Etsy Search Ads Experiment Results, Day 3

Here we are again! I'm on Day 3 of my Search Ads experiment and can't even begin to tell you how underwhelmed I am at the results. Here are the numbers:

• Money spent                                                          $2.26
• Impressions                                                            2,265
• Views                                                                         10
• Favorites                                                                       1
• Orders                                                                          0
• Revenue                                                                        0

I actually had someone favorite a gift bag through this campain, but as you can see, still no revenue. What I'm seeing here is that people are in fact searching on my tags, but they aren't viewing much and they certainly aren't buying. A question that arises for me is what percentage of the people doing the searches are actually legitimate buyers? I do a lot searches when making treasuries, but I'm not necessarily looking to buy at that time.

Question for my readers: what types of outside (of etsy) advertising have you used and how effective has it been? Have any of you tried Google AdWords?

Ok. Enough with the mercenary stuff. I have a few tasks I need to complete today and am determined to be focused and organized and actually get them done. First and foremost, some time ago I committed to write a post for the EBT Blog. In the craziness of opening the new shop--and life and general--I have allowed this task to fall between the cracks. At the beginning of the week I had an idea that I thought would help get me motivated, and that was to invite someone from the Blog Team to collaborate with me on the article. She agreed and has now submitted her portion to me, so it's time to ante up here. (And thanks to my coauthor for stepping up and helping me :)

Collage Art Magnet by rachelgertrude

So here's a reminder to my coauthor Kristen (you should check out her blog!) who I recently told needs a to-do-list intervention, and to all the rest of us overachievers, that load shared is a load halved.

Peace out!

Collaborative Quilting With Women of the Past

As promised in my previous post Tying on the Feed Bag, this post is all about my latest quilting project. While poking around my favorite auction website recently I discovered dozens of handpieced quilt tops made with my favorite: feedsack! The prices and condition of these quilt tops vary widely and it took a bit of vision to see what some of them might become, but I decided to take the plunge and buy a couple to experiment with.

Here's my first purchase:

I was instantly drawn to the bold patterns and "wonky" piecing that reminded me of a crazy quilt. When it arrived and I layed it out I was mystified however, as to what to do with such a skinny quilt. The blocks were coming apart in places and clearly it needed some love. But like an old house it had good bones and I knew that if I stared at it long enough, and walked away and thought about it, and ate little chocolate, and had a glass or two of wine, and slept on it a few times (the concept, not the quilt ;) inspiration would strike. And it did.

First I decided that I would need to separate the blocks and rearrange them into a more practical configuration. I had a lot of time to ponder my next steps as I sat with my trusty seam ripper (I'm designing a holster for it) and carefully took the quilt apart. Once the blocks were liberated from eachother, it was off to the ironing board & then the cutting mat where I squared up the blocks in preparation for putting it all back together. I knew I wanted to wind up with a touchable, usable quilt as a final product and that would require adding fabric. I chose a cheerful cheddar yellow to accent and brighten the feedsack. Then, I was off to the sewing machine...

And eventually, hours, weeks, days, years, decades after the feedsack had first been cut and handpieced by a woman of the past....The quilt was complete!

If you are interested in purchasing this quilt or seeing other pieces I've completed, visit my etsy shop at
http://www.etsy.com/shop/ScrappyTudeStudios

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