Holiday Season has arrived and this is the time to make the most of Etsy's promotional campaigns and traffic. Etsy has launched "Gift Mode" at the beginning of the year, promoting the platform as the go-to destination for holiday gifting. The core concept is that you can find the right gift just by browsing, even if you don't have a very good idea what exactly you are looking for. We created another article dedicated to Etsy Gift Mode that you can check out here - All You Need To Know About Etsy Gift Mode In 2024
As one of their gifting initiatives, this year Etsy's editorial team launched their Holiday Hub again with a string of thematic experiences for different audiences to help them discover the best gifts. All of these landing pages and mobile experiences will get peak traffic from Etsy's advertising campaign this season. The peak period will take place during the Etsy sale evens when the Holiday Hub will be taken over by promotional listings. So to make the most of Etsy's peak campaigns, let's dive into
Pricing, Discounts and Discovery
During Etsy sales events, Etsy's editorial team links up discovery through these dedicated experience with promotional discounts. Home pages and mobile app experiences feed into curated searches filtering search results according to discount levels. For this reason, mastering your pricing strategy can affect not only your conversion rates but also your visibility in these highly visible searches and here are the best ways to take advantage.
1. Why are pricing and discounts important for discovery?
Etsy's big idea is that holiday gifting has less to do with intentional searches and more to do with browsing around until you see a gifting idea that "clicks". To make browsing around as easy as possible, they've created landing page experiences to welcome new traffic on the website and in the mobile app. These landing pages funnel visitors towards specific hand-picked Holiday Season searches and this is for example what the Holiday Sales hub looks like:
In turn, these links lead to regular search pages with specific search filters. And the big part of the traffic is being funneled through search results with 'Under $50' filters.
What this means for SEO is that we are able to target high-priority searches that are being actively promoted through these Etsy experiences. And listings that will rank for the most competitive searches, need to have an active sale on or to fit into a certain price category. The default sale filter that Etsy usually applies is 25% and now we know why they provided a 25% - off link for scheduling sale events. It's all part of the plan. Keep in mind that the Etsy landing pages are on constant rotation and you need to check them every day for updates. More information on Etsy Landing Pages you can find in our blog article.
In short - for maximum exposure, we recommend running a 25% off sale throughout the holiday shopping period and add keywords from the Holiday Hub page but...
2. Promotional discounts shouldn't eat into your profit
Promotions traditionally help conversion rates and now they can even boost traffic. This means now it's more important than ever to make sure you can 1) run sales and 2) you still have a healthy margin after the discount. The goal here is to enter into the sale filters that Etsy is pushing in the search engine.
To make best use of this, you want to make sure discounts are factored into your price. If you can't afford a 25% discount, consider increasing your prices slightly so your margin remains healthy even with the 25% off. You want to remain profitable while the discount is just a marketing tool that's helping your visibility and conversions.
For example - if you can afford a 15% discount, you can increase your prices by 10% and then go for a 25% sale. Etsy is currently recommending that you always factor in your discounts into item pricing and this is the best approach to achieve both marketing objectives and financial profitability.
3. How to increase Etsy listing prices in bulk?
The good news is that you don't need to increase prices manually for every listing. There is an easy-to-use tool that allows you to price different selections of listings, specific sections or even the entire shop.
Just open your Listings Manager, select a number of listings and click on Edit Prices.
International sellers can adjust prices for different audiences individually - we are limited to domestic vs "everywhere else" prices for now but this can still be very relevant depending on your location.
Finally, you can adjust listing prices in multiple ways. We usually recommend percentage increase or percentage decrease but each option can be helpful in particular situations.
4. Keep an eye on key threshold price points
$30, $50 and $100 are key pricing levels that are relevant both for the way Etsy is funneling discovery traffic and also for the way buyer psychology works. For many stores with high-ticket items, these exact levels may be irrelevant but psychological pricing remains important at all levels and helps to maximize conversions.
When you are targeting specific price levels, do keep in mind that we are interested in the price after the discount. For example, if your target price is $99 after applying 25% off, your original price needs to be $132.
5. Fine-tune your pricing strategy
Just like all other marketing aspects these days, you can optimize your pricing strategy by regularly monitoring your performance, customer feedback, and overall profitability. We usually recommend A/B testing pricing strategies across small batches of products until you find the sweet spot for a certain category.
Whenever you are aiming to make the most of the market, it's also very helpful to keep track of competitor pricing and discounts as well. This will give you valuable information and provide you with clear signs when you need to readjust.
The current economy drives buyers towards price-conscious decisions and Etsy is creating a holiday shopping experience to help with conversions over the next months. At the same time, all marketing tactics should be aligned with healthy profit for your business and if you need support with your pricing strategy, you can always reach out to the Customer Success team at cs@artery.team to book a Consulting Session.
