Etsy announces new advertising program

eCommerce
Written By Rick Watson

Etsy just released its new advertising program, and it's an interesting one to analyze. Let's get this out of the way: I expect Shopify to watch this closely.

It's advertising without risk for a merchant, coupled with a success-based fee.

  • opt-out for all but the top 10% of sellers. top 10% have to do it and will pay 12% for any sale driven.

  • the fact that it is opt-out tells me a lot. This is not a test. Etsy is dependent and counting on this for its future growth.

  • attribution is 30 day look-back only if the ad contained a seller's item. What does that say about landing pages with collections? Are they not in the program?

I do expect a lot of sellers to be happy with this eventually but they will resent the increased take rate. I would hasten to bet that the vast number of their sellers do not understand running Facebook and Google paid marketing campaigns. So it's hard for them to compare the alternative.

The chatter will be "Etsy grabbing more money." At least until it settles down.

Rick Watson

Rick Watson founded RMW Commerce Consulting after spending 20+ years as a technology entrepreneur and operator exclusively in the eCommerce industry with companies like ChannelAdvisor, BarnesandNoble.com, Merchantry, and Pitney Bowes.

Watson’s work today is centered on supporting investors and management teams incubating and growing direct-to-consumer businesses. Most recently, in partnership with WHP Global, Rick was a critical resource in architecting the WHP+ platform, a new turnkey direct to consumer digital e-commerce platform that powers AnneKlein.com and JosephAbboud.com.

Watson also hosts a weekly podcast, Watson Weekly, where he shares an unbiased, unfiltered expert take on the retail sector’s biggest players.

In the past year alone, Rick has spoken at many in-person and virtual events as well as podcasts on topics ranging from retail/ecom to supply chain/logistics and even digital grocery including CommerceNext IRL, ASCM Connect, and Retail Innovation Conference.

https://www.rmwcommerce.com/
Previous

Introduction to Zalando: Making connected retail a reality
Next

Walmart moves into fulfillment services