Three years ago I swore off paid ads for my handmade jewelry shop in Austin

I had this whole thing about organic growth being the only way. Then last month a friend who runs a pottery studio convinced me to try a $200 Facebook ad campaign, just targeting locals who liked similar brands. I got 45 new customers from it and made back $1,400 in sales within two weeks. Has anyone else had a total flip on something they were stubborn about?

3 comments

3 Comments

carr.lee10d ago

My buddy who sells leather goods near Zilker refused to run any ads for two years, saying it was cheating. He finally did a small Instagram push last fall and ended up clearing out his entire holiday inventory in a week.

jamesf419d ago

Is it really cheating though? I get why your buddy @carr.lee might have felt that way at first, but paying for ads is just part of running a business now. It's like saying using a cash register is cheating because your grandpa used a drawer. The whole point is getting your stuff in front of people who want to buy it. If an ad does that faster than waiting around for the algorithm to notice you, I don't see the problem.

lindal1310d ago

Oh, you know what that reminds me of? My friend Maggie who makes those weird little ceramic mushroom lamps. She was dead set against paying for anything on Etsy, thought the algorithm was rigged. Then her cat knocked over her laptop and she had to replace it, so she threw $50 into Etsy ads out of desperation. She sold like 30 lamps in a weekend, mostly to people in Dallas and Houston, not even local. Now she runs little ad bursts whenever she has a new batch, says it's the only way she can afford her cat's kidney diet food.