My first print ad!

So here it is! My first print ad. I'm not expecting an onslaught but I hope it gets me something! It will be in the Litchfield County Times monthly publication (of course I don't have the publication date!!) but just in time for holiday shopping. What do you think?

Okay, back to the bench! I'm averaging about 3 new pieces a day so hopefully I'll have enough inventory for the show!

Advertising, Craft Cult & Craftopolis........

Wow! I didn't realize how long it's been since I last posted. Sorry for that!! I've been busy with so many things.......my Virtual Assistant duties, planning my son's 3rd birthday party and picking out items for his 'big boy' room and, last but not least, jewelry! Life is good and we are blessed ;-)

I've been meaning to mention this - I purchased my first ad last week on Craft Cult! Only a 1 week run but I just wanted to test the waters. I still haven't had an opportunity to really delve into the ins and outs of Google Analytics but it tells me that Craft Cult was my highest ranking referral site the week of the ad with 100 visits but only 3% were new visitors. Craftopolis shows that I received 21 hearts that week (I LOVE the additions they've made to the Craftopolis site!!) when previous weeks averaged only 7 new hearts. One sale that week but that was from a previous customer. Still, all in all, I'm happy with the exposure for $15. I'd love to see an option during the etsy check-out process that asks the buyer where they found us! Then we'd really be able to guage how & where to spend our advertising dollars! I've included the photo I used for the ad. What do you think - clickable? not clickable? Suggested changes for my next ad?

And back to the additions to the Craftopolis site.....being able to view how many hearts were received on specific days is AWESOME!! But I still need Craft Cult so I can easily view what's recently been hearted. I'm wondering if this change will draw others away from Craft Cult. What's your preference?

Poor Economy + Bloggers = Paid Blogging??

I don't know about you guys but I'm noticing an interesting trend..........the worse the economy gets, the advertising requests I'm getting for my blog. I'm not talking about requests from other bloggers. I've been contacted by some major brands and I'm guessing that I'm not the only one!

I was a bit confused at first. I'm proud of the number of followers I have - after all, why would I think anyone wants to hear what I have to say?!?!!? But my numbers are pretty sad compared to some blogs. So why would a national brand contact me? Well, I'd imagine advertising budgets have been cut everywhere so what's better than free or next-to-nothing advertising? Free coupons, a few cents here, a few cents there.....especially if you can almost guarantee that it's going to hit your target market? So their searching out the bloggers. Smart!

I've decided to maintain my focus on supporting handmade and philanthropy regarding any advertising requests I receive, just like I try to do with my Entrecard & Project Wonderful ads. Though I think paid blogging can be a wonderful enterprise (if done correctly), my blog is about promoting my jewelry and the handcrafted work of others. While I'm at it, if I can bring attention to those in need, all the better. And with that being said, I was contacted by The Fresh Air Fund, a very worthy organization. I was lucky enough to grow up in a rural/suburban setting and attend summer camp as a kid. Other's should have the same opportunity so you'll see a permant spot for them in my sidebar. Note - if it's not already obvious, I'm NOT being paid to promote the Fresh Air Fund ;-)

In jewelry making news, I still haven't had a chance to make any of the new pieces I've in mind but I've been filling orders and working on a custom piece. I've spoken with the shop owner of "Brazen Betties" (website coming soon - as soon as it's up, I'll give ya' a link!) about a new offering for the shop. It's nothing spectacularly earth-shattering but I'm excited about it and I think it will fill a 'need' (not that anyone ever needs jewelry!) I'll keep you posted!!

Certificates, Stats and Changes....oh, my!

Let's start off with the exciting news........gift certificates are now available at my etsy shop and 1000Markets shop! Just in time for Valentine's Day. Guys, when you don't know what to choose get a gift certificate! She can pick out her own piece or even custom design something making it all the more special!

What else..........oh yes, I've made a few minor changes to my sidebar - I've organized the blogs I follow into categories and I've added an Entrecard Top Dropper widget. Which leads me to..........

Stats. Stats, stats and more stats. (WARNING: lots of talky-talky, blah, blah coming up!!)

One of my goals was to focus my advertising and I mentioned previously that I'd set up some advertising campaigns. Well, it doesn't do much good to set all this stuff up if you don't monitor the progress. I took a quick look at what's going on and, well frankly it gave me a headache. So I thought I'd share it with you 'cause that's what friends are for ;-)

I'll start with my 1000Markets shop since I don't have as much detail there. For those of you who don't know, 1000Markets provides some basic shop stats......a running 15-day graph of total page views and 2 weeks of total data on item views, total views vs. unique visitors. My highest number of views since my shop opened is 85 and that occurred on January 8th - the day I posted My Favorite Things. Makes sense. Over the past two weeks, my main page views come in at 205 visits/112 unique visitors and the most viewed item is my Industrial Age Earrings (didn't expect that!) at 27/20 followed by my Bubble, Bubble Circle Pendant at 27/17 and my Fallen Leaves Copper Necklace at 25/16. So, aside from my blog, where is this traffic coming from?

Right now I have 4 items published on CraftJuice which point to my 1000Markets shop: Words of Wisdom Pendant, Fallen Leaves Copper Pendant, Dichro Stacking Rings and Silver Wishbone Earrings. In addition, I have a Project Wonderful campaign running, linking to my 1000Markets shop. It was set for 1 week and is due to expire today. The ad ran on approximately 45 blogs with a total of 32,873 page views. I received 102 total clicks with a .31% click-thru rate and an average cost of $.03 per click.

Now on to my etsy shop. Did you guys know that etsy has added Google Analytics as a feature?? Very cool! Here's the Storque article if you missed it. The install was incredibly easy! I added GA to my etsy shop just a few days ago (January 8th, I believe) so there isn't much data yet. Since then, I had the most visits on January 10th (34). 58% of my viewers came from referring sites with Starving Jewelry Artists in the lead. 29% came from direct traffic (hmmmmm....I wonder if that's me. Anyone know if I can block my visits from the report???) 8% came from search engines and 3% came from "other" (not a clue). I can't tell which items were viewed most often...when I click on the page link, they all bring me to my main shop page. Aggravating. Now on to my etsy advertising.......

I have another Project Wonderful campaign running.......same time frame as the other. Total page views are 40,590 from approximately 40 blogs. 154 total clicks with a click-thru rate of .38% and an average cost of $.02 per click. In addition, I have a few items posted on "ThisNext" which you can see in the top of my sidebar.

Of course, there's the occasional "twitter" about both shops and some Facebook postings, also about both shops but I haven't been able to determine (yet) if they're having an impact. So what's it all mean? I have no idea. I told you, it gave me a headache. But at least I'm on top of it! Makes me feel much more proactive. Ignorant but proactive.

So how's your advertising?