How to promote an Etsy shop: 8 methods for success

In just one year, the Etsy marketplace supercharged its revenue from $818 million to $1.72 billion and doubled its active buyers in the same period. By 2022, Etsy generated upwards of $2.5 billion in revenue, with no signs of slowing any time soon. To date, 7.3 million Etsy sellers compete for the business of 94 million active buyers — leading some sellers to question how to promote an Etsy shop. 

With more marketplace competition than ever, the proper promotion will be the key to success on Etsy. Fortunately, several avenues exist to promote your Etsy storefront and drive traffic to your product listings. An effective Etsy market strategy can help you cut through the competition to earn your fair share of the ever-increasing annual revenue. Discover how to promote an Etsy shop with the below eight steps.

• Etsy marketing tactics are crucial for increasing a store’s visibility and encouraging long-term profitability. 

• Social media and email marketing offer lucrative organic and paid Etsy marketing opportunities.

• Etsy product listing optimization greatly affects product discoverability, from product listing to image selection.

As with any business, an effective marketing strategy is essential to an Etsy shop's long-term business growth and profitability. In fact, marketing initiatives could not be more important for ecommerce entrepreneurs operating from the Etsy marketplace because marketing is integral to boosting a store’s visibility. Enhanced visibility equals an increase in customer traffic that can boost customer sales.

Regardless of how in demand or attractive your products may be, it’s important to remember that you will continue to struggle to earn a profit if consumers are simply unaware of your Etsy shop or oblivious to the fact that your Etsy products exist. By dedicating time and effort to an effective Etsy marketing strategy, you can increase brand awareness, build customer trust, and solidify your brand’s overall reputation.

Whether you’re just getting started selling on Etsy or are trying to determine where your marketing shortcomings lie, we’ve got you covered! From social media and email marketing tactics to optimizing your existing storefront, there are tons of tactics to promote your Etsy shop. Below we’ve collected the top eight strategies you can use to drive more traffic to your store and earn more sales.

In today’s digital era, using social media accounts to promote your Etsy shop is one of the most sustainable and cost-effective marketing methods. With the right approach, social media platforms like Pinterest, TikTok, and Instagram can captivate potential new customers' attention, build a loyal brand following, and promote your Etsy products.

The key to impactful social media marketing is consistent interaction with your audience. Routinely sharing compelling social media content, such as images, reels, and stories relevant to your brand, is an excellent way of securing loyal followers and directing them toward your Etsy shop. To encourage return customers, you can also use social media to announce new products and upcoming promotions.

In addition to organic marketing tactics like engaging social posts, consider using paid social media ads. To determine a suitable ad platform, leverage your target customer demographics, including average age and interests. Platforms like Facebook and Instagram display your ads as product carousels within a user’s newsfeed to highlight top-selling items and direct traffic to your shop.

Outside of social media marketing efforts, email marketing is also a lucrative tool sellers can use to promote their Etsy shop. Email marketing is a more direct way of promoting an Etsy business as it allows sellers to reach an audience who has already expressed interest in their brand and has opted in for email communications. 

To benefit from email marketing, you'll first need to build an email list that can be used to distribute marketing materials. If you have an existing website or blog, including an email subscription link on your site is a simple and effective way of gaining email subscribers. This also goes for your social media pages, where you can direct followers on how to sign up for emails.

Now that you’ve collected email contacts, you’ll begin crafting marketing materials promoting your Etsy shop. This can include announcements highlighting new product designs, product discounts, and promotions. To encourage repeat customers, consider developing monthly email newsletters highlighting company updates and relevant industry news.

Beyond marketing efforts, specific factors, including the age of a listing, can impact your Etsy SEO ranking and overall discoverability. Etsy search results are designed to display newer product listings toward the top of search results resulting in older product listings appearing farther down in search results, ultimately resulting in lower discoverability. 

With hundreds, if not thousands, of new products being uploaded to the Etsy marketplace each day, it’s crucial for sellers to repost their Etsy listings regularly to maintain a high search result placement. Reposting product listings helps a product remain at the top of search results since the Etsy search algorithm continuously views them as new item listings.

Like most Etsy sellers, you’ve probably realized that you cannot extensively customize your storefront. So, stand-out product images are a crucial factor in capturing the attention of potential customers. Your images are what will help you stand out in the crowded marketplace, meaning that poor product visuals can deter potential customers from exploring your shop and impact your Etsy sales.

If producing high-quality product images isn't your strong hand, you may want to consider partnering with a professional photographer. Professional services can help ensure your product images are high-resolution and well-lit for a clean and crisp end result. Be sure to capture multiple product images from varying angles and depths to showcase your product optimally. 

As you capture your product images, it’s essential to consider the final use for the product and how you can help customers envision using the product in real life. For example, items such as coffee mugs shine when captured against a plain white background, whereas apparel items such as women’s t-shirts and tote bags are more impactful when shot using a model in a lifestyle setting.

