Maximize Marketing With Etsy Offsite Ads
As an Etsy seller, you have the potential to get featured on larger channels through Etsy Offsite Ads. Etsy’s offsite marketing network can help increase product visibility and boost your sales.
Let’s explore how Offsite Ads work, overview Etsy’s partner sites, and research the tips, strategies, and advice for maximizing store listings to get featured by the Offsite Ads Program.
What Is an Offsite Ad?
As the name suggests, Offsite Ads are online ads promoted on external websites or search engines. The Etsy algorithm and a team of advertising experts analyze listings and decide whether to promote them as an Offsite Ad on any one of Etsy’s partnered websites or services.
Etsy works with multiple online businesses as part of a wider-reaching marketing network. These Offsite Ad channels can provide significant market reach for any storefront:
- Bing
- Google Display Network
- Etsy’s Publishing Partners
Etsy Publishing Partner sites consist of members of the Etsy Affiliates Program. This includes independent third-party sites like blogs, influencers, and online services.
Each ad channel has requirements that determine whether shop listings are eligible to appear as promoted products. See all terms and policies for Etsy Offsite Ads Channels.
Let’s look at how Offsite Ads interact with and benefit Etsy sellers.
How Does the Etsy Offsite Ads Program Work?
Every seller is automatically eligible to participate in Etsy’s Offsite Ads program.
Etsy can pick and promote products from any seller whose listings meet their advertising criteria. There are multiple metrics that Etsy takes into account, including:
- Advertising Policies
- User Search Trends
- Popular Keywords
- Titles and Meta Tags
- Images and Descriptions
Etsy promotes optimized listings off-site to lead more users to the product. If everything works out as planned, the seller receives more sales, and Etsy takes a cut from advertising fees.
What are Offsite Advertising Fees?
Etsy’s Offsite Ads fees are deducted from a sale if a customer buys a product by clicking through the ad. The fee amount is calculated as a percentage of the total cost of the product.
Offsite Ad fees have a 30-day tracking period. At that time, if a shopper buys a product and their purchase is attributed to Offsite Ads, the seller must pay an advertising fee for every sale that the shopper makes. After 30 days, the user’s data is refreshed and the Etsy fee expires.
Offsite Ads Fee Breakdown
Etsy’s Offsite Ads fees are determined by the total revenue an Etsy store has made in the past 365 days. Etsy checks store revenue on the first of each month to apply the correct rates:
- 15% fee on each sale if an Etsy shop has made less than $10,000 in the past year. Sellers below this benchmark may opt-out and disable Offsite Ads.
- 12% fee on each sale if an Etsy shop has made $10,000 or more in the past year. Sellers at or above this benchmark are required to have Offsite Ads enabled.
Ads fees for stores that use a different currency than USD are calculated by converting the order amounts to USD with the fixed currency exchange rates of when the sale was processed.
Note: the percentage amount taken from each sale is calculated before the fee is applied and will never exceed $100.
Learn more insights about Etsy fees and Offsite Ads from these additional Printify resources:
Etsy sales fees explained: How Much Does Etsy Take Per Sale?
Strategies for Etsy marketing: How Etsy Advertising Can Boost Your POD Business
Let’s see which listings work the best and why some don’t receive as many shopper clicks.
How to Improve the Chances of Your Listings Appearing on Etsy's Offsite Ads
Offsite Ads are a great way to increase conversions. To make it a reliable and consistent marketing strategy, you need to learn how to improve listing quality and optimize for customers.
Use Short and Accurate Product Titles and Descriptions
Optimize your listings by prioritizing precise and brief product titles. Target only the most relevant shoppers, clearly show what you’re selling, and focus on unintrusive advertising. Conduct competitor research to limit titles that match or sound too similar to others.
Ideally, your product title should include:
- 70 characters or fewer
- one primary keyword
- clear use of grammar
- no special characters
Similarly, write accurate product descriptions without unnecessary upselling. Stick to objective metrics, detail product features, and answer how the customer can benefit from the purchase. Keep branded language simple, clear, and cultivate a friendly style and voice.
Instead of relying solely on keywords in the title, add secondary keywords through Etsy tags to increase their frequency in a user’s search results without decreasing the quality of the text.
Adhere to Etsy's Policies
Familiarize yourself with Etsy’s policies and make sure that all your listings adhere to marketplace standards and can be used as promotional material. Remember, Etsy benefits from your reputation and sales as much as you do, highlighting only the best examples on partner sites.
Refrain from Etsy’s list of prohibited items, including listings that infringe on intellectual property rights – copyrighted content, stolen product images, plagiarized descriptions, etc.
To increase your chances of appearing on partnered channels, read the Channel Information and Channel Terms in the policy section to discover the benefits and rules of participation. Pay special attention to restricted, spam, or misleading content and the site’s conduct and liabilities.
