy Search Ads I would really like to hear your story. Leave it as a comment or send me an email to MarketMyShop@gmail.com

Tomorrow I will begin my in depth series on Facebook Ads.

More On Etsy Direct Checkout

I thought I would give you an update on Etsy Direct Checkout. I have had this up and running on my shop for a few weeks now. In fact, five of my last eight sales were through Direct Checkout. It does take a little while for the money to get into your account. Not a huge issue as long as you have some money for shipping. In my opinion, I do not think I would have gotten those sales had I not been using Direct Checkout. So, for me, it is a good thing.

I sell many of the same items over and over again, so I know exactly what most of my items weigh. It really isn't a problem for me to create a shipping label with a tracking number and mark it as shipped within minutes of an order. This really does two things for me. One, it gets the ball rolling on getting my money from Etsy, and two, it puts me in a great light with my customers for such fast shipping! In the note to the customer I say that their item will be shipped out within 24 hours except on weekends and holidays.

Direct Checkout may not be great for those who create custom items on a regular basis. Especially if you use the money for materials to create it. In those cases it is probably better for you to make sure to set up a custom listing and let them know that it needs to be paid for through PayPal or some other medium.

I hope all of you have a great weekend! I start moving into my Brick and Mortar shop tomorrow. Wish me luck! And always, if you have any questions please leave a comment or email me at MarketMyShop@gmail.com I may not answer with an article but I do always try to answer!

Daily Etsy Checklists

If you have had a shop on Etsy for any length of time you'll agree that there is plenty to do every day. Of course it is also possible to spend way too much time on Etsy. I try to follow a list of things to do on Etsy to make sure I have a daily presence but don't spend all day lost in Etsy land.

I have not made a treasury in several months. I really should be ashamed of myself. Treasuries are great for building your circle and making new friends and sometimes customers. In my experience, Tuesdays and Thursdays were the best for treasuries. Early morning treasuries seemed to do better than ones in the after noon.

I try and list new items daily. Or if I do not have a new item to list I will renew an item. I do this so that the item has a chance to pop up on people's "Newly Listed" feed view. I generally make several items before I add them to Etsy. I do several listings at once and set them to Draft so that when I want to list one I have several to choose from.

I also post new items to all the teams I am on. Most of the teams I am a member of have a thread just for listing new items. Several people will favorite the items and that shows up in their feeds. That helps get the word out. I also tweet every new listing. Within 10 minutes every new item I list has 15 to 30 views.

I also like to put some of my items on my Facebook Page. This usually gets a little bit more interest for the items. If you'd like to see more about that go "Like" my Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/TangledMetal and you can see some of what I do.

I also do quite a bit of tweaking titles, tags, descriptions and even rotate photos. I try and change things up a little depending on what is trending. I add Mothers's Day or Prom or Spring Fashion and other trending and seasonal descriptions to appropriate items.

All of the above can be done in a couple hours a day by creating a list and prioritization it. Allot specific amounts of time and stick to it. Use a timer if you must. But try and get a little of everything done rather than a lot of one thing and none of another.

That is all for today. More tomorrow. Let me know if you have any questions or comments!

Thank You For Your Questions!

The response from yesterday's blog post was quite overwhelming! Thank you all for the great questions and the words of encouragement. It will take me a day or two to get all of the questions organized and to write up some posts to answer them. Apparently there are as many e-mail subscribers as there are followers.

I am in the middle of opening a retail shop in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. This is taking a lot of my time but it is very exciting. So far I have been able to juggle my online shop, getting the retail set up and maintaining a somewhat normal life. I will be doing a blog series on opening a retail location soon. Hopefully it will help some of you who may be thinking about this.

Also in the works are the following:
1. How to set up Facebook Ads.
2. Understanding shop stats.
3. Using Google Analytics.
4. Craft Show Guide.
5. Photography 101.

All of these will be multi-part series. I also plan to offer a more detailed e-book on the topics as well. The cost will be low and will go into more detail on all of the subjects. Anyhow, that is the plan. Let me know which topics you would like me to start with.

Thank you all for being readers of my blog. Without you I would just be talking to myself! As always let me know what you think and what you'd like to know by leaving a comment or by emailing me: MarketMyShop@gmail.com

Is This Blog Helping You?

I do not get a lot of comments on my posts here so I wanted to ask all of you if my blog id helping you? I am not one of those people who blog for attention or because I am a great writer or because I have some political statement to share. I blog to try and help people make their Etsy shops better, to make their sales better and to help understand the jargon that comes with SEO and the like.

I learn new things every day. I hope that I am teaching or sharing those new things with you. I need some feedback and I need some questions. Please take the time to leave a comment or send me an email with your questions. I do not need my ego stroked, I need a critique! Tell me how I can better serve you. Tell me what you disagree with. I am all ears! MarketMyShop@gmail.com

Advertising For Etsy Shops

Where do you advertise your Etsy shop? Advertising is one of the things that most people feel is a complete waste of money. That is about as far from the truth as you can get. Do you really think that if Coke or Pepsi stopped advertising their current customer base would be enough to pay all of their stock holders their dividends?

