Front Page v. Etsy Finds :: A Senioritis Experiment

Morning everyone! The idea for today's post stems from a conversation that was had in an Etsy Virtual Labs session about places to be featured. We figured why not pay tribute to some of science's greatest minds and conduct an experiment. Don't worry, you won't need a lab coat or goggles ;)



Question
Which place would it be more beneficial* to be featured: Etsy's front page or in an Etsy Finds email?

*Level of benefit will be determined by the following measures:

-Visits
-Pages/Visit
-Time on Site
-Bounce Rate
-Favorites/Hearts

Background Research
At the time of the Virtual Lab session the question seemed pretty valid but we didn't really give it much thought so let's take a closer look. While a Front Page feature travels with a certain level of prestige, it even gets its own badge, it's only active for a limited amount of time and can therefore only be seen by so many eyes. An Etsy Finds email on the other hand gets sent out to bajillions of people (we have no emperical evidence to back this exact number) who subscribe and the topic is then placed on Etsy's blog, The Storque, for more people to view.

Hypothesis
If a shop is featured in an Etsy Finds email it will be more beneficial for the shop than if featured on an Etsy front page.

Test With An Experiment
The Famous Seniors have smiled upon us. In the past few weeks senioritis has been featured on Etsy's front page and in an awesome Etsy Finds email (thanks Amy!). Let the experiment commence!

During the experiment we held other variables constant: no paid advertising, no contests, no special features or sales. There was no significant difference in the content of our shop or the number of items in it. We did mention both features on facebook and twitter.

The only variable that changed was the location of the feature.



Analyze Results
To analyze the results of our experiment we enlisted the help of our good friends the Google and Craftopolis. Here's what we observed:

Etsy Front Page Feature:
280 Visits
2 Pages/Visit
1:12 Spent on Site
71% Bounce Rate
4 Favorites

Etsy Finds Email Feature:
652 Visits
10 Pages/Visit
3:56 Spent on Site
46% Bounce Rate
66 Favorites

Conclusion
If a shop is featured in an Etsy Finds email it is indeed more beneficial to that shop than being featured on Etsy's front page.

While we are pleased with the outcome of the experiment we feel that the experiment should be re-run several times before we can publish our results ;)

Hopefully you enjoyed our experiment, had a little fun, and got something out of it. We would love to hear about your experiences being featured so don't hesitate to leave us a comment. Have a senioritis day!