← How to Sell Your Stuff on Etsy
How to Sell Your Stuff on Etsy
Ep 234 | Beginner's Guide to Meta Ads for Scaling Etsy Sellers – with Jackie Ellis
00:45:44
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- [00:01]
A
Hey, my name is Lizzie Smiley and I absolutely love helping people connect with their calling and all the tools they need to kick roadblocks and excuses right out the door so they can cultivate the life they dream about. If you want to launch, grow, pivot or scale your Etsy shop, or you've always wanted to develop the mindset and skills to run your own business, then I'm your girl. I've had that entrepreneurial spirit going strong since my very first lemonade stand and now I'm a work at home mama with multiple online companies and a full time Etsy shop. All while being present with my kids for the everyday chaos and most important milestones. On this podcast we'll talk about all things business, mindset, Etsy, creativity, dazzling our customers, and so much more. There's plenty of room at this table for you, so scooch on in and let's go. I'm holding nothing back. Welcome to how to Sell your Stuff on Etsy. I'm so glad you're here.
- [00:59]
B
Hello my friend. Welcome back to the how to Sell Yourself on Etsy podcast. I'm so glad you clicked play. This is a totally new subject for us. We are going to have so much fun today. We are going to give our brains some new candy to play with to chew on. Also wanted to mention I have a new resource that you may want to snag. It is called 20 AI Design Courses and it's a bundle for just $20. I am insane. I started back in like December 2025 recording because 20 courses. Can you imagine 20 courses teaching you how to create all different types of products using AI generators and how you can package them to sell online. Not even just Etsy. I am just teaching you how to create like everything from T shirts, designs, coloring pages, PNGs, Tumblr wraps, SVGs, tote bags, pet portraits. There's 20 of them. There's a ton in there. I am teaching you how to really go into prompting. I am teaching you how to create the highest quality final file that you this was a labor of love and I'm practically giving it away. So literally 20 courses, 28 I design courses for $20. The bundle will be linked down in the show notes. If you've been wanting to start dabbling a little more in AI, understanding how these different products are created, learn how to prompt better. Learn how to create final files that are actually a really good quality, I am walking you through every single step. I'm also showing you all of the other places that you can sell online in addition to Etsy. So dive into that if it sounds like it's up your alley. I was thinking about you when I created it. Let me tell you about Jackie. This is one of my new best friends. Jackie is a marketing agency owner, ad strategist, and the person you call when your Facebook ads are driving you to the brink of a breakdown. She goes, been there. Fix that. She's spent 10 years managing over $10 million in ad spend for 200 plus business owners, and she's seen the same pattern play out over and over. Someone launches ads, they don't work, they panic and start over. But here's what she's learned after a decade in the trenches. Most broken ads are one simple step away from being profitable. Oh, my gosh. That sounds like your Etsy listings. She says the problem isn't that Facebook ads don't work for you. The problem is that nobody taught you how to look at both the ad and the funnel to figure out where the leak actually is. If you're ready to fix what's broken, optimize strategically and make your ads finally work. She's your girl. So my new friend Jackie is going to talk to us about all things running ads off of Etsy. We're going to get into the nitty gritty. Let's welcome Jackie to the podcast. Jackie. Hey.
- [03:28]
A
Welcome to the podcast.
- [03:29]
C
Hey, Lizzie. Thank you. I'm so, so excited to be here. I should say excited and nervous. I don't think I've ever been as excited for a podcast episode. I know, I know.
- [03:40]
B
Stop it.
- [03:41]
C
I don't know.
- [03:42]
B
We were fast friends, right? It was like an instant. Instant friends.
- [03:46]
C
I think that's where it's extra exciting to me. So thank you for having me.
- [03:51]
B
I feel so grateful that I've gotten to meet you and I'm like, getting to learn from all of your. Your brilliance and your expertise, but also just like you as a person. I think this entire like you guys. I'm so excited for you to meet Jackie and come hang out with us. If I have a live event, you keep me guaranteed she'll be invited. Okay, so we're going to talk all things meta ads because I know nothing about them. I'm only just starting to learn about them. And I'm just like, you know what we've got to take, but gonna take my Etsy fam along for the ride. Jackie, what we we've never talked about this year, you need to know we are all so green about this. It's ridiculous. Like, I'm almost A little embarrassed about the questions I need to ask you because they're so elementary. But, like, just off the cuff, what is one thing that you wish people knew or understood about meta ads that is typically just totally lost in the plot?
- [04:36]
C
Oh, that's a good question. Right. Off the cuff, I think. Okay. For your audience coming from the world of Etsy, I think the important thing for people to know that they might not realize is that meta ads are really like, people aren't necessarily looking for the thing that you're delivering to them. All right? So think about the experience of scrolling on Instagram. I'm gonna use Instagram mostly because I feel like that's probably where most ads would be delivered for these products or for these audiences. Okay. You're scrolling on Instagram and you're just, like, seeing, you know, what's new, people that you follow and this and that, and then all of a sudden you see an ad. You weren't necessarily shopping for a gift on Etsy or home decor or a T shirt or something like that. Right. Whereas on the Etsy ads platform, people are already looking for things. Right. So I think the thing that people need to understand is if you. You're. You're entering someone's experience, basically you're entering their feed in a disruptive way. And when we think about ads like this, we need to realize that we have to catch their attention if we want to be disruptive. So ads are naturally disruptive. Does that make sense?
