5 Hacks I Used to Crack the Etsy Algorithm

[00:02] are not taking advantage of these few things that you can do to really help optimize and grow your shop. And if you really want to be a successful seller income on your Etsy shop, these are things that I highly recommend that you

[00:16] do. So, first up is photos. And in specific, are you following what Etsy says is helpful for you to have a successful listing? Meaning, the photos that they suggest. So, if you've never seen the Etsy seller handbook before,

[00:31] of information for Etsy sellers that it's created [music] by Etsies, meaning that they share tips and tricks that are proven through them, right? And on the Etsy seller handbook, [music] they give different things and guidelines that

[00:45] they suggest you should follow in [music] your Etsy listing photos. Now, as of I believe a week ago, now Etsy has made it so we can have up to 20 photos [music] on our listing. It used to be 10. So, they literally doubled this. I'm

[00:59] not telling you to go fill all 20 of your photos, but at least offer and have [music] 10 photos on your listing. But, I want to share with you what Etsy seller handbook says for what types of photos you should have. So, first of

[01:12] all, your very first Etsy listing photo needs to be clear and concise as to what the product is. Etsy refers to this as [music] your studio shot, meaning that again, [music] and maybe doesn't have too crazy of a

[01:27] background. It's just a shot of your product looking beautiful, looking amazing, and shows clearly what the product is. So, Etsy even says for the studio shot that clear photos help set a realistic expectation of what a customer

[01:40] will be receiving in [music] the mail. And it also says that when shoppers are they are drawn to clear, bright photos that show off the product. A few ways that I've been doing this is making my mockup photos [music] in KD and doing it

[01:55] on either bright white backgrounds of my products or doing something like a bedspread [music] or in front of a kitchen if it's a mug that is all just, that the product is what the eye is drawn to. And they also mention a

[02:09] lifestyle shot, which is essentially someone using or [music] wearing the product that you have and are offering. Etsy also mentions a scale shot, which product may be. This is [music] pretty

[02:22] useful too to avoid any types of returns or exchanges or also if you want to offer a size chart if you're selling apparel. That's extremely helpful. And then they also suggest a detail shot, a packaging shot, a group shot, and a

[02:36] process shot. So, they're offering a lot of different things that they suggest. for you and your product, but overall incorporating the things that Etsy is saying because at the end of the day, Etsy is the platform that we are selling

[02:49] on. So, when we are, you know, looking at the seller handbook, following up on saying, seeing the updates, it can be very helpful and beneficial because I'll tell you firsthand, a lot of people don't do it. I will leave a link to the

[03:02] the description if you want to check it out for yourself. But I think it's really helpful and just gives you an idea of what Etsy wants you to have and wants you to push because [music] Etsy makes money as you make money. So, they

[03:14] said, um for [music] making different types of mockups, if you're selling print on demand or digital products, I have found a great way using KD flows. I leave a link in the description below for that. and [music] they just did an

[03:27] update with Nano Banana which works really well to create these AI mockups. link for that video so you can check out how I do it. Next up is not [music] doing Etsy email marketing. So this is something that a lot of people [music]

[03:41] do not do and I'm shocked as to why because it's really really effective and also is another way to grow your brand off of Etsy. So is Etsy email marketing

[03:53] allowed? Yes. You just have to follow their guidelines. And in the way that I'm going to show you that I do it, it's really easy to do. [music] And anybody effective. And I think that sometimes with email marketing, it's like

[04:05] deal with. They look at it and they're like, "Wait a second, that's too much." you have the right setup and strategy. So, with that being said, on Etsy [music] for email marketing, it's actually something that they don't

[04:19] discourage. Etsy also says in their seller handbook that it is allowed. You just have to get your customers [music] permission to start sending them emails. So, you cannot take your customers information that is readily available to

[04:33] you on Etsy and plug it into an email list and start emailing them. That is illegal. That's not allowed. But what you can do is you can offer your customers to join your newsletter or your email list so that you can target

[04:45] them on your own separately through Etsy. But first, let's talk about how to do this because I'm sure a lot of you will want to do this after I tell you how easy it is. And it's something that I think if more sellers did, they'd be

[04:58] can actually bring in and in my experience, repeat buyers. So, first that what you need is what's called a landing page. A landing page is a way that to [music] give someone a freebie or an incentive or something to get them

[05:12] to sign up to your email list. I'm sure that you've seen these whether you go on um someone's website and a popup comes up and it says, "Hey, get 30% off your first order by entering your email." That's essentially what we need is to

[05:25] create a landing page that has a popup or an incentive to get someone to give us their email. And this is actually super simple to do. I use what's called Omnisend, which is an email marketing platform, but we can also create our

[05:37] landing page and our discount offer in there and then get our buyer's email So, all you have to do is create a simple landing page that offers again an incentive. This incentive is completely [music] up to you. You can offer 10% off

