Etsy eases offsite advertising

Etsy is reducing the cost and risk to sellers of placing ads on platforms like Google and Facebook.

The handmade and vintage goods e-commerce retailer is introducing Offsite Ads, a new service where Etsy will use its own budget to advertise sellers’ items on sites like Google, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Bing. Sellers won’t pay for advertising unless they make a sale, giving them access to third-party digital platforms without any upfront costs. 

Instead, Etsy will employ a success-based model. When an Etsy-funded ad leads to a sale, the featured seller will pay an advertising fee ranging from 12%-15% of the order value, capped at $100 per order, depending on the volume of sales they have made on Etsy.  

In addition, Etsy will now only dedicate sellers’ Etsy Ads budgets, which previously went to both onsite and Google Shopping ads, toward promoting their listings on Etsy. The retailer intends this change to allow sellers to better control how they promote their goods directly on our platform. Etsy introduced the Etsy Ads program in 2019 to combine on-site Promoted Listings and offsite Google Shopping advertising products into one service.

“We know that 80% of our sellers want to grow their businesses and digital ads are a cost-efficient, effective way for them to drive more visits and traffic to their listings,” said Ryan Scott, chief marketing officer of Etsy. “Now, we’re further evolving our offering to continue to empower sellers to drive traffic to their shops while also mitigating the risk that can be associated with online advertising.”