Ads used to be worth it for me before the merge. Now that they are combining Etsy Ads and Google Ads and we have lost control over our own ad campaigns they are a waste of money for me.

Google Ads used to work for me (I know I am in the minority) Promoted Listings didn't work for me because my competition would click through all of my budget by 10:00 a.m. every day.

But I digress, Google Ads *used* to work for me. Not anymore. As a matter of fact, earlier this week I realized how messed up they are when I Google searched for one of my items: let's say "Orange Model Cars" and all I found were my "purple boats" none of the orange ones, none of the cars.

Then I went to see the ad performance for the last 30 days, and it was 1/3 of the gross sales for the month. Deplorable.

Also, you must keep in mind that Etsy counts as "ad revenue" any sale from a customer that clicked on any ad and purchased anything at all from your store within a period of 30 days after they clicked. So you have no way of knowing how the products they are counting as "revenue"

Last, I have noticed that whenever I did (virtually any) Google search, Etsy ads used to come up near the top of the search results. Ever since the "combined ad" change, this no longer happens. And the CEO admitted that they are not spending as much on Google Ads anymore.

So where exactly is my ad money going? To promoted listings so my competition can click it off by mid-morning? Or advertising listings of mine that are irrelevant to the actual search terms?

Either way, my ROI (which used to be decent) is terrible now.

I read in an article that ads are expected to stay the course until the end of 2020.