[05:52] your first order, 40% off your next order over X amount, or you can offer free shipping on the customer's first order in [music] your store. However you want to do it is completely up to you. But essentially, we're just going to

[06:05] create that offer and create a sequence in our landing page. [music] So, we'll create our code on Etsy and then give that to the customer once they sign up to our email list through our landing page. And then what Omnis send's going

[06:19] to do is it's going to keep track of all those emails [music] that you collected so that you can then send up a welcome email and then continue targeting your customers that are on your email list again and again. And so this is great

[06:32] because not only again are we targeting them off of Etsy, but we also are giving repurchase from our shop. [music] And once you do create your landing page and you create your offer, let's talk about where it's allowed on Etsy to actually

[06:47] collect these emails and where we can actually put the link to our landing [music] shop's announcement, which is going to be the banner at the top of your store that lets customers know about updates and different discounts.

[07:00] You can say, "Hey, for a discount on your order, go ahead and sign up to [music] our newsletter or our mailing list, whatever you want to call it." And then that's where you would put the link to the landing page that you created in

[07:12] also put your newsletter in the Yes, Etsy customers do read the description for products, so it is into. And you could put this at the bottom or the top, wherever you want to

[07:26] if you do want an additional discount, go ahead and sign up to our email list [music] and be aware that they will use the code that you're giving them. So, percent off. Make sure that you do [music] your margins on that, but it's

[07:39] just a really cool way to add it into the description. And then there is my favorite way and place to put this in, which [music] is the automated message that sends to buyers after they've made a purchase. This for me, targeting

[07:51] people who have already purchased [music] from my shop seems to be what because I already know that person's interested in my product and all my stores are pretty niche specific. So, odds are they're interested in even more

[08:05] products in my store. And last but not least, you can also create something like this, which are packin insert cards. And these are really cool if you're a print ondemand seller because this physical piece of paper will get

[08:18] packed in to your Printify orders. So on Printify under branding, you can do what's called a packin insert. And if you notice [music] on this packin insert, I have a QR code. And guess where that QR code brings a customer

[08:32] that's already purchased? Yes, to my landing page to sign up to my email next purchase. And you can create something like this really easily. It's much for your order. If you'd like a discount on your next purchase, [music]

[08:46] use the QR code." And I'll just show you. I'll scan this so that you can see [music] exactly what it does. So, I'm just going to Okay. And [music] boom, sign up to get X

[08:58] amount off 30% off your next order. And it's all branded completely with my shop because you're able to do all of that in Omnisend. And like I said, I think personally the best way that I've seen is to do this as a pack-in insert or

[09:12] also to do it in that post message after they've purchased because you already products. Um, and then what you can do [music] is create a welcome sequence on Omnisend that welcomes them and gives them that code that they're looking for.

[09:26] And then in three or four days, you can send them a follow-up email and design products that you have available that purchase. And you can curate this based off of your most popular items in your

[09:38] store. If you want to get started with email marketing and do it the way that I linked in the description below. There is a code money with Mac30, which will get you 30% off your first 3 months. Now, Omnisend does have a free plan, so

[09:52] free, but I do recommend grabbing the standard plan because it's going to make it so you can send a lot more emails. You can send up to 6,000 emails a month versus having um the free plan, which will limit you and you get more contacts

[10:05] people sign up to your email list, it's definitely worth it um and have all the other features as well. So, like I said, it is in the description. Next, let's talk about something that a lot of sellers also do not seem to do, which is

[10:18] running effective sales. [music] So, on Etsy, you can run sales on your shop and on your products, right? But what I noticed is that people will just turn on an Etsy sale for their entire shop for months at a time. And I'm sorry, but

[10:32] that strategy just it doesn't work. You need to have a strategy for the sales in see that you're actually putting in an effort to make sales on your shop, but also so that it shows some urgency in your [music] shop. When you're running

[10:45] an Etsy sale that ends soon, it does let the buyer know, hey, take advantage of this sale because it ends in x amount of time. Can be 24 hours, it can be in 5 hours, depending on when the sale does end. And this creates urgency and what I

[10:59] think will make Etsy push those listings. So, I recommend not running your sales for more than 7 days. Etsy says that to do like flash sales one to two days can be really great. That's if you want to offer like big discounts

[11:12] like hey free shipping on your entire order with no um x amount or hey 50% off your entire order. These can be great to build momentum and get like fast sales or like a 3 to 7 day sale which can be good again to build that urgency and

[11:26] then also give buyers a chance to like look at your product and then like kind of think about it and then come back. And then also Etsy says that you can run recommended. And it's not recommended because it just kind of dies out and

[11:40] it's like doesn't create that urgency. And then for your sales, do not put your entire shop on sale. I don't find this effective. I think sales are a great way to test out what your bestselling products are in your store. So maybe on,