- [05:50]
B
Yeah. I'm on the edge of my seat. Yeah.
- [05:56]
C
But that makes it all the more important that they actually catch attention. Right, You're.
- [06:02]
B
No, here's why I got so excited. Like, this is when I'm like, wait, what? So I'm. Obviously, it's my job to break down Etsy for people and why they should start with Etsy as a new entrepreneur. And I literally give the example of Etsy is not a craft fair. So you can't think of it as, you know, you're trying to position yourself in a really strategic spot at the craft fair, and you're going to have all these people walk by and make an impulse buy because they see something that they weren't expecting or planning. No, no, no, no. That's not Etsy. Etsy is literally. They're coming to the search bar. They're typing in exactly what they had in mind or the person that they're shopping for, and then what they search, you show up in the search results. It's not a surprise. So what you're talking about is inviting us into a whole new world where we're going from. And I don't think it is a limitation the way Etsy is. It's just, you have to, you can't just sell whatever you want. You've got to sell what there's demand for. But you're inviting us into this space with meta ads where it's a different, it's a different ball game. You are, it is like the craft fair where they could walk past me like, oh, I wasn't planning on this, but I now I need it that I've seen it.
- [07:07]
C
Right, yes. You did such a good job of explaining that. That's exactly it. People are already searching for the thing on Etsy and they're not searching for the thing on Meta or Instagram, most likely. However, the thing that's really cool about Meta, the meta platform, is that it has so much data on us. And I know that scares everyone and, and a lot of people don't like that. But the truth is it helps you have a better experience, right? The things that you search, the things that you click on, the things that you like or engage with that helps you rece. Be delivered. Ads that are more relevant to you and also just content that's more relevant to you. Right. So it's kind of like the snowball effect. Like the more, the more things you engage with and the more things that you even search honestly off the platform, the more relevant the things are that show up in your feed. And so that can be really powerful for Etsy, because if you can create an ad that speaks to the things that people have been searching for, you still probably are going to show up in the correct news feeds of these people. Right? So whereas on Etsy you're searching specifically for this thing and it is showing up on Etsy, when you go to Meta, maybe you searched somewhere else for something, but then it's showing up on Meta.
- [08:25]
B
What is Meta?
- [08:26]
C
Okay, Meta is just the parent platform for Facebook and Instagram. So you can run ads on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp audience network, which is basically like when you show up in different apps, like games and apps and things like that, which I don't recommend especially for, for Etsy shops, I don't recommend having a placement there. It's just not as relevant. But primarily you're going to show up in like feeds, so Facebook news feed, Instagram feed, stories, reels, that sort of thing, depending on what your content or what your creative, how people engage with it, I guess.
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B
So if we create an ad on meta, how does meta decide who to show it to?
- [09:07]
C
Oh, this is. How long do we have so much time?
- [09:12]
B
I need to know all of it. We need to know all of it.
- [09:14]
C
Okay, well, there's, there's a way that you can use interest targeting, right? That has been very effective for many years that meta is actually moving away from. So we used to be able to say, you know, if someone likes this or follows this person or takes this action or this, this or this. And so the game used to be, if I can just get my ad in front of the right audience by telling meta exactly who, by. By like checking the boxes, saying, these are my people, then my ads will be successful. Well, now everything is very much more like machine learning based, where we're not telling meta, check the boxes. These are the people that I want to deliver to. We have to tell meta who to deliver to by what we say and show in our creative, what kind of action people are taking on that and what kind of results meta is getting back. Okay, so I tell people. It's like what you say and what you show. Okay, here's, here's an example. Because my dogs, I can see them through my glass door, sitting there, staring at me, wishing that they could be in my office right now. So I'm going to use them as an example. If I had a, an ad that I was creating for like a dog training class or something, I'm not going to have a visual with me in the kitchen making a smoothie or me just sitting on the couch by myself. Like, my dog is going to be in those visuals, right? Or I'm going to be at the dog park. There's going to be something visual that pertains to the thing that is relevant, right? So there's a visual signal from that creative, and that literally is like visual SEO for our Facebook.
- [10:55]
B
Okay. Wow, it's smart. It's.
- [10:57]
C
Wow, it's very smart. The next thing is what I say in that creative. So that could be me talking to the camera. Like the actual words that I'm saying. Meta picks up on that. It could be the words or the text that I have on my video or on my image. Meta picks up on that. It could even be, for example, if I'm selling a T shirt, what it says on my T shirt.
- [11:17]
B
Okay? Oh, wow.
