Online Marketplaces

How to Promote Etsy Shop For a Successful Online Business

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When running an online business on Etsy, sellers must understand the importance of how to promote Etsy shop. Driving Etsy sales entails more than just product quality and store operations, but also how to advertise on Etsy.

Selling hand-made and vintage items on one of the best selling platforms for independent creators and collectors, you have to fight off intense competition – around 7.5 million sellers worldwide. You also have to give careful thought to creativity and authenticity to maintain your uniqueness against competitors.

For such purposes, we will cover how to promote Etsy shop in the most resource-efficient ways possible with the following ideas:

Let’s get into it and find out how to promote Etsy shop!

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How To Promote Etsy Shop Using Ads

Among the most popular marketing strategies for how to promote Etsy shop, running Ads is of great value.

Learn more: How To Start Selling on Etsy: 10 Steps Guide for All Beginners.

Running Etsy Ads makes use of your current photos and information to advertise your listings. For that reason, you are required to neither have a website and a blog page nor make visuals like photos and text.

#1. Decide on the intended budget and listings you want to advertise on Etsy

You can follow this set of instructions to set up Etsy ads:

1- Choose Shop Manager on Etsy.
2- Click Marketing and Etsy Ads.

3- Click Start your campaign and tick your advertising goals.

4- Define the daily budget. It is the maximum amount you wish to spend on your Etsy product advertising per day. The fixed minimum amount is $1.00.

You are free to change this amount whenever you see fit. Click Manage your budget on Etsy Ads, enter the new amount, and Save the update.

There is a limit to the maximum daily budget, and Etsy allows you to set rules, depending on your average spend, your current payment status, and payment history. If you constantly spend your full daily amount, Etsy will raise the limit over time.

In fact, the maximum daily budget starts at $25 for all sellers and is recalculated weekly for those using Etsy Payments and monthly for those who do not. You should start advertising with this amount early for desired peak sales periods like the holiday season.

In case you have previous advertising activities, a restarted campaign will have the same maximum budget as your last time.

5- Click Start Advertising.

After setting up your Etsy advertising, now you are ready to promote your Etsy listings. Etsy’s experts and customer insights will identify the ideal places and times to display your ads on Etsy, from which many shoppers will visit your Etsy store in the range your budget permits.

Running Etsy Ads can increase your store visibility and audience reach via Etsy search results or other pages, like Category and Market, on both the website and the app.

#2. Select the countries where you want buyers to see your ads

When you define specific locations to display your ads, they will only be shown to customers who reside in the countries you ship your products to.

Follow these steps to choose the countries you want to ship to if you have created shipping profiles:

  1. Choose Shop Manager on Etsy.
  2. Navigate to Settings > Shipping settings > Shipping profiles.
  3. Click Edit and find the profile you want to update.
  4. Add/remove the locations.
  5. Click Save Profile to update the settings.

Otherwise, learn to set up shipping profiles for the countries to ship your listings.

#3. Choose the listings you want to advertise on Etsy

If you provide no specific clarification, the Etsy system will automatically advertise all your current listings in an Ads campaign. However, it allows you to change or update the listings you intend to advertise anytime; just make sure they follow Etsy’s advertising & marketing policy.

For individual listings, look for them and their advertising statuses in your Etsy Ads and change the Status to On/Off. In the case of listing groups, click Manage advertised listings and choose the listings you want to advertise. Save your time by filtering by sections or searching for the ones, then click Update to save the changes.

#4. Keep track of how much your Etsy Ads charge

The Etsy advertising amount is relative to the number of people who click on your ads and the place where the ads are displayed.

The costs per click vary for each listing and each time it makes an appearance in search results. They are totaled to your Payment account daily, and Etsy will stop showing your ads when you have paid for enough clicks for your whole daily budget.

On the Shop Manager dashboard, move to Finances > Payment account and view the recent charge under Recent activities. The older ads charges are available for viewing too when you scroll down to the page end and click Monthly statements.

It is expected that you have grasped the essentials of how to promote your Etsy shop using Ads by now. We have also gathered a couple of other Etsy promotion methods which are free of charge, which helps you put every resource you have to good use.


