Faire Report #12: Paid ads edition

What’s on my brain this week?

Faire Ads are probably performing better than you think

Faire recently shared that brands using Promoted Listings in the USA average 25% more sales.

Our view is that this number is probably under-attributed.

After speaking with account managers at Faire, one thing becomes clear: Faire Ads are measured using a two-week attribution window. In other words, a retailer has to see the ad, click it, and complete their purchase within 14 days for the sale to be credited to advertising.

For wholesale, that is an incredibly short window. Retailers often spend weeks planning purchases, building baskets, comparing suppliers, and waiting for market events before placing an order. The reality is that many ads are likely influencing sales that never get attributed back to the campaign.

Our takeaway? If your ads are profitable today, they are probably performing even better than the numbers suggest.

Market season makes this even more important

As we move into market season, retailers are often building carts weeks in advance and then waiting for the market itself before checking out.

That means your advertising may be helping fill those baskets long before the final purchase happens. Yet much of that influence never shows up in the reported ROAS.

This is one of the reasons we continue to encourage brands to keep Promoted Listings running rather than switching them off the moment they stop seeing a perfect return on paper.

Faire Ads are coming to Europe

The big news is that Faire Ads are expanding into Europe.

Our advice is simple: try them.

If they are profitable, do more of them. Don’t overthink it. Start with a budget you are comfortable experimenting with and scale from there.

Most brands are not limited by budget anyway. They are limited by Faire's ability to spend that budget efficiently.

Margins matter more than ever

One challenge remains: you still have very little control over exactly what gets advertised and where. The granularity is not there yet.

But despite that, the ads work.

The bigger issue for many brands is margin. Faire is increasingly becoming a platform where high-margin brands have a significant advantage. Once you factor in commission and advertising costs, lower-margin products can quickly become difficult to scale profitably.

If you want more room to grow on Faire, one of the biggest levers you can pull is increasing your gross margin. Improve the economics and everything else becomes easier.

Final thought

Promoted Listings continue to work, but understanding the numbers behind them is just as important as running them. Focus on profitable growth, protect your margins, and let the ads do their job.

See you in the algorithm,

Andy