- [11:19]
C
Yes. If the T shirt is in the visual, meta will pick up on that. And then, so there, there's your kind of like SEO, essentially, like giving meta clues. Okay, this is who we think that Jackie is trying to Find with her ads. Then you have the validation that comes back from the action that people were actually taking. Okay, that's a little bit more complicated. Do you want me to get into that?
- [11:43]
B
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
- [11:44]
C
Okay. Okay, here we go. So when you set up a campaign in meta, you can choose an objective. Okay, I'm just going to give two examples of objectives. One is traffic. So if I want to just send as much traffic to a page as possible, I'm going to choose that as my objective. The, literally, the objective is to get someone to click on my ad and go to the next step. Go to the page. Okay. Another objective would be a conversion or like a purchase objective, for example. Okay. And that tells Meta. This is a little bit more complicated of an objective for meta. It's really kind of like a hefty algorithm. It has to take into account a lot of things, like people's past purchase behavior. Right. So that's kind of hefty. It's. It's more expensive to run these ads, but it will show your ad to people most likely to buy. Okay. And so the validation that it gets back from a traffic campaign is, is this ad clickable? Are people clicking on this? And what meta learns from that when it sees clicks coming in is like, who are these people that are clicking on this?
- [12:51]
B
Right.
- [12:51]
C
And so it's just kind of validating that it's delivering to the right people. It was guessing based on your creative and your message. And then when someone takes the action, then it's validating and then it starts sending to more of those people. Okay, same thing with the conversion. If you're running ads for purchases, it's saying, okay, based on what you're trying to deliver. Here, this is who we think these people are that we should deliver your ads to. And when the purchases start coming in, it says, ah, yes, we see, we see these people, we know so much about them, and we're going to find more people just like that to deliver your ads to. So it's really become more algorithmic than clickety clack, beep, boop, beep. Like, trying to. Like, what do you, what do you. What's the phrase I always use micromanage, Instead of trying to micromanage your campaigns.
- [13:40]
B
Okay, so, okay, so here's a. An adjacent question. Have you ever, I don't know, been talking to your husband about something and like 20 minutes later you open up Instagram and there's an ad for it?
- [13:52]
C
Oh, for sure. In fact, I.
- [13:53]
B
What is happening?
- [13:55]
C
I talk to my husband about things on purpose so that it will deliver to his algorithm for sure.
- [14:01]
B
How's that working?
- [14:03]
C
Well, I, I don't. I'm not privy to that particular.
- [14:07]
B
Sure, yeah.
- [14:08]
C
Technology. But I mean, I think everyone could agree that our phones are always listening to us. And I will say we can't particularly target that kind of action. Like, it's not like you set up your ad and you're like, okay, when someone's phone hears someone say these keywords, I want you to start delivering my ad. But it's like, it must be already, like, programmed in or something, because your ads will deliver based on this, right? It will. You will. You will see people's ads delivered to you because you're like, honey, I think we need to get this tree cut down in the backyard. And then all of a sudden you start seeing tree removal services at. Right. I'm not privy to how that works, but.
- [14:54]
B
No, no, that's okay. This is like asking us how the Etsy algorithm works. I totally get it.
- [14:58]
C
So that's.
- [14:59]
B
It's interesting, right?
- [15:00]
C
It's these.
- [15:01]
B
And I think it would be really interesting to talk a little bit about, like, tracking pixels and stuff like that. What went through my head. And I know we've got to differentiate this for Etsy. You. You brought this to my attention before we even hit record. But so, like, I'm running ads to get more awareness out about my podcast and things like that. How does Meta know that the ad created a sale? To be able to then get smarter
- [15:25]
C
like that, there are. Okay, there's really two ways. One is very, like, technical and manual. Okay. You have to set up the pixel on whatever site where the event is happening. We call it an event. Like the purchase basically is an event. It triggers the event, and then it sends that event information back to Meta.
- [15:46]
B
Wow.
- [15:46]
C
If you have like a custom website or something like that that you're selling on, like, you may have to manually, like have a, like a dev team or something like code this into your website. Right. But most platforms like WordPress and Shopify and lots of different tools go high level and all kinds of different sites actually integrate automatically with Meta. And you just have to put in your pixel code. And it knows when you set up your. Your shop or your website, it knows what is a lead, what is a purchase, that sort of thing. And it automatically sends that back. Now, it's not a hundred percent match all the time, but it's pretty close. So Shopify does that automatically. Etsy does not.
- [16:31]
B
This is where it gets tricky. Yeah, I think Shopify and Everbee Store can both do it. You literally just get your code from Meta, you put it into the, there's a field you're supposed to put it into and then the two of them talk to each other, which is bananas but so helpful for tracking. Talk to us about. Well and actually before we even do that, I want to get into the issue there with Etsy and why we want to understand it between the two of us. Can we break down so people understand the difference between Etsy ads versus meta ads? Are you okay if we take a second to do that?
- [16:58]
C
Yeah, yeah.
