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Offsite ads

Offsite ads are ads a marketplace buys on Google, social media and other outside channels to promote its sellers' listings, paid for out of the sellers' sales.

How it works

The marketplace runs these campaigns in its own ad accounts and picks the listings. A click leads to the marketplace listing, not the seller’s site. The seller pays out of sales:

  • Etsy Offsite Ads run on Google, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Bing and other partners. If a buyer clicks and orders within 30 days, Etsy charges 15% of the order, capped at $100 per order. Shops that have made $10,000 in any 365-day period pay 12%.
  • Prom lets top sellers switch on the Turbo mode: their commission rises, and their products can get into Prom’s own Google ads.

For a store with its own Google Ads, this is a second advertiser in the same auction: marketplaces can send sellers’ products to Merchant Center from their own accounts.

Marketplace advertising or Google Shopping compares where your next advertising money should go.

Formula

Fee = attributed order total × fee rate, up to the cap per order

Where you see it

  • Etsy: the Offsite Ads dashboard, with revenue, fees, clicks and ad traffic.

Example

Example store, not client data.

The tableware shop also sells on Etsy and has never made $10,000 there in a 365-day period, so its rate is 15%. A buyer clicks an Etsy ad on Google and two weeks later orders a $120 tea set with $15 shipping. Fee = $135 × 15% = $20.25. On a $900 order, 15% would be $135, so the $100 cap applies.

Not to be confused with

  • Retail media — ads the seller buys from the marketplace to show on the marketplace itself, such as Etsy Ads. Offsite ads run outside it and are bought by the marketplace; broadly, retail media covers them too.
  • Channel cannibalization — your own channels competing for one buyer. Offsite ads add to it when they go after the products in your Shopping campaigns.

Right and wrong readings

  • Wrong: “No sale, no fee, so they cost nothing extra.” Right: the Etsy fee covers the whole order, shipping included, and one click can lead to several charged orders within 30 days. Once a shop has made $10,000 in any 365-day period, it can no longer opt out.

Sources