Advertising Part 1

Let's say that at this point you've started making some sales. You now have a little money flowing through your shop and you'd like your sales to be even better. Well maybe it's time to think about doing some not-so-free marketing. By this I mean, Advertising!

Now there are many different ways of advertising, even in the online world alone but for today's post let's stick with advertisements on websites and blogs. 

How to do this:

First of all do some research as to what blogs & websites post relatable subject matter to what you sell. If you sell fashion, then specific fashion sites would be your first place to start for example. Like finding a fashion site that shares the same style. Remember you are more interested in who reads the blog than who creates the site because those are your potential customers. Once you've discovered some sites that you think might be useful and already have advertisements (some sites don't use sponsors), they will either have a section that says "be a sponsor" or "advertisement". If not then just find their contact and send them an email asking if they are accepting new sponsors and if so what their rates are. Also remember to send them a link to your shop so they know who you are and that you are serious! 

Some websites will have one set advertisement size, some will have varied depending on the price for example:

Others charge based on where your ad will sit on their site. Whether it be at the top which will likely get the most views, or middle, or bottom. Prices will often vary depending on where you choose to put your image. 

So make sure you make your little advertisement is the size suggested by the site so that it fits properly in the ad space. 

So set a budget for yourself on how much a month you can afford to spend, then choose the amount of sites, which sites, and which ad spots will be your best deal! 

Once you have your ads up you can start monitoring your traffic from those sites on etsy by going to your "shop stats" section. 

^^^ It should look something like this ^^^

The Traffic Sources section is going to tell you where people are discovering your shop from. You can also choose to view this by day, month, year, and so on. These stats tell me that the blog I advertise on (the blurred one) brings me my 3rd highest clicks and is worth keeping as a site to sponsor. 

Now if after a month or so you notice that some sites bring you a lot of attention but others don't bring enough for what you pay: stop advertising on the low ones and use that extra money to buy better ad space on the ones that are working! Or save some money by removing those that are not helpful to your sales.