- [16:59]
B
So guys, Etsy ads are specific to the Etsy platform. You literally go into your Etsy seller dashboard, the marketing and you turn on Etsy ads. They are being kept on the Etsy platform. All it's kind of doing is boosting your listing to people who are searching for those for the search terms you've put on it. You are paying for Etsy to show, to give priority to showing your listing and you can set up your daily ad spend but it's different, it's not going to show up other places. We also need to talk about Etsy off site ads which are not set up by you as the seller. Etsy is working with Meta and Google and other places to show listings that are likely to sell off of Etsy. Those are off site ads and you might see in your transactions. If you sell something from an off site ad, Etsy will charge you for it. It's an important to note if you make less than $10,000 in a 12 month period, you can go into your Etsy marketing dashboard and turn off off site ads where Etsy cannot promote your Etsy listings off of Etsy like they they do will not have permission. But if you make more than $10,000 in a 12 month period, you do not have the option. You are going, you're going to have off site ads. It's some people hate that. But it's just the nature of business. You want to make sure you price your stuff accordingly so you don't get totally hit by that. Especially if you're in handmade. Don't ask how I know. But the percentage that they charge you varies. So the percentage is a bit lower when you can't opt out than it is if you can still opt out. So those are things specific to the Etsy platform. What Jackie is talking to us about is how you as a seller can run ad either your Etsy shop or your Shopify shop. When you get advanced to be able to get more eyeballs. Because remember, we've talked so many times about the nice thing about Etsy is the built in traffic. When you start selling off of Etsy, you got to drive your own traffic. And so this is where you need, where you need a Jackie teaching you about this. So those are Etsy ads and Etsy off site ads. Differentiate that for us in like a quick blurb. Jackie, what a meta ad is by comparison.
- [18:57]
C
Yeah, well, a meta ad essentially is taking someone from off the Etsy platform on their, on Instagram or Facebook and they see your ad and you're driving them back to Etsy, so.
- [19:10]
B
Or your Shopify.
- [19:11]
C
Or your Shopify. Exactly. And so yeah, they basically see whatever product it is or however, I mean most likely it's going to be showcasing your product, whatever product it is, and send them to whatever location where you're selling it. Now the difference, do you want me to get into the difference of a little bit of strategy there in terms of Etsy?
- [19:33]
B
My concern is like, I think it's, I personally am thinking they really should only be running ads to their own website because of the lack of tracking that you've kind of alluded to. So talk to us about all of that.
- [19:43]
C
Okay, so the tricky thing with Etsy when I was talking about the pixel is. And maybe I should back up and just kind of explain a little bit more about what the pixel is, please. It is pretty much like a crumble or a fingerprint or something like a piece of DNA that you leave behind on a crime scene. Right. You know how they can like find like a piece of hair and they're like, oh, Jackie Ellis was here. It's kind of like that you leave behind like a digital crumb and it says, oh, this person visited the site, this person added something to their cart, this person made a purchase. And this is the value of it. It's, it's like tracking that customer journey almost and sending that information back to the advertiser, which is meta. If you're running meta ads, however, Etsy I think likes to keep control of that, like, or keep it private maybe. And so they do not allow integration of your particular Facebook pixel for your business and the Etsy site. So the only kind of ad that you can run to Etsy is a traffic ad. Okay. Whereas, and I'll come back to that in a second. Whereas if you're running to Shopify, you can run ads for traffic to get to your site. You could run ads to try to entice people to add to cart like add something to their checkout process. You could run it strictly for purchases. And those are all different like levels, I suppose, or different stages of the customer journey. Right. We all have to go to the site, add to cart before we check out. Right. And so we can kind of target each of those steps. Most people just run, honestly, most people just run purchase ads for conversion to their Shopify. But the tricky thing about running traffic ads is Meta. Remember how I talked about the algorithm is really hefty for the conversion ads. It's not hefty at all for traffic ads. So it's a little less discerning, it's less worried about who is clicking on your ads.
- [21:37]
B
Oh, okay, okay. A little more of a free for all rather than a targeted lead. Okay.
- [21:43]
C
And so this creates a couple problems. You could be running ads to people who are just clicky clickers. Right. They just click on everything. People over 65 tend to click on everything, if I'm being totally honest. So sometimes we exclude, unless that is your actual, like who you're going after, who you're selling to. Sometimes we'll exclude 65 plus because we just know that they don't understand that they're seeing an ad and they're just kind of curious and they're never going to take the action. Right. Same thing goes with just running traffic ads in general is that you will get more clicks than you will get buyers. I mean, you'll get a ton more clicks than buyers. And nothing about that kind of campaign is actually telling Meta what action you want them to take after the click. So if you want traffic, great, it'll get you traffic. But the tricky thing about it is it does not mean it's going to convert to buyers. It could literally just be people who are just curious and never have any intention of buying. And so that's the thing that's tricky about Etsy. Whereas if we can tell Facebook a little bit more, like we're going to send this to our Shopify store and we want to get as many people adding this item to their cart as possible or purchasing as possible. Meta understands that more. It's not just clicking.
