Spending money on advertisement can be a very good thing. For example, if you spend $50 on advertising, that resulted in $75 worth of sales, then you would want to do that as many times as you could. However, if you spent $50 on advertising and it only resulted in $25 worth of sales, then you would not be making a wise decision.
To answer the question, should you spend money on traffic to your TpT store, the answer is obviously, “Yes. If you can make more money than you spend.”
So here are some things that you should have in place or in mind before you start spending money on paid advertising.
1 – Your Store should be Correctly Set Up
If you’re going to spend money on getting customers over to your Teachers Pay Teachers store, than you want to have a few things in place to maximize the chance you have of converting them into a customer.
First, you want your store’s appearance to be optimized. That means having appropriate banners at the top of your store page and in the column as well as an image or quote in what’s called the Personal Quote box.
You should also have your personal profile filled in. All of these customizations will help increase your sales conversions.
2 – Your store needs to have a good amount of products
The more products that you have in your store, the more likely you are to make a sale.
You need to have multiple items in your store so that the customer who comes to your store and doesn’t purchase your product has other opportunities to make a purchase. I would recommend at least 20 different items. But again, the more the better.
3 – You need to have generated enough revenue to pay for the advertising
How much money is your TpT store making? If the answer is not a lot, then don’t spend money on advertising. Spend your time and energy on increasing your sales through other methods – like getting more customers for free or increasing the number of items for sale in your store.
If your TpT store has generated enough money to pay for all your expenses and is making enough to help pay the bills and increase your quality of life, then start paying for advertising.
4 – Consider the opportunity cost
If your store has made you enough money to satisfy the requirements I laid down in number 3 (above) then consider what other things you could spend that money on.
For example, if your choice is to spend $4 a month on advertising or $4 a month on getting a website, the better investment, by far, is to get a website! Having a website will increase your sales many times over. To read more about Why your TpT store Needs a Blog, click here.
Besides that, when you post a blog, it is on the internet, it does work for you for all of time – because the blog stays posted forever. When you spend money on advertising, it only lasts for a short period of time, and then it’s gone.
Example #2. If you’ve generated a few hundred dollars extra, you could spend that money on advertising, or you could spend it on an online course to increase your skills. The online course is a much better investment because it’s a long term investment that will yield a much greater return.
If you are interested in starting your own website to help improve your traffic and sales, click here to enroll in my free course, “How to Start a Blog for Your TpT Store.”
5 – Know your Numbers
What is your conversion rate on the product you are going to advertise?
Let’s say it’s 5% – a fairly average conversion rate. And your product costs $5.
That means 20 people have to come to your product before you sell 1. So if you spend $5 in advertising and don’t get at least 20 people ($0.40 per click) then you are going to lose money. Most sites that you advertise on will let you chose a cost per click (customer). So, for your $5 product with a 5% conversion rate, you know you need to stay under $0.40 per click.
BUT, there are two things to keep in mind.
One, your conversion rate will change. Until now you’ve been getting customers organically, so they might have a higher than average conversion rate than when you start paying for clicks.
Remember that we’re talking averages. Which means, if you’re getting 1 in 20 customers to purchase, that’s on average. So you might spend $5 on advertising, and get 30 customers and make zero sales – that’s how averages work. So you need to play the long game. Spend a little more over a longer period of time to let the averages work in your favor.
Click here to learn more about increasing your conversion rates.
6 – Advertising isn’t easy
There are lots of platforms you can advertise on: Google, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and Pinterest to name a few. All of which are good and can make you good returns. And all of these platforms are getting much easier to use. However, you still have to know what you are doing.
I would again recommend you pay the money and enroll in a course that will teach you how to do Facebook Marketing or Google Advertising, etc. This way you will have the skills you need to be successful, and you will make your money back quickly.
You also have to experiment on the platforms. Find out what works by experimenting with different images, copy, headers, orientations, etc.
7 – Think Long Term
Just because someone comes to your store and you don’t buy the product you advertised, doesn’t mean that the money was wasted. That customer may have been side-tracked by something else you had for sale on your store’s page and made that purchase. Or, they may have downloaded your free product and now you are building brand recognition and trust with that customer who may make a future purchase.
This is why you need to have good free products in your store.
This is also why selling on TpT is like a snowball going down hill. It will gain momentum as long as you approach your business the right way; like adding new products, making sure your quality is good, and having good free products to name a few.
Conclusion
If you had a money machine, and every time you put a $5 bill in it, it shot out $6 what would you do? My guess is that you would spend a lot of time and energy putting $5 bills in it.
That’s what paid advertising can be for you and your TpT store. But you have to do it right. So spend the time, energy, and money to learn how to do advertising, after you have everything else in place, and then begin your process once you are comfortable moving forward.
