Etsy Analytics - How Can They Help With Future Sales?

In the world today, most people have heard of Etsy.  There are books and podcasts devoted to how to sell your artistic wares on Etsy and make a profitable business out of your own home.  There are many people who do create a booming business using Etsy, however, many find that it doesn’t always bring them the fortune they were expecting.  Unfortunately, handcrafted goods are something that costs much more to produce than the mass-produced products you can pick up at your local Walmart.  The cost of handmade items on Etsy can be anywhere from 3-10x’s more than the products you currently use.  Most people want the most bang for their buck so paying higher costs and then shipping can sometimes be more than a regular shopper is willing to pay.

Etsy is an ecommerce platform for the more artistic sellers typically.  When browsing the contents of this ecommerce platform, you will find things such as handmade jewelry, bath soaps, candles, photographs, graphic designs, etc.  The platform is open for anyone to use, however, there are monthly fees of $.20 per listing.  Your listing could cost more depending on how many photos you attach.  The platform is easy to use and creating listings only take a few minutes especially if you are selling something that is similar to another item you sell because you can just copy and paste.  This option gives many people the opportunity to sell a few crafts they make on the side without the hassle of trying to incorporate the shop into your own website. 

The analytics found on Etsy are comprehensive and can be added to Google Analytics to be monitored more thoroughly.  Included in the Etsy analytics are views, visits, orders, revenue, referral websites vs. direct traffic, search terms used, personal websites that link to etsy shop, and keywords used to find your shop.  Etsy gives you the ability to see your analytics from one day to all time. 

In the all-time analytics for Amy Sine Design, my shop on Etsy that occasionally sells digital backgrounds and templates, you can see that my store has been visited 742 times with 1547 views to my products.  I have made $180 in revenue and the majority of my traffic came from Etsy and social media.  The keywords are something I find particularly interesting, Google doesn’t even show this many keywords used to find my website. 

I feel these analytics are useful for someone who is managing a small shop and is not getting very much traffic.  A larger shop would need to link with Google Analytics to be able to track the areas that are purchasing their products, gender, age, etc.  These statistics help you determine what demographics would give you a higher ROI from your paid listings.  Google Analytics can help shop owners narrow down who they want to target so they can create multiple ads that mainly target the areas they get the most traffic from.  Using Google Analytics can also tell you how long people are staying on each listing on your site whereas the Etsy analytics only tells you how many people overall have visited your shop.  You can go to each listing and it will tell you how many people have visited it, but again you can’t tell how long they have visited or how many have found it and left promptly.

By analyzing the keywords that bring in the most traffic to your listings, you can then start to revolve your keywords around those main keywords.  In my example photos, you can see that my most searched keyword was digital background and then newborn digital background.  You can see the number of visits you have acquired from these keywords.  I could then take digital background and add a keyword in my listing such as digital backgrounds, backgrounds, digital images for backgrounds, etc. 

The dashboard design is easy to understand, and Etsy gives you the tools to market and sell.  In the shop manager, you will find your listings, conversations, orders & shipping, stats, finances, marketing, as well as community and help. 

Etsy marketing allows you to sign into your social media accounts to share to friends and followers.  This feature also allows you to advertise from the platform to Google shopping where your listing are placed on the Google search pages under your keywords.  These placements are paid for and will come us sponsored ads.  Etsy tracks these ads within the on-site dashboard.  You can also create ads through Etsy itself to boost your listing to the top of the keywords you choose.  This can help you be seen by more traffic just browsing items and could result in a sale because people do not know what they want until they see it.

If your account is attached to Google Analytics, you can track how many conversions you receive from your Google shopping plus you can set up goal conversions to determine how many people are reaching certain goals. 

Overall, Etsy is a good tool for someone who knows little about selling online but would like to do so on the side.  It is made to be optimized so you can use it in a larger capacity.  Some improvements Etsy could make would be adding demographic information to the dashboard, monitoring time spent on the page, and monitoring time spent viewing videos.  It would also be good to know the flow of traffic through the store to see if consumers are looking through any additional items.  These can be supplemented by Google Analytics, however, GA may be more than some sellers can handle.  It can be confusing to connect even if you use the directions provided by Etsy.