- [22:58]
B
You guys know I am constantly testing strategies and frameworks on Etsy so I can tell you what's actually working and what's just noise. And one thing I have noticed over the years is this. Most Etsy sellers aren't stuck because they're lazy or they're not doing anything. They're stuck because they're second guessing everything. What to work on, what matters Right now, whether they're even on the right path. I hear this all the time and that feels exhausting. So after years of teaching Etsy sellers through courses and workshops, the trendspudding, membership, coaching and this podcast, I built something that brings everything together in one place. It's called Scaling Society. Scaling Society is my all inclusive Etsy membership for sellers who want clarity and a clear plan without hopping between programs or wondering what to focus on next inside. You get my Etsy Seller roadmap so you know exactly what to work on and when with direction on what resources will help you master it. You also get every single one of my courses and my workshops. You get access to trendspotting and the weekly trend reports, my template drop, which means a weekly template that you can resell in your own shop. SEO training, a bunch of done for you resources like prompts, SEO and branding templates. You get a coaching group with real support, and that's where the magic happens. You also get access to two live coaching calls with me every single month. You'll also get automatic access to all of the new trainings and resources I have planned for this year, including special guests. It's designed to meet you right where you're at, whether you're brand new or you're ready to scale and help you build intentionally instead of guessing your way forward. And honestly, the biggest feedback I hear from members isn't just about sales, it's relief. They finally know what to focus on. So if Etsy feels harder than it should, if you're putting in effort but you want more clarity and direction, or if you're ready to treat your shop like a real business and have actual support behind you from people who know what they're doing. You can learn more about Scaling Society at the link in the show notes. There's monthly and annual options and you can cancel anytime. So just pick what's right for you. I'd love to support you inside. Yeah, I was thinking like, oh, that's like putting an SEO term that's super vague and not specific to your product in your tags. Yeah. And you're thinking, oh, this has got great demand on it. There's a lot of searches on it. It's low competition, but it's so it's not relevant to what you're selling. So it's not helpful. Traffic. It's just going to hurt your conversion rate.
- [25:22]
C
Exactly, exactly. And I think the tricky thing about it is we talk about, you know, when we're talking about marketing our products and stuff, we want traffic. And so we say you gotta get more traffic. You got. Well, at least that's what I hear. I don't know if that's what you or not, but we want more sales, you need more traffic. But when it comes to meta ads, that's a little bit tricky because more traffic from an ad does not mean high quality traffic, does not mean that they have the intent to purchase. Right. Because you have to remember we just interrupted their scrolling time. Right, right. Netflix on in the background and they're, you know, got an ice cream bowl in their lap and they're just scrolling and then they see this thing and it doesn't mean that they were actually looking for that at the time. It's just that meta was like, well, we are delivering this ad to the people most likely to click. Now I will say there's an exception to this. I love to use traffic campaigns when I am validating messaging in my ad. Okay. And so this is where we get to use that algorithm for, to our advantage. Essentially, I will take a product or whatever it is, whatever offer it is and create, you know, five to 10, maybe even more variations of it to see literally what is the most clickable thing that I can put in front of you in front of my audience. Okay. And when I compare those kind of apples to apples, I'm running them all against each other. That's, that's a test, right? Not just a B test. But I mean, we have 10 different ads potentially that we're testing and I can compare what ad got the highest rate of clicks. Okay, this is going to sound a little depressing. Maybe I shouldn't get into the numbers because it sounds so small, but when you can get, you know, 1 or 2% of people clicking on an ad, that's actually a completely normal metric. It sounds depressing, but that is, that's so good to know a good click through rate. Okay, 1 to 2%. When we're running them for testing, they're probably going to get much higher click through. But let's say that one of my ads is like 0.9% click through and one of my ads is 5% click through. Well, guess what? When I go to actually create ads that I want to run to get purchases, I'm going with that 5% ad. What that told me was my audience saw these 10 ads and this ad over here was by, by far the most interesting thing because the more, more people clicked on that ad than my other ads. So we can literally use this traffic campaign to our advantage to say what is the most clickable thing that we can put out there as an ad and then shut off all the stuff that's not. But you just have to keep in mind if you're running to Etsy like that is your objective and you're still probably going to get more looky loos than, than purchasers.
- [28:09]
B
I think we should talk about some strategy and, and I just want to like reiterate for people. So first of all, I think personally my, my strategy recommendation is you start by getting organic Etsy sales. You learn demand, you learn your, your niches that you want to serve and the things they're going to like. You, you learn SEO. So you're putting the best possible keywords on your listings. You figure out how to position your product. Start getting organic sales. That's what the marketplace is beautiful for. Then once you're getting organic sales, test some Etsy ads to be able to get more sales because it's selling organically if you get it, if you push more traffic to it, it'll sell with ad spend as well and you won't lose money. I personally think, and Jackie, correct me if you disagree, I think meta ads are going to be better once you scale to your own website. I think that a. You're on. You agree, you're on Everby Store, you're on Shopify. Ever Be store is nice guys because it'll integrate directly and you can, I mean, there's ways you can push over from Shopify as well. But literally like Cody over at Ever Be has made it. So if you create a listing in, in Etsy, it'll create it for your store as well. And that's just, to me, that sounds like a great time saver that I want in my life.