Finally, limit watermarks and promotional text on images and focus on highlighting the products themselves. Partner sites may prohibit marketing tactics that over-promote or reduce ad quality. The use of cluttered backgrounds or borders can affect what Etsy chooses to advertise.
Set Competitive Prices
Research similar items to find a competitive price range, while still managing to land a profit for your business. You don’t need to make a steal, especially if your products are of higher quality or have better value. Either keep prices low or highlight the advantages of a premium purchase.
Decreasing the cost of the product to a competitively low price is a good initial strategy that can help grow the starting traffic to your Etsy store. Once you have a large percentage of sales attributed to Offsite Ads, focus more on balancing losses of revenue.
Offsite advertising is not without costs. Etsy storefront sellers that benefit from external ads and partner checkout often cover the Offsite Ads fee by raising the price of their promoted products. This is especially true for Etsy listings with already low profit margins.
Any order attributed to Offsite Ads can be a good example for price approximation. Navigate to the Etsy Stats page under Shop Manager to view store rates, spending, views, clicks, revenue, and other Etsy Ads stats to help you calculate an appropriate and competitive price.
Provide Accurate and Clear Shipping Details
Shipping prices are among the most important costs a potential buyer will consider before making an order. One way to create transparency and trust is by defining clear shipping details upon purchase and creating reminders during the course of product delivery.
Create or edit custom shipping profiles on the Etsy shop dashboard by navigating to Shipping Settings in the Settings menu. Make sure you’ve added a fixed processing and transit time, or have set up automatic estimates with calculated shipping for shops in the US or Canada.
Help boost conversion rates by offering free shipping. Cover shipping fees as a competitive strategy to lower costs. Alternatively, consider combining shipping with the product price to pack the entire cost into one definitive price throughout browsing and checkout.
How to Turn Off Etsy Offsite Ads
An Etsy store that earns $10,000 or more in annual revenue can’t opt out of Etsy Offsite Ads.
An Etsy store that earns less than $10,000 in annual revenue can opt out of Etsy Offsite Ads.
Per Etsy’s official advertising policy, eligible stores are required to participate in Offsite Ads for the lifetime of the shop with a discounted 12% advertising fee.
While automatically enabled by Etsy, sellers who are not required to participate can manually opt out of paid advertising via Offsite Ads through the Settings menu in the Shop Manager:
- From Settings, click on the Offsite Ads page in the menu selection.
- At the bottom of the page, click on the link Stop promoting my products.
Read the disclaimer and confirm Stop promoting my products by clicking again.
Start your Etsy print on demand business today!
FAQ: How Do Etsy Ads Work
What is the difference between Etsy ads and offsite ads?
Etsy ads are paid advertising on the Etsy website or app marketplace, and can be purchased through the Advertising Dashboard in the Etsy Shop Manager.
Offsite Ads advertise through an external network of providers partnered with Etsy, and are paid via an advertising fee for any sale attributed to the ad.
Does Etsy do offsite ads automatically?
Yes. Etsy automatically enables Offsite Ads for all participating stores. However, stores with less than $10,000 in annual revenue can opt out of the program.
Where can I see my sales from offsite ads?
Go to the Stats page on your Etsy Shop Manager. If you’ve stayed opted in, you’ll see an Offsite Ads section under the store traffic statistics. Click on see more info on your Offsite Ads to see which sales and fees are attributed to buyer clicks via an Offsite Ad.
How can I increase my Etsy sales without ads?
To increase sales without using ads, optimize your listings, provide quality customer service, expand your range of products, and engage with social media and online communities.
Final Thoughts: Are Etsy Offsite Ads Worth It?
To answer the question, let’s summarize what we’ve learned:
- Etsy Offsite Ads can be shown on multiple ad channels, including on search engine results, social media sites, Etsy Publishing Partner sites, and Google Display Network sites.
- Sellers pay an Offsite Ad fee every time an online user clicks on an ad and makes a purchase in under 30 days. Fees range from 15% to 12% from the sale amount.
- Promoted listings off-site are automatically enabled for all sellers. Only stores that have made less than $10,000 in annual revenue can opt out of Etsy’s Offsite Ads program.
- To make a good Etsy shop to advertise, make sure you’re selling relevant items, follow ad policies, use clear and organic language in titles and descriptions, add relevant keywords in tags, offer competitive pricing, and provide accurate shipping.
For many sellers, Offsite Ads are a large percentage of their sales and provide a net gain through the added traffic.
For others, any extra ad fees are a dealbreaker, significantly reducing revenue for each sale by lowering the profit margin.
Decide whether Offsite Ads benefit your own shop as an integrated form of paid multichannel advertising, or if you’re better off disabling and reducing your overall Etsy fee payments.
If your store has reached the $10,000 or more benchmark, this decision is automatically made by Etsy. Fortunately, you are more likely to benefit from a discounted advertising fee than not.
Make It Happen Today!
Written by
Janis Lazda
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