• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, November 1, 2024

Etsy knows some gift-givers are more ambitious. They don’t want to buy presents that are nice. They want to find gifts that make people say, “Aww – you get me!”  The company’s new holiday campaign builds on that insight with a 360-degree campaign focusing on Waldo, of the striped-sweater childhood classic.

While everyone can spot him in a crowd, only that special someone can give him a gift that makes him feel truly seen. The “Where’s Waldo?” campaign includes TV, out-of-home and social media. Orchard is the agency.

“We wanted to create a campaign that captures the emotional magic of meaningful gift-giving -- how Etsy sellers create gifts that make people feel truly seen and understood,” said Brad Minor, Etsy’s chief brand officer, in the announcement. “Waldo is such an iconic character, someone who’s always being spotted in a crowd but never truly known. That insight sparked the creative idea to flip the narrative -- what if this holiday, Waldo finally felt seen for the first time?”

Etsy’s third-quarter results offer doubters plenty of proof that the online platform is moving in the right direction as it continues to navigate pullbacks in consumer spending.

The quarter was decidedly mixed. Gross merchandise sales fell 4.1% to $2.9 billion from $3.04 billion in the third quarter of last year, a more significant decline than expected. Yet revenue rose 4.1% to $663 million, ahead of forecasts. And while net income fell 35% to $57.4 million, that was also better than predicted.

While the number of active buyers on the site dipped 0.4% to 91.2 million, the company reactivated 6.4 million buyers, up 5.6% from the year-ago quarter. Etsy’s ability to retain active buyers is above pre-pandemic levels, as is the number of new buyers it attracts.

Based in Brooklyn, Etsy also offered a closer look at Etsy Insider Loyalty, a new program currently in beta. Using a targeted test group of occasional U.S. buyers, the program provides free domestic shipping on millions of items, discounts and first access to some items.

“We will be testing and iterating to determine its impact on frequency and loyalty over time,” the company says in its announcement.

It also says that the ongoing full-funnel marketing campaigns in the U.S. and U.K., which feature real Etsy sellers, are resonating with audiences connecting to the company’s claims of “supporting small,” “originally made,” and “handcrafted.”

Etsy also ran the largest-ever U.S. marketing campaign for Depop, the combination resale/social platform it purchased in 2021. Ads aimed to share the refreshed brand message and “no selling fees” proposition, highlighting the ease of the listing experience and streamlining the “Repop” process, helping people resell previous purchases.

Sean Dunlop, an analyst who follows Etsy for Morningstar, describes the numbers as “solid but unspectacular” in his note on Etsy’s earnings. “We're encouraged to see buyer churn trends stabilize, and we continue to believe that the business is poised for a sharp turnaround as consumer discretionary goods spending recovers.”

Others are less certain. “We are encouraged by recent investments in the platform to promote deeper customer interactions and repeat behavior against a pressured consumer spending backdrop in the near term,” writes Scott Devitt, who follows Etsy for Wedbush. However, it continues to give Etsy a “neutral” rating, partly because of the continued pressure on people’s discretionary spending.

*The story has been updated to include campaign details