Getting Analytical

You Etsy sellers out there might have noticed recently that Etsy has made it easy to set up Google Analytics for your Etsy store. Analytics lets you track how many visitors come to your store every day, and how they got there. It's listed under the "Shop Setup" section of your Etsy store.

I've been using Analytics since about January 11th and it's been very interesting to see where visitors are coming from and how many people visit every day. Here are some of my observations so far:

-Being on the Etsy front page rocks! Of course, we all knew this already, but the data given through Analytics really supports that. My store averages between 40 and 70 individual visits on any given day, but on a day when I have an item on the front page, the visits shoot up to nearly 500! Even if no one buys anything on a front page day, they very often will mark my shop as a favorite and then come back to it at a later point.

-Relisting and renewing on Etsy really does drive your visibility. When I was on vacation in mid-January, I used a public library computer to relist a few times during the week, down from my normal 6 to 10 times a day. During that time, I averaged about 20 visits a day. The second week I was gone, I didn't have access to a computer, so I put my shop in Vacation Mode and only averaged about 8 visits a day. Once I got home and go back to my regular amount of renewing, my visits shot back up to the normal range. I guess you really do have to spend money to make money! I budget about $2.00 a day to renewing listings and do almost no other advertising.

-The vast majority of my store's traffic (about 65%) comes from within Etsy itself. The next big category is Google, followed by craftcult.com and twitter.com, which are two sites I know absolutely nothing about. I need to look into this and see why I'm getting traffic from these two places. I think knowing where people are visiting from really helps you figure out where and how to advertise online. My blog is #20 on the list, and my website is #11.

If you have an Etsy store and you haven't set up Analytics yet, I highly recommend it. It's really pretty easy and very eye-opening!