Google Analytics – Compare Your Etsy Shop (Part 1)

“I got my first Google Analytics data in January and February, but had additional questions.  Where do I stand?  How does my Etsy shop compare with others?  Is my number of daily visits I see high, low, or average?“

Although Google Analytics can provide surprisingly detailed information, this information is useless to Etsy sellers unless they can compare with other sellers.  Petronella Luiting, from the Etsy shop Kraplap, found after reviewing her Google Analytics report, more questions were raised.  She shared a wonderful experiment for helping Etsy sellers compare their Google Analytics data to our sellers.  Petronella asked her Etsy Team, called the European Street Team or “EST”, to help her find the answers.

“I started questionnaire in the EST (European Street Team) forum,” said Petronella.  Petronella compared the data of twenty one Etsy shop owners that were members of EST.  “It took more work to do than I thought because all the displays where we all get our analytics were different,” Petronella explained.  “Some of our graphs did not display the dates.  Others did not have data points on the trendlines, making them more difficult to read.  In addition, almost all the scales were different.“

But, after some intensive readings and calculations, Petronella compiled the data to make the following graphs.  In these graphs, all of Petronella’s fellow European Street Team members are individually drawn, represented by different colors.  Petronella also provided an line for the average.  “The thick line with the orange/pink color is the average performance of our 21 participants,” she said.

Petronella walks us through the graphs in part one of this article:

“I have made graphs for three characteristics: the number of daily visits to the Etsy shop, the percentage of visits that are from new visitors, and the number of minutes of the each visit,” Petronella explains.

“All three graphs go up and down a lot over time.  That makes the graphs difficult to read. To deal with that, I have smoothed the trendlines a bit. This makes the pictures more quiet, and easier to compare between the 21 participants. So we are looking at the average time trends, practically every participant has a few days with a much higher peak that do not show up here but have been included into the final trendlines.”

“The first graph shows the number of daily visits that each of us had in the period we had the Google Analytics running. The average number of daily views goes from about 120 to 160,” points out Petronella. “There are three participants who lay very clear above the average daily visits (with daily views ranging from 310 to 660); then there is a group moving around the average daily visits (daily views ranging from 60 to 230), and there is a group that lays under the average daily visits (with daily views ranging from 15 to 90).”

“Furthermore, it seems that the more daily visits a participant has, the more fluctuation between days the seller has as well. This is probably a result of a positive relation between number of visits and Treasury appearance.  For example, the more daily shop visits, the higher your chance to appear in an Etsy Treasury.  In turn, the higher chance to appear on the front page.  This causes peaks in the number of views for those days that those events happen, so more fluctuation in the number of views between days.”

Petronella moves to the second graph (left).  “The second graph shows the percentage of daily visits that are from new visitors. There is an overall decreasing trend in new visits in those two months (except for 2 participants showing an increasing trend).  The average percentage goes from 35% to 18%.“

“There is one participant who lays clearly above the average percentage of new Etsy shop visits (with new views going from 57% to 32%).  Then, there is a group moving around or slightly above the average new visits (new views moving from 38% to 15%).  Finally, there is a group that lays under the average new visits (with new views moving from 34% to 9%).”

“The third graph shows the duration of the visits in minutes. The trend is decreasing in January and pretty stable in February.  The graph shows visitors stay for an average of about 8 minutes and 20 seconds at the start of January, falling rapidly to an average of about 3 minutes in February. A group of participants is most of the time above the average duration of 3 minutes, with values up to more than 6 minutes per visit. The other group of participants is most of the time under the average duration of 3 minutes, with values coming from 10 seconds per visit.”

Petronella’s hypothesis is that Etsy shops with more items will most likely have more visits compared to Etsy shops with few items.  She will produce similar same graphs adjusting for the number of items in the shops in a part two of this post.

Thank you Petronella!

If you want to read more of Petronella tips, check out her blog.  In addition, Petronella is a member of Etsy’s European Street Team (EST).  This strong and successful team has several marketing tools including a blog, shop catalogue, and charity shop.