Advertising settings is where you manage all your Promoted Listings settings in one place — your budget, your target audience, and a new setting called growth mode. You'll find it by clicking on Advertising settings at the top left of your Promoted Listings dashboard.
The advertising settings page has three sections:
- Growth mode — tell us how aggressively to promote your products to retailers.
- Monthly budget — set the maximum you want to spend on ads each month
- Target audience — choose which retailers you want your promoted listings to reach
What is a growth mode?
Selecting a growth mode lets you tell us how aggressively to promote your products. Think of it as a dial between efficiency and reach: at one end, we bid carefully to keep your costs low; at the other, we bid more aggressively to get your products in front of as many retailers as possible.
You can choose from four levels, from the least aggressive to the most:
- Conservative (Level 1): Prioritize cost efficiency. Your ads will appear less frequently, helping keep your average cost per click lower.
- Moderate (Level 2): Balance visibility and cost. Your average cost per click will be lower, but you may miss out on opportunities to reach customers. Best if you're testing ads for the first time.
- Competitive (Level 3): Drive growth. Your ads will appear more frequently, which may lead to a higher average cost per click.
- Aggressive (Level 4): Maximize visibility. Your ads will appear as frequently as possible to accelerate growth, with higher average costs per click.
The more aggressive your growth mode, the greater your reach will be, but you may see a higher cost. Before adjusting, it's worth keeping a few things in mind:
- Give it time. Your new settings will take effect within 24 hours and we’ll continue advertising your products to high-intent retailers based on your selections. We recommend running your campaign for a month before evaluating changes in performance or making any changes as it can take some time for our system to optimize based on your changes. If you switch to a more aggressive setting and don't see an immediate uplift, that's normal — resist the urge to change it again too quickly.
- Think long term. If you move to a higher growth mode, your advertising costs will likely go up — but so should the volume of the customers you convert through ads, particularly if your audience includes both new and returning customers. The retailers you win today are likely to place repeat orders over time, so the return on your ad spend is best measured over months, not weeks. ROI is a long-term game, a short-term dip in ROAS doesn't necessarily mean your ads aren't working — it may simply mean you're in the early stages of building a larger, more stable customer base.
How do I choose the right growth mode?
You'll get a notification on your Promoted Listings page if we notice that increasing your growth mode could improve your advertising results. If you'd like to understand the logic behind it — or want to evaluate this yourself — here's how to think about it:
Start by checking how your utilization has trended over the past few months — this shows how much of your monthly Promoted Listings budget has actually been spent. You'll find it in your Promoted Listings dashboard.
Below you'll find guidance for the most common scenarios. Bear in mind that seasonal shifts and changes in demand can also temporarily affect your utilization.
-
My utilization is consistently below 70% : Your budget isn't the limiting factor right now — there's unspent budget available each month. In this case, increasing your budget alone is unlikely to improve results. Instead, two things are worth looking at:
- Your listing quality. Ads can only do so much if the listings themselves aren't converting. Make sure your pricing is competitive, your photos are clear, and your product titles and descriptions are accurate and detailed. Visit: How to build high quality product listings on Faire.
- Your growth mode. If you're open to spending more in exchange for more reach, moving to a more aggressive growth mode signals to us that we can bid more actively on your behalf — which can lead to more impressions, clicks, and sales. Just keep in mind that your cost per click may increase and your return on ad spend (ROAS) may shift in the short term while the system adjusts.
- My utilization is consistently high (above 70%): Your budget is likely the main factor holding back your performance. When your budget runs out mid-month, your ads pause — and you lose visibility during those windows. Increasing your budget to the recommended range in the portal gives your ads room to run more consistently throughout the month.
How should I adjust my budget?
Your monthly budget is the maximum amount you want to spend on ads per month. We may spend more on days with better opportunities, and less on days with fewer — but you'll only ever be charged when retailers click your listings, and we’ll never spend more than your budget.
When you adjust your growth mode, you'll also see an updated recommended budget range based on your sales history on Faire and the growth mode you've selected. This is there to help you set a budget that will work with your growth mode to give you the best results.
Can I adjust both budget and growth mode at the same time?
You can adjust both at the same time. We generally recommend setting your budget to be within or above the recommended range for the growth mode you choose.
How will changing my growth mode affect my costs?
A more aggressive growth mode means we’ll bid more aggressively for advertising placements for your products. This may increase your cost per click. If cost efficiency is your top priority, we recommend choosing a lower growth mode.
We recommend that you run your campaign for a minimum of a month before evaluating changes in performance or making any changes, as it can take some time for our system to optimize based on your changes.
How does audience selection affect my growth?
Your target audience setting controls which retailers see your promoted listings. You have two options:
- New and returning customers (recommended) — reach both retailers who haven't bought from you before and those who have. This is the default setting and the one we recommend, as it supports both customer acquisition and repeat orders — maximizing your reach and the long-term return on your ad spend (ROAS).
- New customers only — focus exclusively on retailers who haven't shopped with you before.