A new Etsy shop should use Etsy Ads only once its listings are ready to be clicked and it knows how much profit one sale leaves after fees and product cost. Without those two things, an ad budget does not fix the problem, it just makes the same problem more expensive.
This guide is for sellers who have just opened a shop, are waiting on their first sales and are wondering whether to pay for ads. It covers how Etsy Ads charges, how it differs from Offsite Ads, what to have in place first, and a small test plan instead of a guess.
How Etsy Ads charges
Etsy Ads promotes your listings inside Etsy: in "Etsy search, Category pages, Market Pages on both Etsy.com and the Etsy app" (Etsy Help: Etsy Ads). You pay per click: "You're only charged when someone clicks on one of your ads."
The same help page sets the limits that matter most to a new shop:
"The minimum daily budget is $1, and you can change your budget at any time."
"All sellers start with a maximum daily budget of $25."
"After opening your Etsy shop, there is a 15 day waiting period before you can begin an Etsy Ads campaign."
You can create up to 20 ad groups.
Etsy recommends running a strategy for at least 30 days before adjusting it.
"Ads on Etsy work through an auction system", and Etsy names listing quality and bid amount as the two main factors (Etsy Help: how ads are ranked). In ads ranking, the quality score "reflects how likely shoppers are to click on your listing", and relevance looks at how closely your title or tags match the shopper's search. Etsy also says ads use a different algorithm than regular search. The practical upshot: a weak listing stays weak when you pay to show it.
Etsy Ads and Offsite Ads are different programs
Offsite Ads promotes your listings on sites outside Etsy, such as Google, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Bing, and charges on sales rather than clicks (Etsy Help: Offsite Ads). "If you made less than $10,000 on Etsy in the past 365 days, you'll be charged a 15% fee on the order total", and shops at or above $10,000 pay 12% (Etsy Help: fees). An order counts when the buyer clicks the ad and buys within 30 days, and the fee on any one order never exceeds $100 (Etsy Help: Offsite Ads). We explain the rest in Etsy Offsite Ads explained for new sellers.
| Topic | Etsy Ads | Offsite Ads |
|---|---|---|
| Where ads appear | Etsy search, category pages and Market pages | Google, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Bing and Etsy publishing partner sites |
| How you pay | Per click, within a daily budget | Only on attributed sales, as a share of the order total |
| Rate or budget | From $1 a day, starting with a $25 daily maximum | 15% under $10,000 in sales over 365 days, 12% at or above it |
| Cap | The daily budget you set | $100 per order at most |
| When it starts | 15 days after the shop opens | No action needed to be eligible |
| Control | Change the budget at any time | Only shops that never reached $10,000 in a 365-day period can opt out |
With Etsy Ads you decide the spend. With Offsite Ads you pay only when a sale happens, but the rate is high. Etsy's fee table gives no fixed rate for Etsy Ads and simply says "Fees for ads vary" (Etsy Help: fees).
What should be in place before you spend
An ad brings traffic to a listing. The listing is what turns that traffic into a sale. Check three things before you set a budget.
Listing quality
The listing checks on Etsy's Search Visibility page are a good starting list: at least one image, a high-resolution primary photo that shows one finished product (no collage), a clear and well-lit primary photo, the most specific category possible, and a return policy (Etsy Help: search visibility). Your title and tags should match the words buyers type, since ads relevance looks at exactly that.
Profit per order
If you do not know what an order leaves after Etsy's fees and your product cost, you cannot tell whether an ad paid for itself. The transaction fee is 6.5% of the order total, including shipping (Etsy Help: fees). The payment processing fee depends on the country of your bank account: 3% + $0.25 in the United States, 6.5% + 14 TRY in Türkiye (Etsy Help: payment processing fees). Sellers in some countries also pay a regulatory operating fee, 1.67% in Türkiye (Etsy Help: regulatory operating fee). Our guide to tracking profit per order walks through the full calculation.
A little organic data
Before you advertise, look at which listings already earn views and visits in Etsy Stats. A listing that draws interest without ads is a safer candidate for a test than one nobody has clicked.
A small test plan instead of a guess
Use the 15-day wait well. A brand-new shop cannot advertise yet anyway. Spend those days fixing listings against the list above.
Pick the listings to test. Put a few listings with strong photos, clear prices and known profit into their own ad group.
Keep the budget low. The $1 minimum over Etsy's recommended 30 days means a test budget of about $30.
Leave it alone for 30 days. One week of numbers is too little to judge.
Write down four numbers. Spend, clicks, orders from ads, and the profit on those orders after fees and product cost.
Decide. If profit from ad orders covers the spend, keep going or raise the budget a little. If it does not, fix the listing first or stop.
One simple check helps: divide the profit one order leaves you by what you paid per click (ad spend divided by clicks). The result is how many clicks you can afford before one sale has to arrive. If that number is small, ads only pay on a listing that converts very well.
Reading the results
Shown but not clicked: the problem is usually the thumbnail, the price, or a title that does not match the search.
Clicked but not bought: buyers arrive but are not convinced. Look at the photos, price, shipping cost and description. Our guide to Etsy views but no sales goes through each one.
Sold but not profitable: the ad works, but your price cannot carry the ad cost. Revisit the price or the budget.
How Alomations helps with this part
You set up the campaign itself in Etsy. Alomations helps you answer the two questions around it: which listings are ready for ads, and did the ads pay for themselves.
The listing score runs ten checks on a live listing and attaches the fix to each one. It lives in the listings manager, which is open on every plan, Free included. Advertise the listings that score well and fix the rest first. Our guide to the listing score: ten checks and the fix for each explains every check.
The profit view, on paid plans, shows the profit you kept after Etsy fees and product cost on fulfilled orders. At the end of a test, subtract the ad spend from that profit and you can see whether the ads earned their keep. The rest of the toolset is on the features page.
Frequently asked questions
Can a brand-new shop use Etsy Ads straight away?
No. Etsy applies a 15-day waiting period after a shop opens before the first campaign. Use that time to get your listings ready.
What is the smallest daily budget?
The minimum is $1 a day, and every seller starts with a maximum daily budget of $25. The minimum is enough for a first test.
Do Etsy Ads improve my organic ranking?
Etsy says ads use a different algorithm than regular search results. It does not say that ads lift organic ranking.
If I turn off Etsy Ads, are Offsite Ads off too?
No, they are separate programs. Only shops that have never reached $10,000 in a 365-day period can opt out of Offsite Ads, under Shop Manager > Settings > Offsite Ads.
Get your listings ready before you spend on ads by trying Alomations on the free plan.