- [29:20]
C
Yeah.
- [29:20]
B
And it'll do all the same things as a Shopify. So once you hit about 500 sales, whether it's organic or with paid Etsy ads, that's when I want you start to start building your own website and thinking about these things. That's about the time maybe even you could wait till you're at a thousand sales. I think earlier than that at, you know, no more than 300 sales, you need to be building your email list because what's going to happen is when you open that your own website, you're going to have to drive the traffic. It's not like Etsy, where the search engine is there, the marketplace is there. You just have to have the right SEO and you'll get sold. You've got to actually drive the traffic to your site. So you're using Jackie's methods for meta ads. You're doing social media, maybe you're working with influencers. You're doing something to get traffic. You're using your email list to drive traffic to your new website. I think that's just so important because I see people put up listings and they immediately turn on ads and they still don't know what they're doing. Or they immediately try to start Etsy and a Shopify site or every store at the same time and they get so burnt out because there's so much to learn and do go through the stages of it. When someone has done that and now they're, it's time, they are opening their own site. They are, it is time for them to start doing meta ads. Let's start with like what types of products do the best to run ads to. Because Jackie, I've got people who sell handmade stuff. I've got people who sell personalized handmade engraved stuff. I have people who sell digital products. Everything from like a birthday invitation that you could, you would like text to your friends to coloring pages to Santa, a letter from Santa, all different things. And then also print on demand, which I know you're familiar with because you do that stuff that they're, you know, they're creating the designs, they're selling it on merch, basically. T shirts, sweatshirts, mugs. What products do the best? Or could it be any of them?
- [31:02]
C
You know, that's a really great question. I, I kind of have two answers to that.
- [31:07]
B
Okay.
- [31:07]
C
I think potentially if you're, if you're willing to figure it out, any product could really work. And, and this leads me to the second part of this, this question. It, you have to be able to visually for it to be interesting visually. So let me explain, because a digital product versus a T shirt versus a homemade product, it doesn't really matter. Right. As long as when you see it, you understand it. Okay.
- [31:39]
B
Yes.
- [31:40]
C
Okay. So there are digital products that I've seen ads for that someone has literally printed. Like it's a PDF and they've printed it and you can flip through it. Okay. You, I don't think anyone wants to see just a mock up necessarily in an ad. Right. That's not going to stand out. Well, that's not going to stand out from meta. Okay. I know that there's lots of mock, like I search for mockup or I search for digital products and things on Etsy different. Okay. But if you're entering my feed when I'm not expecting It. I'm going to need more than just a mock up of your digital thing. Okay.
- [32:15]
B
Wow.
- [32:16]
C
You're going to need something visual. So it becomes more important, like how do you tell the story of this product and how do you show it visually versus what the product is? Do you ever watch Shark Tank?
- [32:26]
B
I'm obsessed with Shark Tank.
- [32:28]
C
Me too. You know how I think it's usually Lori that says this? She's like, I am out because I don't think that this will sell well on an end cap. Because you have to explain it. You know what I mean? And if you can't look at it and know right away what it is, it's going to be too hard for people to figure out. Don't make your customers have to work at it. They need to. Like, a fifth grader should be able to look at it and understand what it is essentially. Right. So as long as you can do that. I see, I see ads that are successful for all kinds of different products. Okay. If you have a ton of T shirts, I always get hung up on the T shirt thing because I love funny T shirts. But anyway, if you have T shirts, you could have a creative that flips through different T shirts pretty quickly. Right.
- [33:16]
B
And it's video.
- [33:17]
C
A video. Absolutely. So it could be me wearing the T shirt and then, you know, it's a blue T shirt, it's a black T shirt, it's this, it's that. That is a little bit more engaging. Like, videos do really well to generate traffic. You could get creative with how you display your digital product. Like I said, print it out, flip through it. You could take a video of, I guess if it's on your screen. You could take a video from your phone on your computer screen showing, you know, what is included in the digital product or kind of like clicking through something like that. I don't think it matters so much what the product is. Just can I understand what it is and is it engaging in some way? Videos are definitely videos.
- [33:56]
B
Are it, huh?
- [33:57]
C
I mean, I used to be really anti video because the old videos used to be just, you know, someone talking to the screen. And I was like, oh, my gosh, I will never do that. I'm awkward.
- [34:07]
B
Back again now, though. Isn't that like. Isn't that like.
- [34:09]
C
Yes, in a big way. But that used to be like the only thing, right?
- [34:12]
B
Yeah.
