I am currently in a business apprenticeship program called Praxis. I will create and build a month-long project as part of the program. I have chosen to focus my project on marketing and advertisement metrics. I plan on also experimenting with different advertisement platforms and recording the metrics for those ads.
This week I am recording and analyzing the ads that I submitted last week and walking through the process of setting up my ads on each platform. Here is my week three update.
The three ad platforms that I used were Facebook (or Meta) ads, Pinterest ads, and Etsy ads. Each platform is different and has its pros and cons.
I found that Facebook ad manager allowed me to see a lot more specifics on metrics but it was the most expensive. Etsy ads were the easiest to set up and the cheapest but didn’t get as much visibility. Pinterest ads happily surprised me with the amount of visibility I got but still didn't provide as many specific metrics as Facebook.
The advertisements
Facebook ads:
Setting up ads on Facebook was pretty simple and provided me with a lot of specific metrics. I started by creating square visual advertisements on Canva and choosing two of my three designs to upload. I then created my business profile with my logo and brand name. I uploaded my ad image and a description. Finally, I chose my audience demographics, duration, and budget per day.
I chose to keep my audience as broad as possible to maximize my ad reach. I chose 5 dollars per day for 7 days for one of my ads and 1 dollar per day for 7 days for my second ad. I
liked the specificity of Facebook ad manager and how it made my business look professional.
Here were what my ads looked like in the end:
Pinterest ads:
Pinterest ads were also simple to set up but they provided me with less specific demographics and metrics than Facebook ad manager. Pinterest also allowed me to create my business profile and upload my logo.
I was unable to upload my square image ad designs because Pinterest ads require a larger image. To get around this I was able to upload a mockup image of one of my products as my ad design. I was then able to create my tiles and description.
I also chose to keep my audience as broad as possible to maximize my ad reach. I chose 3 dollars per day for 4 days for my ad. If I were to do anything differently, I would have definitely utilized Pinterest ad titles and descriptions to increase my visibility and visits to my site.
Here were the results of my Pinterest ad:
Etsy ads:
Esty ads were the easiest to set up. All I had to do was go to my shop manager and go under marketing. From the marketing tab, I could choose my budget and which items I wanted to advertise. I chose to market my listing at one dollar per day for 15 days.
Another upside to Etsy ads is that they only charge you for listings that get views. A few of my listings didn't cost me anything because they weren't viewed.
Not only was my listing easy to advertise on the Etsy platform but the metrics were also very simple. They show the number of views, clicks, click rate, orders, revenue, money spent, and ROAS (return on ad spent). They also show a graph for ad activity over time.
Here were my results:
Results
After I was done running my ads, I create a Google sheet with all of my results:
My most successful ad was my second Facebook ad. It was also the ad that I spend the most money on. Pinterest was a close second impression and had a lower cost. In the end, Facebook was the most successful platform and provided me with the most impressions and interactions. Etsy ads didn’t give me many impressions but saved me the most money.
What I would have done differently
I learned a lot through this part of my project and there are definitely some things that I would do differently. Here are some things I would improve upon if I were to redo this project:
Focus more on SEO and keywords
Create a more efficient budget
Create a stronger business profile
I would have focused more on keywords in descriptions and titles to utilize SEO. There are a lot of ways I could have maximized my reach by utilizing better keywords in my descriptions and titles.
I also would have analyzed my budget better because I ended up spending a lot more on the advertisements than I anticipated. My goal would be to spend less money on the ads.
Another thing I would have done differently is taking advantage of Facebook and Pinterest business accounts. Adding posts could have strengthened my profile and driven more customer traffic.
I want to learn more about SEO so I can better utilize it in the future so I wrote a blog dedicated to the subject.
This post is part of a month-long project built around driving business to my own Etsy store through ad campaigns. If you are interested in learning more, click here!
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