[11:55] [music] you know, your first sale that you run, you run five different items in your shop. Maybe you run a sale on all the mugs in your shop. Maybe you run a sale on all the certain designs in your shop. So like maybe you have one design

[12:08] that's on five different products. Try running that as a sale. Use it as an experiment to collect data. Data is your best friend when selling online in all aspects. Testing [music] things and being patient with them is what will

[12:21] make you a sell a successful seller on and on again. And that's why consistency and patient are so important in online businesses like this. And then once you've ran the sale and you have the data, that can actually give you an idea

[12:34] of what products you might want to run an ad on later because you saw that it sold. Okay? So, I like to use it as a tool and to make sure that we're doing tool and to make sure that we're doing it effectively. And also, don't run a

[12:46] sale that's only like 5% off. That's not going to really encourage a buyer. Um, [music] you know, run a sale from like 15 to 20% and then up from that. Ask engage in? cuz if it's only like 5% off, it it's not really like effective or

[13:01] Next thing that a lot of people are not putting enough time into is the keyword research but for their tags. So, we see all over the internet and all over Etsy

[13:13] of people doing research for their titles, right? Keyword research is super important for your Etsy title. It's arguably most important because yeah, Etsy needs to know what you're selling, but your tags, I would [music] say, are

[13:26] equally as important. And what I noticed is people will just break down their title and make that their tags, and you're missing out on a lot of different search terms. For your tags, they do not need to be the same as your title. You

[13:39] don't need to repeat it to Etsy. Etsy's even told us like, "Hey, we already know to repeat the same phrase a 100 times because it co-matches your words in your titles." So, this is an opportunity to actually put different keywords and

[13:53] different phrases that someone might search for in your actual tags. And my favorite way to do this is when I'm on um my EverB Chrome extension and I'm checking out the bestselling listings in my niche or doing like product research

[14:07] is to scroll down to where it shows the tags. And Everbe will give you a score [music] for these tags to see what has a high search volume and a lower competition and click-through rate. And those are the tags that you should be

[14:21] testing out. We want to look for tags that are getting good feedback for what they may be. And if you don't want to use a Chrome extension, totally get it. But if you really want to be successful on Etsy, I really feel like you do need

[14:34] to have one, whether whichever one you want to use. Like I said, I use Everbe. But I think that they are very effective of just having that like actual data just going to help you, you know, amplify your sales in your shop faster.

[14:47] Another way to do it though for free is if you scroll all the way down to the bottom of an Etsy listing that you're looking at there, it will show related search terms. It's not clarified. This is something that I've noticed. A lot of

[15:00] times the tags will be the same or similar um as what those keyword terms I highly recommend using a Chrome extension, like I said, just to get that data, but making sure that those tags have something to do with what the

[15:13] product is, but are not exactly in your title. And my last tip for you today is what I like to call the post and ghost. It's kind of funny, but like this is what I do. I find the post and ghost method effective for a lot of different

[15:27] business models that I do. But for Etsy, the way that I like to apply it is in the way that I like to apply it is in the sense of leave your listing alone. Once you post it, leave it alone. You do all of the optimization and the research

[15:42] before you post your US listing. You do not want that listing going live until you know it is fully optimized. Your photos are good, your tags are good, is good. Then you want to make it live because on Etsy, in my experience, those

[15:58] first few days that your listing is being put out there, Etsy is analyzing it. They're figuring out who to put it in front of and where it needs to go. weeks for that listing to start getting traction. So, if you go in and you post

[16:12] you're like, "Oh crap, I want to add this." Or, "Oh, no. I want to go and add something to my title." Don't. Because if you keep doing that, the algorithm has to relearn it and then you're just pushing it back and back to when Etsy is

[16:25] right person. So, make sure that all of your listings are drafts. And then once they're ready and fully optimized, go ahead and push that publish button. Post it and ghost it. Leave it alone. Even if you come up with a better mockup in a

[16:39] wish this was the mockup." Make a duplicate or a copy of that listing and try it with that mockup, but don't mess with that other listing. I would argue to leave it alone for at least 2 weeks before messing with the price, messing

[16:52] on it, but don't go in and like mess with your copy or your UI or anything on Printify. Just let it be. And from years of doing this, that can be one of my best tips and something that so many people like try to hyperfixate on is

[17:06] like, "Oh, I think it could be better." No, don't make it live until you feel that's going back and back and like, "Oh, it's not selling in 5 days. I need don't. Let Etsy do its thing. And then after a few weeks, you'll be able to

[17:21] tell whether or not that product was really wanted. And maybe even sooner if you actually let Etsy do its thing with your optimized listing. So, let me know if any of these tips were helpful for you. I really hope that it was. And if

[17:33] leave a like on the video so that I know you'd like to see more like this. Everything I talked about will be in the description box below and including Omnisend, which does have that discount code for your email mailing list. If you

[17:45] do want to check that out, [music] highly recommend. Thank you so so much for watching and I hope to see you in the next