The main purpose of advertising is to get new customers. The secondary purpose is to inform current customers of special deals. I advertise exclusively on Facebook now.  Well, other than the standard link in email, business cards and signatures in groups and message boards. I direct all my traffic to my Facebook page.

From my Facebook page I list new products and do giveaways. When I have a sale the fans on Facebook are the first to know and sometimes the only to know. I spend about $50 a month on Facebook ads and I am well compensated for it.

Where do you advertise and how is it working out for you?

List Your Etsy Shop.

I have a million things that I must do today and just do not have the time to write. So, let's list our shops so that everyone can share what they do. I would like anyone who has an Etsy shop to go to one other person's Etsy shop and Favorite the shop, one item and add them to your circle. You can do more, but that is my challenge to you. Of course, I would love for you all to pick me! J/K.

My shop is http://TangledMetal.etsy.com I make unique jewelry.

Next?

Google and Etsy Revisited Recap

This week I have been revisiting ways to get your shop found On Etsy and Google. Tags, Titles and Descriptions need to be well thought out and well implemented.  I always start with my tags and work the description and title from there. Here are a few tips that might help you to come up with better tags.

1. Ask your mom what she would use to search for your item.
2. search all your tags on Etsy and Google and see what shows up.
3. Look at your stats and see what words people are finding you with.
4. If a tag isn't working, drop it and try another.
5. Ask someone for help.

When you come up with good tags and use them for your title and in your description you stand a much better chance of being found. Of course just being found isn't your goal. Your goal is to make money by selling your products. Soon, I will revisit photography and pricing to help you hook that customer.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Google and Etsy Revisited Part 3 - Descriptions

As discussed this week Google looks at titles and descriptions and ignores tags. Etsy looks at titles and tags and ignores descriptions. The key to being found on Etsy and Google is a combination of titles, tags and descriptions. Yesterday I said I write all my tags first. I then take the best tags and use them in my title.

I also use the best tags in my description. I generally even use the tag phrases twice. The rule here is never use your tags phrases more than the number of full paragraphs you have. Well, that is my rule and it seems to work out pretty well. I also throw in my company name in my description so that my tags get associated with my business name.

A good description answers all the questions that a customer might have. A great description does this while enticing the customer to buy. Try and describe as many senses as possible. How does it look, feel, sound, smell and taste? If it is jewelry what is the size? How does it clasp? What metal is it made from? When can you wear it? What kind of outfit does it go well with? What makes it special?

Paint a picture with your description.  Tell a story. Make a statement. Just be sure to answer any potential questions. If someone has to write to ask you a question you have lost an impulse buy.

That is all for today. Stop back by tomorrow for a recap and some more tips. Feel free to send questions to MarketMyShop@gmail.com Also, if you are interested in a topic I have not covered I am always looking for more things to write about to help you out.

Google and Etsy Revisited Part 2 - Tags

Yesterday I talked once again about using your title to the fullest potential. Today I want to revisit how tags and keywords are used.  Google doesn't even really look at your keywords. In fact, most search engines completely ignore them. On the other hand Etsy uses them in their search.

First off, let me just say that tags and keywords are the same thing. If you look at the source code from pages generated by Etsy you will see your tags in the keyword section. So, from this point forward I will call them tags. Tags are very important for multiple reasons. So important in fact I always do my tags first.

Why do I do my tags first? Because I build my title and description around my tags. I choose what i am going to optimize for from my list of tags. I am in a pretty competitive market - jewelry. I know better than to just optimize for "jewelry" or "necklace" or "earrings" because those are just too broad to ever be seen. This is one reason that multiple word tags are so very important.

The difference between "jewelry" and "steampunk jewelry" is 3,060,513 items for jewelry and 72,366 items for steampunk jewelry. Shaving off about three million items really helps people find you. That is just on Etsy. I'll let you compare the searches on Google. The more precise you can get in your tags the easier someone can find you.

When you are creating your tags here are some things to keep in mind:
1. Multiple Spelling - such as "steampunk" and "steam punk" or "jewelry" and "jewellery" - European spelling should be included if you are marketing to the UK or even Canada. Sometimes there is more than one accepted spelling of a word. You may even want to take into consideration adding common misspellings. More than a few people have made money by registering misspelled domain names and putting advertising on them.
2. Multiple Color Names - such as "red" "rose red" "blood red" "crimson red" - Try and think like a customer. If you are marketing an item to someone who is into the Gothic subculture they may look for "blood red" while those into Fantasy may look for "crimson red"
3. Order of Words - such as "Victorian Steampunk" and "Steampunk Victorian" - Etsy uses EXACT TAG MATCH in their algorithm. So "Victorian Steampunk" is NOT the same thing as "Steampunk Victorian" and yes, people search in different ways using the same words.

That is all for today. Tomorrow I will look back at writing descriptions that search engines like. If you have any questions please feel free to email me at MarketMyShop@gmail.com or leave a comment here.

Be sure to check out the archived articles, you'll find much more information there.

