So, Forget What I Said About Qassia Being A Waste Of Time

Well, it's been a while since I revued the site Qassia, which was all the rage on the Etsy forums back in February. (Read my revues here.) If you recall, I pretty much dismissed the site as a waste of time. But I kept logging in just about daily as part of my morning internet routine, and amassing more Qassia Dollars. And I noticed that my website, SoloArtworks.com is now ranked the highest in the jewelry category! So I guess it wasn't a total waste of time, since I am seeing hits every day from Qassia.com, which I find pretty cool. Qassia.com, is still in a locked beta and closed to the public, but you can sign up using any user referral.

Sign up using any of my Qassia links here.

Also, don't forget to scroll down one post to enter my Free Earrings Giveaway!

Bust Magazine? Officially A Bust!

Back in March when Etsy offered affordable co-op advertising with Bust magazine, I got very excited! At $90, it was attainable, big-time advertising. I also thought the market was right up my alley. I hit refresh on my browser fast enough to nab a spot with 29 other Etsy sellers on a full-page advertising spread. I had some initial photo-difficulties, but submitted my ad, and rushed to buy a copy of the mag when it came out. My ad looked great, as did everyone elses! And then Etsy asked us to collect statistics concerning our ads. So I did. And BOY was I suprised.

When the ad came out in late March, my shop was right at 1000 hearts. It was my year anniversary on Etsy, and I had just reached this goal. I hadn't sold a set of the rings featured in the ads for several weeks. The rings had 6 hearts. At this time I upped the quantity available so I wouldn't lose track of the hits and hearts if I sold a set.

Week	Shop Hearts	Shop Sales	Ad Hearts	Ad Sales
1	1001	1	6	0
2	1010	2	6	0
3	1025	5	6	0
4	1029	3	7	0
5	1042	2	8	0
6	1050	4	9	0
7	1067	3	9	1*
8
9
10

* I asked this customer and they did NOT find me through Bust Magazine

Though I don't have the weeks prior to the ad charted, the hearts and views and sales were much more frequent. In the last 7 weeks since the ad came out, these have all decreased dramatically. I know this must just be a coincidence, but I won't be shelling out $90 on advertising again any time soon!

Project Wonderful, How I love Thee, Week 3 Stats

(Project Wonderful is a program where you bid on advertising space on people's websites. Visit their website for more info.)

Last week in my stats report on Project Wonderful, I went for the broad approach - to reach as many viewers as possible, with the hopes that out of sheer numbers, I would recieve more traffic. This week I'm reporting on targeted ad campaigns, with a slightly higher but still very low budget. Here are the results.



My budget was $12.50
I ended up spending about $14.00 with the added revenue from my own ad boxes, which you see to the right on my blog.

I ran a total of 6 campaigns with keywords such as "Etsy", "handmade", and "jewelry". The high bid on any one spot was between .03 and .20 cents. I also bid manually on 110 high-traffic, or etsy related sites, with a max bid between .00 and .20 cents.

Results over 6 days (my account balance was depleted Tuesday morning instead of my goal of Wednesday)

234,129 unique page views
441 unique clicks
total cost: $14.03
Comfirmed sales: none.


Compared to last week, I had almost 100,000 more unique page views, but only a fraction of the actual clicks. This was comfirmed through my website tracking as well. I made no sales through the ads that I am aware of, despite putting offers for a free polishing cloth for anyone who mentioned where they found me. The cost was much less, but the clicks and sales were very low.

I think I'll go back to the broader approach, but with a firm budget to stick to. I'll be sure to let you guys know about any new and exciting results I get :)

Project Wonderful, How I love Thee, Week 2 Stats

So last week in my "Oh, How I love Project Wonderful" blog post, I listed some stats regarding my advertising with them. (Project Wonderful is a program where you bid on advertising space on people's websites. Visit their website for more info.)

Last week I had posted my stats as a response to a discussion in the Etsy forums. This week I intentionally set parameters to report on, including mostly a larger budget.

I had $30.00 to spend.

I ran just one advertising campaign this last week, with ads pointing to my Etsy shop, dot com, and my Dawanda shop. The default high bid on any ad was just .01 cent. I was still bidding mostly on spots on comic and fashion sites, and not too many etsy shop blogs.

Results over 7 days:

228,941 page views (141,300 unique)
2,168 unique clicks
total cost: $26.06
Comfirmed sales: 3, totalling about $120, from my Dawanda and dot-com stores. (This week I have added a disclaimer in my etsy shop headline that you will recieve a free polishing cloth if you tell me where you found me. So far no one has done so.)


Basically what I did was rely on sheer numbers of ads being shown to get clicks. This next week, I will focus more on targeted ads, like sites with keywords like Etsy, or jewelry. My total montly advertising budget is $50, so I'll be attempting to pay a total of $12.50 for the next week. I will, of course, let you know how it goes!

(note: I tried to keep track of clicks on specific clicks to soloartworks.com to see how close they were to Project Wonderful's reports. They were not exactly the same, but almost. My website statistics reported 653 hits from my ads, while PW.com reported slightly more.)