- [34:13]
C
Now there's so many different styles of engaging videos that you can have. Like, I don't know. The sky is the limit. And I think the advantage that your Etsy crew has is that they're already creative people. You're making something right now. You just have to think creatively about your marketing. I made this product that people are going to love. How can I make the marketing that people are going to love? How can I show this in a unique and compelling and different way? Before we hit record on this episode, I said something to you about, like, people not understanding that what is going to be compelling about them is what is different about them. I think this is like, really? I've always said different is better than better. You can't have like, when you're just comparing better to better. It's like better price, better value, better. Like, someone can always out better you in terms of what your product is, but they can't out different you. So how can you show up different aren't in the feed, if that makes sense. This is a huge opportunity because there's so much AI out there right now that. Not that AI is bad, but if AI is making everyone look and sound the same, then it's bad, right?
- [35:23]
B
Yeah, it's. And I think. You know what, this is an interesting conversation because a lot of us are trying to target the same customer, right? Because we're going after demand. We're going after what's already proven in the marketplace. We're going after established trends, and yet the ones who do it the best have their own flair. When you get really good, you can get lucky a few times just starting to play with it. And we all go through that phase, by the way, where we're not necessarily that good yet, but we get lucky because we hit something, you know, earlier, we get it. But it's like when you. The ones who go the biggest are the ones who do that and figure out how to almost put their own signature on it. Where later on when people see your stuff in the feed, they're like, I know that's that shop. That's the vibe of that. It's what you've got a vibe.
- [36:09]
C
Yeah.
- [36:10]
B
And in a world where everything is becoming more and more vanilla, the more you can be rocky road or mint chocolate chip, the better. And I know we hesitate, right? Especially because I bet some people who listen to me could get confused because I'm always saying, don't get too creative, follow demand. And that's just because I'm trying to get people fast wins and understand that they're serving a marketplace that has people who are. Who are looking for something. You can't just surprise and delight them until you listen to Jackie and you Build your own.
- [36:39]
C
Okay, but don't you think that what you're saying applies? Like you said, like, don't, don't get creative. What, what was the line that you said like, don't get.
- [36:48]
B
Yeah, people tend to get too creative. Like they're trying to be so innovative and, and to your point, but what happens is they create something that people don't even understand how to use.
- [36:57]
C
Yes. Because that lives within our own brain that is connected so closely with like, you gotta think about what your brain has gone through to create your product or your product lines. Like.
- [37:08]
B
Yes.
- [37:08]
C
You are so deep in it that sometimes what we say in our marketing we think is being like cute and it's just confusing because yes. Is not in our mind. We have to get into their mind about where they are would be thinking about buying our product, not where we are where we're creating it. But also you're right. Like don't get too cute or clever or creative like with your product and with Etsy, get creative with your marketing because remember Etsy, people are searching for the thing, right? Meta, they are not searching for the thing. You have to make your thing stand out. And so I think that that's where you need to put your creative energy. Like, and that's should be like your superpower.
- [37:50]
B
Right?
- [37:51]
C
Like get.
- [37:51]
B
Needs to be.
- [37:52]
C
Yeah, get creative about it. That, like save that creative energy for your meta ads because that's the only thing that's going to make you stand out.
- [38:01]
B
I think it's, I think it's super interesting. So if. So if someone's just getting started, what do you think is the simplest type of meta ad for a beginner to start with? Like, where are they going to waste the least amount of money? What do they need to prepare to do that? Just give us a few tips around that.
- [38:14]
C
Okay, so earlier I talked a little bit about testing and I know that this is like, people don't like testing. It's very unsexy.
- [38:22]
B
I also scary. Yeah, it's scary.
- [38:24]
C
But here's the thing. If you, oh, I wish I had an analogy for this actually. And I'm so bad about pulling them out of my rear on the spot. But it's scarier to go all in and run the most expensive kind of ad that you can, which is a purchase conversion ad. Like, you tell meta, I want, I want you to find buyers for me. I want you to get me purchases. That's an expensive ad to run. Okay. That should be scarier than spending 20, $30 on testing. You could spend Hundreds of dollars before you find out what works for purchases. Whereas you could be running, I'll say, 20 to $50 on testing to tell you what people are most interested in. Okay, so let's say, for example, we're talking about all these different styles of ads. Let's say that you have a talking head video. You're talking about your product. You're showing your product. Let's say you have one that just has music over it. You're not talking at all. It's just displaying your product. Let's say you have a carousel ad that shows different products that you sell. Okay. And then you can test these all against each other and say to Facebook, like, which one do people like the most? Which one's getting the most clicks?
- [39:40]
B
Yeah.
- [39:40]
C
And then that is the direction that I'm going to go down a little bit deeper. That is less scary than saying, I think I know exactly what my audience wants and I'm just going to create this ad and I'm just going to go all in on it. Because guess what? Most times that I think an ad is going to work, it's usually not the ad that I expect to work. And I do this for a living. So, yeah, it's always surprising. Hey, who says?
- [40:06]
B
That was actually super helpful, too, because it also kind of gave you an idea of a budget. You know, you can start out by having a 30 to $50 budget and really learn a lot.
- [40:13]
C
Oh, absolutely, Absolutely. And the thing is, you can do it the other way, too. You could test ads in a conversion campaign for purchases, but it'll take so much longer to get the data, because you have to. Your data is based on the purchases. Right. But we know that only probably 2 to 5% of people that click on your ad and go to your page are actually going to buy from a meta ad. Okay. 2 to 5%.