To further support promotion efforts, Etsy offers ad services sellers can leverage to run targeted ad campaigns and improve visibility across the marketplace. By tapping into the power of Etsy ads, sellers can invest in promoted listings that advertise their products across various marketplace locations, including the coveted search results, market pages, and product category pages. 

In comparison to other ad services, Etsy ads are quite simple to set up and automate. Under marketing settings, sellers can set their maximum daily budget to be used on Etsy ads. By default, Etsy will advertise all of a seller’s current listings across marketplace locations they believe are best suited for the product. However, these settings can be adjusted to advertise a specific listing(s). 

As your Etsy ad campaigns work their magic, you’ll also be able to assess their performance over time. The Etsy Ads Performance graph will provide a multitude of key performance metrics for you to review, including ad views, average click rate, orders from ads, and budget spent. These metrics can help provide a more thorough understanding of how your promoted listings are performing.

The Etsy marketplace relies on a search engine to help connect buyers with the appropriate products. So, Etsy product listings require search engine optimization (SEO) best practices to reach the desired customer. When drafting an effective listing, you’ll want to research the potential keywords you expect consumers will use in an Etsy search to locate and identify your products.

When determining the correct SEO keywords, conducting a bit of marketplace research on similar items can help understand how other sellers are wording their product listings. You can then use related keywords in a detailed product description and product titles to help your listings rank higher on Etsy search results and improve the overall visibility of your Etsy shop.

In addition to general SEO best practices, Etsy product descriptions must be written to provide potential customers with all the information they need to make a confident purchase decision.  Selling points such as product size, color, materials used, and production methods should be included in each product listing to support the overall customer experience and encourage a sale.

In many cases of online shopping, consumers need an extra push to make the final decision to click ‘make a purchase.’ While certain elements of your storefront may be top-tier — like your product descriptions and customer reviews — it sometimes takes plugging an extra incentive to convince customers that they are receiving a good deal and should move forward with their purchase. 

For example, many consumers will keep an eye out for Etsy shops that offer free shipping since eliminating miscellaneous costs persuades them they are saving money. To advertise free shipping on your product listings without ever worrying shipping costs will eat into your profit margins, remember you can always incorporate those miscellaneous costs into your listed retail price!

Through the Etsy marketplace, you can also develop various discounts and promotion codes to incentivize sales further and encourage purchases. Referencing back to your social media and email marketing efforts, don’t be shy about sharing an exclusive discount code or details regarding limited-time promotions with followers to help drive them to your Etsy shop and further promote sales.

As you work hard to build a strong brand following, remember thousands of influencers on social media channels like Tiktok and Instagram already boast a large following. Many of these individuals are ready and willing to showcase your products! That’s why it’s so common for ecommerce brands like yours to collaborate with social media influencers as part of an overall marketing strategy. 

When looking into influencer marketing opportunities, reach out to social media influencers who complement your brand and attract demographics comparable to your target audience. In exchange for complimentary products or a pre-decided payment, influencers can create content using or wearing your Etsy products to help your brand reach a broader audience, gain exposure, and secure more sales.

Before you get started with your new marketing campaign, there are a few marketing tips you should know to help you benefit from these Etsy marketing tactics to the fullest extent. Here are the three top Etsy marketing tips you can use to drive your promotion efforts and successfully attract customers!

Before diving into any Etsy promotion method, it’s crucial for you to understand your customers fully. For every product type and niche, understanding its general target audience helps you to develop more well-rounded and effective promotions and marketing campaigns. Conducting market research helps you determine your target customer demographics, including age(s), buying habits, and pain points, to customize your long-term market efforts better accordingly.

Crafting a compelling about section for your Etsy storefront is a great way to support your marketing efforts and connect with customers. In your About section, customers will seek information on your brand’s background, including its origin store, brand mission, and overall purpose, to support their purchase decision. The more a customer can relate and connect to the brand, the higher the chance for repeat purchases later.

Over time, it’s essential for Etsy sellers to monitor their store analytics to gauge overall marketing performance. Etsy Stats provides sellers with an overview of various performance metrics, including the number of store visits, orders, conversion rate, and revenue that can be used to determine how well your marketing and optimization efforts are performing. This allows you to easily identify areas that need improvement and more effectively make the needed adjustments.

From leveraging the power of social media and email marketing to collaborating with social media influencers and running Etsy ad campaigns, you can take several avenues to improve search result visibility and drive sales. Without using these various marketing methods, you will simply struggle to capture the attention of your target audience — and to increase your Etsy sales.

Once you begin to master promotion techniques for your Etsy shop, consider boosting your product offerings through print on demand. Gelato’s print on demand services can help you create custom products, like stationery business items and unisex apparel, which are produced in near real-time at one of our local production hubs across 32 countries for fast, sustainable delivery.

To gain a competitive edge and increase your Etsy profits, integrate your storefront with Gelato print on demand and discover just how easy it is to add custom products to your store.