Google and Etsy Revisited Part 1

Some of you have asked me to revisit making your shop listings more friendly for Google and other search engines. Where Google is concerned it is all about the content and by content I mean relevant content. Google is looking for experts.

Google looks at the title of the page to see what the topic is about. So, a clear and concise title is a must. I see some people still trying to cram what I would call a short story into the title. Google looks at that as if someone is trying to pull the wool over their eyes. You really think you can put one over on Google?

The title should be short and descriptive like a headline. Use your most important key words here. Though Etsy places a lot of emphasis on the first three words, Google uses the entire title to figure out what the page is about. The title does not have to be a complete sentence but it does have to make sense. Just listing keywords tends to confuse people.

"Red Blue Stripes Sequins Vintage Dress Summertime Sundress" is an example of a poor title. It is a jumble of keywords but does not accurately describe the dress. Of course you need to figure out what people will be searching for and optimize for those keywords.

"Vintage Summertime Sundress - Red and Blue Stripes with Sequins" is better organized and much easier to read. Google will ignore the extra spaces and dash. Using your three main keywords up front and eliminating the repetitive "dress" helps to make a more clear and concise title that works for both Etsy and Google.

Tomorrow I will delve back into relevant keywords and tags. Please let me know if you have any questions by email at MarketMyShop@gmail.com or by leaving a comment here.

If you find this blog helpful please recommend it to your friends!

Square Up For The Win!

I signed up for Square on Wednesday. I was at a show yesterday and took two credit card payments. This morning I wake up and the money is in my bank. I did not even have the card reader. I had to manually enter the information. With no set up fee or contract I have to say that when PayPal rolls out their version of this they had better be just as good or better to have me use it.

Manually entering the information was quick and easy. From start to finish it took only minutes- about the same amount of time it takes to print two copies of a receipt from a regular card reader. I can only assume that once I have the card reader the process will take even less time.

The fact that being able to accept credit cards doubled the amount of money I was able to make was also a huge plus! I only do one show a month, but I am about to open a brick and mortar shop and I am considering using them for credit card processing at my shop. I will keep you updated.

Let me know what your experience with credit card processing has been. Either comment here or send me an email to MarketMyShop@gmail.com

Art And Jewelry Shows

All last year I attended the First Thursday Fayetteville are walk in Fayetteville, Arkansas. It is a three hour show filled with Arts and Music and Food. They tend to leave out the more country craft type people. It is a blast and the vending fee is only $20.

Tomorrow I will be attending again. I love doing smaller shows like this for many reasons. Mainly it is an inexpensive show with a decent amount of people. I would estimate that between 500 and 1500 people attend each month. Being able to put my products in front of that many people for $20 is some of the best advertising I will do all year long.

Do you have shows like this in your area? How do they work out for you? I will not be writing tomorrow but will be back on Friday. Until then, have a great day!

Accepting Credit Cards at Shows

My first show of the season is on Thursday this week. Fayetteville First Thursday is the name of the show and you guessed it, it happens the first Thursday of the month. I am considering accepting credit cards this year and have been doing some research on how to go about doing that.

Starting a merchant account through my bank is option number one. This is not the quickest or easiest way as my bank does not offer merchant services on their own so I would have to go through their third party person. While I am not opposed to this, the process takes a while. A handheld credit card reader is pretty expensive. Not all of the merchant account services offer a smartphone card reader.

Option number two is a company called ProPay. They are similar to PayPal but are slightly higher in pricing and there are a few hoops to jump through. They have a smartphone card reader available and that is a nice option. The fees are not too bad.

PayPal is my other option. I have had an account with them for a long time. They have low fees and they will be offering a smartphone card reader very soon. I know PayPal and have worked with them long enough to know that they can and will take care of me.

So, my question for all of you is who do you use and what has been your experience? I would really like to know what you think. Post a comment or email me at MarketMyShop@gmail.com

Etsy Checkout Revisited

I received the email last week that I could now add Etsy Direct Checkout to my shop. I added it and found out that the first payment was going to be delayed for 10 days because of adding my checking account. Every time you change your checking account information there is a 10 day delay. Then there is a 3 day delay after each order where Etsy holds your money. It seems a bit unclear but it looks like the 3 days actually starts after the item is shipped not after it is sold.

What is also unclear is how long it takes for them to make a deposit. If it is anything like PayPal it could take an additional 3 to 5 days for them to deposit your money. I have made two sales so far and it seems that the second sale fell victim to the 10 day initial hold and will not be available until after that has cleared.

There is no shipping option with Etsy as of yet, so before you start using Etsy Direct Checkout make sure you have the funds to ship packages. You can use PayPal for shipping. Just use the multi-order shipping option. I had a glitch both times that I used this option and never got the original label to print and had to wait until it was in my transaction list and reprint the label. I am using Chrome browser so that could have been part of it. But you may want to just start an account at usps.com to avoid potential hassle.

Anyhow, I will let you know the progress of how things go with Etsy Direct Checkout. If you have any experiences and would like to share please feel free to leave a comment or email me at MarketMyShop@gmail.com