- [40:39]
B
Wow.
- [40:40]
C
But we know immediately who is clicking on the ads, and we can make decisions for what ads to run so much faster from that. And we're talking your clicks might be 10 cents a click. Whereas getting someone to your page for a purchase is going to cost you dollars instead of cents. So I don't know. I don't know how much else convincing, how much more convincing I could be about running testing. But it's just so quick, so inexpensive. Probably 20 to 50 over two or three days. And then you know what direction to take your ads.
- [41:14]
B
It's a huge deal. No, it's just any. It's just like you need to get proof of concept before you turn On Etsy ad spend, you've got to get. You got to get proof of concept. On what? On the, on the clicks. That's super, super interesting because the conversion rate is so much lower coming from that cold market off of Etsy to your own website than it is when you're on the platform. Jackie, there's like this. I feel like this is such a massive subject. There's so much to it. There's so much more to learn. I think you mentioned you have some other resources that people can dig into. Can you tell us what you've got? Like, how can we learn more from you?
- [41:41]
C
Yeah, I do. I actually have a podcast where I talk about meta ads all day long. It's called so Worth It. I actually do have several episodes that have come out recently specifically about meta ads. So if you like to listen to learn, that's a good place to go. And then I also have a video training. It's a free ads training and you can watch it on demand. So you can sign up right now and watch it. You don't have to wait for me to like pop on or anything. And you can find that at soworthit Co Easy Ads.
- [42:15]
B
I will obviously link that for you guys. Along with her podcast in the show notes, do you have any parting words? Is there like any, like, message you'd really want to make sure. I mean, we could have talked about so much more. Yeah, I know. Like, if you have like one big piece of advice or one thing, you just want to make sure you get
- [42:31]
C
to say, I think the biggest thing is, and you kind of reiterated this already, is that you need that proof of concept or you need to get those sales first before diving into meta ads. Meta ads are not going. Meta ads are more of a system of scale. I know I talked about testing, but that's just testing your messaging to scale. So ads are not going to fix a sales problem. Ads are not going to fix an offer problem. You have to have the product that people want first before you start running ads to it. So, yes, it'll generate traffic, but not if you're already. If you're not already selling, if that makes sense.
- [43:11]
B
I think that that is like the best advice you could possibly ever give us. Thank you so much. Are you and are you on socials? Is there somewhere people can find you and connect and follow? Or do you. Do you do much of that?
- [43:22]
C
I don't do much of that. I am. Jackie Ellis is my Instagram and you can find me.
- [43:28]
B
You're not doing anything there, though.
- [43:29]
C
Really, every once in a while, I do. I post a little bit about my podcast there.
- [43:33]
B
Okay. So really, though, the podcast is social. I feel like that's the place. Like, that's the way to.
- [43:37]
C
Really.
- [43:38]
B
Yeah, that's.
- [43:39]
C
That's the way I like to show up the most. It's funny, as an ads girl, I don't actually do very much organic at all. I don't love social media. I just love apps.
- [43:47]
B
I don't blame you. Also, like, yeah, way to lean into it. Jackie, thank you so much. Like, obviously, you know that I love you.
- [43:56]
C
Oh, I love you, too.
- [43:58]
B
But this was so sweet. Like, thank you for being willing to come and share because, like, really, guys, she. There's, like, nothing in this for Jackie. She is just a sweetheart who wants to help us. And I, like, I just love people with a heart like that. I do think, though, we've got some really interesting sellers doing amazing things. And I think that for sure they're going to want to check out your podcast. For sure they're going to check out your free training. And you might. Some of y' all might want to work with her, like me. You may want to, like, go deeper with. With Jackie if you've got bigger stuff you're doing, and that could be really fun. I fully endorse Ms. Jackie Ellis. She's awesome. So thank you so much for your generosity and your time and your heart.
- [44:33]
C
Yeah, of course. I'm so happy to be here. And if you listen to my podcast, reach out on Instagram and just shoot me a message or if you have questions or anything. I just. I just want to be of value, be helpful.
- [44:46]
B
You guys, do you love her as much as I do? Thanks, y' all so much for listening in. I hope that you took away some gold nuggets that you just understand your business and where it's going a little better than you did before you hit play. Until next time, go make something awesome. I love you guys.
- [45:02]
C
Bye.
- [45:02]
B
Bye.
- [45:03]
A
And that's a wrap on this episode of how to sell your stuff on Etsy. Thanks so much for hanging out with me today. If you're looking for more resources, head on over to howtosellyourstuff.com where you'll find podcast show notes, all the links from today's episode, the blog, courses, coaching, and more. If this episode was helpful, helpful to you, awesome. The greatest compliment I can receive from you is a rate, review and subscribe on this podcast. Not only will it allow us to connect again on a future episode, it lets me know I'M providing you with value and helps other people find this content more easily. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for your support. Have a great day and see you next time.