Business Sense: Advertising with Craftcult.com

Craft Cult is a "Etsy helper" style site. They are the proud Heart-o-matic service, which allows you to monitor the popularity of your store and single items. It is a prettier more friendly version of Analytics. It allows you to track the flow of visitors, but unlike analytics that is the only information you get. Now the real amazing part is it allows you to separate the views an item might get and the hearts. I use this is a way to gauge the actual popularity of an item.

This is a very popular tool used by many Etsians. I know I learned about it through several shop owners and I like them pass it on to others. So this is a high traffic site.

Pricing
Craft Cult offers two styles of ads. There is the top carousel rotating image gallery. Then there are the two sidebars that have a list of eight images that switch out. (I myself have only done the side bar.) Craft Cult offers a variety of flat-rate packages starting at $15 going up to $55.

What was my experience?
I went with a seven day sidebar ad for $15. I figured this would be a great starter. Since they offer a flat rate, I didn't have to worry about surprise fees. This made this test run seem safer to me. Also, knowing that they are high traffic made it more appealing.

Here is the ad I ran:

I am in the bottom right.

Trackable Results
Here is the important stuff.

My average hits per day when I have not listed a new item is anywhere between 1 and 14. To me this seems like normal average visits if you are not promoting your store. So I consider this my base line of comparison.

I ran my ad from September 25th through August 31st. As per my google anayltics, there is a huge jump in visits. After having talked to the wonderful people at Craft Cult, they let me know that the busiest days for them are Monday and Tuesday. I assume this is because those are the first scheduled days for people after having been out all weekend.

Here are the number:
Wednesday the 25th = 21 unique visits and 2 shop hearts
Thursday the 26th = 29 unique visits and 1 shop heart
Friday the 27th = 30 unique visits and 5 shop hearts
Saturday the 28th = 12 unique visits and no shop hearts
Sunday the 29th = 29 unique visits and 3 shop hearts
Monday the 30th = 23 unique visits and 3 shop hearts
Tuesday the 31st = 10 unique visits no shop hearts

I didn't think to track item hearts. I intend to on my next trial with them. Now I didn't get a sale out of this. But, I did manage on the slow days (the 28th and the 31st) to still almost hit the high end of my non-advertising visits per day. And, on the busy days it doubled and sometimes almost tripled.

So final verdict is that this is a great site to buy on-line advertising. Since money for my store mainly comes from sales in my store I will use this advertising mainly near holidays. I am currently looking for some free sites to advertise on. If you know of any please let me know.

Business Sense: Online Advertising

I will admit that I don't have a lot of experience in this field. In fact, I am learning this in a very hands on manner. So I figured I should write about my experiences as I go. This way people, who may also be looking into but a little cautious, can see what I have done. So first there is the learning the jargon section of it. Here is the Wikipedia Article that covers it. Now for my basics:

Methods of Payment

CPV (Cost Per View):
This means that every time your ad is displayed on the website you will have to pay for it.

CPC (Cost Per Click)
This means that every time your ad is displayed on the website and someone clicks on it you will have to pay for it.

My preference at this point is a flat rate or a CPC (Cost Per Click) situation. I am going to be doing articles on different sites that offer advertising as I go. So this will be an on and off again article chain, but they will all by tagged with Online Advertising

What sites do you advertise on? What are your preferences?

Gearing up for the holidays

I am back to blogging. (And I know the irony that this is the second or third post in a row to say that.) It is amazing how you will suddenly not having anytime when you find a project you want to work on.

So as the title of the post suggest the holidays are around the corner. Along with present buying, wrapping paper, and holiday dinners. I have to admit that I still go into the holidays with a child like enthusiasm. I always have this clear feeling of love and family at this time. Since it was only my Mom and Sister we tend to be really close. It was kind of like living in an all girls club house. My Mom is also huge on Christmas. She has a curio where she houses her expensive Santa figurines year round. My favorite is a Santa kicked back in a wooden beach chair with a palm tree, sunglasses, beach shirt and a coconut with colored umbrella.

But for Etsy sellers this can become a very stressful time. So I want you to check out this amazingly useful booklet: 2010-2011 Holiday Marketing Planner

It is a 21-page document that is designed to help you layout your holidays from September 2010 to February 2011. (I can't believe it is around the corner.) I signed up, printed and sat down with it last night. The package is simple to use. I set up my scheduling and goals I have for myself. I then scaled them back a tad bit knowing how busy I am going to be. But it was a feeling of piece of mind. I like being organized. I like having a plan. This booklet will give you both. If you are looking to take advantage of all of the gift buying this year. I suggest start planning now.