How To Promote Etsy Shop For Free

#1. SEO

As another factor to consider when expanding your product visibility in search engines, SEO plays an essential role in advertising on Etsy. If you pull the SEO card right, customers are likely to make purchases.

SEO mainly revolves around keywords, titles, pages, descriptions, etc. To optimize all these factors, you must first understand the concept of Etsy search – an extensive built-in search tool that shows relevant results to the items customers search for.

There are two stages in the search process which are Query matching and Ranking. Respectively, the search system will show the listings that match the search term and rank the associated ones under these 8 criteria:

  • Relevancy
  • Listing quality score
  • Recency
  • Customer and market experience score
  • Shipping price
  • Translation and language
  • Shop location
  • Shoppers’ habits

The next thing you should take into consideration is keyword research. Try brainstorming the search tendency of online shoppers on Etsy, their demographics, the information they ask for about the products, etc. Then come up with any keyword combinations that resonate with those ideas and name your products accordingly.

For other methods on how to get more traffic on Etsy with SEO, you can consult this Etsy SEO manual and devise the most suitable SEO plans for your business.

#2. Social media/ Social Share

By their nature, social media channels encourage interactions, ideally between families, friends, and colleagues. With this in mind, store owners should take advantage of social media channels to figure out how to promote Etsy shop and increase their brand awareness accordingly.

To link the social media accounts to your Etsy store, access Social Media from Marketing on Shop Manager. At the top left corner of your screen, click Social Accounts, choose the social media channel you want to connect to, and follow the given instructions.

If you want to execute your Etsy advertising plans on social media, start with a good fit for your products and target customers.

Normally, you need to set up business accounts on social media channels to link to your Etsy store. Accordingly, you can use their useful analytics and reporting systems, such as impressions, click count, the most interactive content, and views.

In specific, you can briefly visualize how to market an Etsy shop on each platform as follows:

1. Pinterest

As an image-sharing and idea-discovering platform, Pinterest allows exploring and collecting inspirations for future events in bulletin or mood board formats.

According to Pinterest Business statistics, more than 400 million users visit Pinterest monthly for inspiration and purchase ideas. While women make up over 60% of their global audience, nearly 50% of weekly Pinners have discovered a new brand or product there. Also, Etsy and Pinterest share the same target audience of creative minds.

All those solid reasons justify why sellers should focus on Etsy Pinterest advertising.

For Pinterest Business accounts, just convert your existing personal one or start anew. It depends on several factors, such as the number of pins, the established history, and the followers. Then claim your Etsy account on your Pinterest profile and set up your main boards with pinned content.

For the detailed setup process, please refer to this Etsy’s official guide.

Moreover, you can take a look at these tips on how to market an Etsy shop on Pinterest:

  • Increase your brand exposure by making your brand name consistent with the business profile or adding it to the visuals.
  • Invest in your visuals, both photos and videos included. Different visuals, ideally unique, are also highly recommended.
  • Pick and create dynamic and interactive pins, preferably in such formats as promoted pins, promoted video pins, and promoted carousels.

2. Facebook

Facebook has secured its position as the most commonly used social media platform with nearly 3 billion global users as of July 2022. Indeed, they are an ideal place to do marketing for Etsy because of their video content, curated photo collections, peer-to-peer interactions via Messenger, and intergroup relations.

To start safe, try promoting your listings to your close circle of friends and families. Then, gradually expand to acquaintances and a larger audience by using Facebook Interest Categories and identifying the exact interests, categories, and behaviors. The Facebook ads will show up to people who have previously been interested in Etsy stores.

Additionally, there are several main Facebook ad formats that have design specifications as follows:

  • Carousel ads (1080 x 1080 pixels): Etsy merchants can show different images, headlines, videos, and links in only one ad and advertise different products simultaneously. The Facebook system automatically assesses each media performance and arranges the order of appearance to optimize the ads.
  • Messenger ads (1200 x 628 pixels): Sellers can display their highly targeted ads in Messenger – Facebook’s famous side app – to initiate interactions with their audiences. Customers can learn product details and receive sponsored messages – highly targeted promotions – from brands they have communicated with
  • Story ads (500 x 500 pixels): Etsy customers can access visual advertisements in the Facebook Stories section. With the help of this feature, you can strike conversations with your potential customers or ask for feedback from the old ones.

