Etsy’s Offsite Ads – My Stats and Fees revealed

Today’s post is one I’ve been wanting to do for awhile. During my hiatus due to Covid/Homeschool/Business Growth/Burnout, Etsy rolled out their new Offsite Ad campaigns. (If you don’t know what Offsite Ads are yet, check out the post I did on it for allll the information!) Now that Etsy’s Offsite Ads are in full effect, I wanted to share how Offsite Ads are performing for my Etsy shop and how I feel about them now.

Etsy’s Offsite Ad recap

Towards the beginning of 2020, Etsy announced they’d be changing their ad policies. The quick run down of the changes and additions is this:

• “Etsy Ads” are now ads that show up in Etsy-only searches. Previously “Etsy Ads” included Google Ads as well.

• The new “Offsite Ads” were introduced to ALL sellers on Etsy. Offsite ads are mandatory for shops earning $10,000 or more sales a year, with discounted fees. Shops earning less than $10,000 sales a year had the option to opt-out, but their listings would not be prioritized in searches. Their fees are slightly more as well.

• For Offsite Ads, you ONLY pay if the product ultimately is purchased, which means it’s ‘no risk’ advertising.

• These Offsite Ads show your Etsy listings on websites such as Google, Facebook, Instagram, Bing, Pinterest, etc.

The Results

One of the reasons I started this website, was to help others see what it was like to sell on marketplaces like Etsy – so they knew what to expect and learn from my experiences. It’s empowering and enlightening to see other shop’s performances and how they navigate marketing, strategies, and changes like Etsy’s ads.

Etsy’s Offsite Ads began in March 2020.

Since then, my business has exploded in sales. I have been doing double, triple, and some months have done quadruple in sales from what I did last year at this time. Now to be honest and clear – 2020 has been completely different than all other years for obvious reasons.

So I’m not saying that it’s just Offsite Ads that helped the growth, but it was definitely a part of it. I think the majority of the increase in sales were that people were stuck quantineed at home, bored, shopped online, and redid their decor in their houses – which caters directly to my business as I sell wall decals. Offsite Ads are definitely performing and helping my shop.

My Offsite Ad Stats

As of the time of this post, I’ve had almost $10,000 in sales from Etsy’s Offsite Ads alone. I’ve paid $601 in ad fees for these sales.

Because my shop makes over $10,000 yearly, I pay the 12% fee. Shops earning less than $10,000 yearly pay 15%. Now if you do the math, you’ll see that $601 is not 12% of $9947. This is because Etsy waived the Offsite Ad fees until May 4, 2020.

So let’s say Etsy didn’t waive those fees – then the total advertising fees I would have paid would have been about $1193.

The $1193 investment to have almost $10,000 in sales is completely worth it to me. I am loving that I don’t have to ‘deal with’ the Ads. They’re all taken care of for me and the sales come in. It’s easy and simple. On the flip side, it does bother me that I don’t have any control over anything. I can’t disable certain listings not to show in ads, or focus harder on other listings. But overall, I’m happy with Etsy’s Offsite Ads and how they’re performing for me.

I do understand that not every shop runs the same. Each shop has their own way of running things and so profits, sales, costs, etc vary widely between sellers. I can see how this may not be amazing for everyone, and I do want to acknowledge that side of it. If you have an Etsy shop or wanting to get one, thinking about the cost of these Etsy ads are definitely a must as you price your products.

Total Sale + ALL Fee Breakdown

So if I’m paying a 12% fee on an Offsite Ad, what does that look like for the entire sale? Here’s a breakdown of an Offsite Ad sale of mine from yesterday:

Overall, I paid a total of 22% of my total sale in fees. Keep in mind these costs when pricing your products. For more information about Etsy fees, I have another post where I breakdown each fee that Etsy charges.

Navigating Etsy’s Offsite Ad Stats

I do want to point out HOW to find your Offsite Ad stats on your Etsy shop manager. It’s kind of a hidden, which is annoying.

Go to your Shop Manager, click on Stats, scroll below the section “How shoppers found you” and you’ll see a very unnoticeable “See more info on your offsite ads –> ” link. Click on that to go to your Offsite Ad stats. You can refine the stats in the top left of the page. For my stats I shared above, I chose “This Year”.

As you can see, it’s not a nicely laid out page like the regular “Stats” page. There’s no graphs or anything like that. It doesn’t show you what percentage of sales are coming from Google, Facebook, etc – which I don’t love.

Then it shows each individual sale from an Offsite ad and where it came from. There’s no way to sort these sales or anything like that. It shows you what listing was purchased, where the sale came from, the date of the sale, the price of the product, the order number, and the fee you paid for the Offsite Ad.

I do like however, that it shows exactly what listing they clicked on, and what they ultimately ended up buying. For my fee example above, for example, they clicked on a different yet similar product, and ended up purchasing a different listing. This shows me that the buyer browsed around on my shop and found something else to buy. It also helps me see what products are more popular so I can mimic those type of designs that customers are ultimately buying!

Since Etsy released these new Offsite Ads, I’ve heard and seen quite a bit of complaints about it. While I do think the fees can creep up and get excessive, it’s not where I would ever close my shop because of it. But again, I know each shop is unique and some may not have as much wiggle room in their profits to absorb new fees.

For me, I’m grateful for the extra sales and boost in my profits. I hope this helps you see how Etsy’s Offsite Ads work and are performing overall. I want to be transparent and open so you can see first hand what it’s like to get sales from an Offsite Ad and the fees associated with the sale.