Etsy has put together tips for how to promote Etsy shop on Facebook for Etsy sellers who are curious about how to get more Etsy sales from Facebook.

3. Instagram

Instagram is a sister platform to Facebook in Meta’s ecosystem. It attracts users, especially younger audiences, with its strong visuals, cross-promotional photos and videos, IG stories, and influencer content. Ranked as the world’s 4th most active social media channel, Instagram has attracted around 1.4 billion users until July 2022.

Instagram is also an abundant source of information about products or brands. You can turn it to your advantage and implement visual storytelling activities. For instance, share your brand elements as well as the process stages to engage viewers in your product stories.

Also, it is advisable to use hashtags to differentiate your brand from the large competition and draw more audiences to your posts. You can derive the hashtag inspiration from other Etsy sellers or your listing characteristics.

If you are still wondering how to promote Etsy shop on Instagram, check this official handbook on Instagram Etsy promotions for further use of this social media platform.

4. Tiktok

Rising as a social media powerhouse and ranking the sixth most popular platform worldwide until July 2022, Tiktok maintains its charms with entertaining and updated content, as long as the ability to post/share short-form videos.

To advertise a craft business on Tiktok, you can make use of their video format and post handiwork processes or behind-the-scenes. This way, Etsy shoppers can get a full sense of personality and a high level of authenticity from the products or the sellers they are engaging with.

More importantly, the newly established partnership between Etsy and Tiktok at the beginning of 2022 will open up more opportunities for sellers to expand their customer base on these two completely different platforms.

For example, Etsy Affiliate Program even has a special corner for Tiktok accounts. It will pay you to do business on Tiktok and promotes your videos there. Etsy sellers can also make extra profits from the Tiktok Shopping channel since they can directly sell from Tiktok.

Store owners can learn how to promote Etsy shop on Tiktok with this self-composed guide by Etsy.

#3. Affiliate Network

As being one of the top online marketplaces, you cannot miss out on their affiliate network as a way to promote your Etsy shop. Etsy launched its Affiliate Program in 2013 and pays commissions (around 5%) every time Etsy visitors purchase through a link from their website to content creators or influencers who promote Etsy shop.

What’s in it for Etsy sellers regarding how to promote Etsy shop on this Affiliate Program? They do not have to pay additional fees if they receive affiliated links.

Furthermore, reach out to those bloggers and the like with considerable audiences, to which your target customers belong. Have them mention your store and you can likely expand your store’s popularity and credibility, thus driving more Etsy sales.

One of this program’s basics lies in the commissions Etsy offers. They can serve as a motivator to feature and introduce Etsy shops with a favorable selling history to Etsy online shopping fans.

To reach the most relevant content creators and strike affiliate partnerships, you can look for those that frequently feature Etsy shops. Do research on the influential websites your product niche can fit in well or engage their target reader. Develop affiliate collaboration plans and persuade them into the inclusion of your store in their works.

An open-to-collaboration Etsy affiliate site often has its marketing banners on the sidebar areas. You can reach out and negotiate with them to have access to their readers.


Is Selling on Etsy Worth it?

We have demonstrated the best ways to promote your Etsy store that may align with your business scale and financial potential. Hopefully, with the support of these marketing resources, you can achieve your goals for a successful Etsy shop.

Besides how to promote on Etsy, if you ever think about selling on other sales channels alongside Etsy, LitCommerce is absolutely a reliable partner as a multichannel selling tool. It can integrate Etsy with different online marketplaces and shopping carts; consequently, you can make profits from multiple sources.

LitCommerce is always excited to address every concern, even special customization needs, associated with multichannel selling and product listing. Feel free to leave us questions and chat with us about your problems or join our Facebook communities to expand and share your eCommerce knowledge together.

This post was last modified on May 2024 6:38 am

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