Most TPT sellers don’t know the answer. Do you? (UTM Part 1) Teachers Pay Teachers | Episode 7

TPT Sellers can increase product sales IF they know where buyers are coming from. But, I bet even experienced TPT Sellers don’t know the answer to this question! Do you?

(I don’t know the answer either, but I’m doing this experiment to find out!)

Links mentioned in the video are at the bottom of the production description…

TPT has a URL builder that lets us add UTM codes to our product links.

We can use the UTM source and UTM campaign fields to help us figure out what’s lead to more sales: Pinterest? Facebook? Your email list?

FREE TPT Traffic Dashboard that shows UTM clicks and sales:

TPT URL builder (to create trackable links using UTM codes):

The website that I’m making for my TPT HDC (Hundred Day Challenge):

The first product on my TPT store that I went to (SEL Story 001):

The second product on my TPT store that I actually bought (SEL Story 002):

Watch the Video

Click here to watch on YouTube.

Questions? Comments? Need Help?

• Any questions? Do you agree or disagree? Challenge my assumptions!
• Need help? Maybe I can provide suggestions!

Say something in the YouTube video comments

VIDEO TABLE of CONTENTS

• 0:00 Introduction
• 0:10 Intro – TPT dashboard (income report – all time)

• 0:15 Using data to get more TPT sales
• 0:26 UTM links to track what’s working
• 0:47 Use the TPT Dashboard – Traffic to see where sales are coming from

• 1:08 QUESTION that most TPT sellers (probably) don’t know the answer to
• 1:38 I don’t know the answer… yet!

• 1:44 My experiment to answer this question

• 2:09 The FIRST product (that I’m making a UTM link to)
• 2:31 it has no sales (or does it…)
• 2:54 How to create a custom UTM code to a TPT product

• 3:22 The SECOND product (that I’m actually going to buy)
• 4:18 Creating the custom UTM_category code
• 5:03 What the UTM code should look like at the end of your product link

• 5:13 EXPERIMENT: Buying a product using that special UTM link
• 5:41 I visit the TPT product page for my FIRST product…
• 5:48 When you click any link on TPT, the UTM codes disappear…
• 6:03 Navigating to the TPT product page for my SECOND product…
• 6:23 Buying the SECOND product…

• 6:57 TEST your TPT knowledge!!!

• 7:58 QUESTION: In other words…

• 8:30 Outro – TPT dashboard (income report – November 2022 so far)

Transcript

1. Introduction

1.1 The Unanswered Question for TPT Sellers

(00:00):
Hey, TPT sellers, I bet even the most experienced TPT sellers do not know the answer to this question that I’m going to ask today. Let’s find out.

1.2 The 100 Day Challenge: Data Approach to Increase Sales

(00:16):
Okay, so I’m on day six of a hundred day challenge and I’m trying to get more sales on my store and I’m using a data approach, try to figure out what works and doesn’t work.

2. Understanding UTMs

2.1 What are UTMs and How to Use Them

And one of the things that we do is we use UTMs and UTMs. You can go to their URL builders, so UTM tracking codes, and basically you can create a UTM code so that you can track which of your campaigns or which one of your efforts is actually leading to sales.

2.2 Real Time Testing of UTMs with a 100 Day Challenge Code

So for example, I have put into a Code a hundred day challenge here, and I’ve had one click through this week. I’m going to start it. My custom range that I’m working from is the 10th to today. Okay? So nine clicks, all of them, mostly me, just checking things out. Zero sales so far.

2.3 The Uncertainty: Effect of UTM on Different Product Purchases

So my question to you is, if I create a UTM link and land onto the store page and buy the product, yep.

(01:18):
I know that shows up here because I can see it. My question is, if I click on a U T M link and then go to a different product and buy that product, will it show up in the U T M codes here? Or does it just sort of disappear and get counted as a TPT sale? Let’s find out. I don’t actually know the answer to this question. Write down in the comments what you think happens.

3. Product Selection for Experiment

3.1 Identifying the Products: Social-Emotional Learning Stories

So to test this experiment out, I’m going to buy my own product to see what happens. And I’m going to buy a product that I’m trying to promote, but there’s no traffic on the, there are no sales at all. So I’m going to go to most recent, let’s go with that. And I’m going to pick one of my social-emotional learning stories. I’m going to pick the first one here.

3.2 Verifying the Current Sales Status of the Chosen Products

(02:07):
This pilot’s afraid flying. So let’s go here. Story one H D C. And just so that you can see that there are no sales. Let’s just go here. My entire store, I’ll type H D C as my code. Let’s unselect everything. H D C store one. It’s the one about the pilot Afraid of flying. So let’s de-select everything. Here it is. Pilot Afraid of Flying Zero Sales this month. And in fact, if I go to all time, you’ll see, oh, hey, I sold one that’s cool in October, huh? About that.

3.3 Creating a Custom UTM Code for the Experiment

Okay, so I haven’t sold any in this month. Let’s do it that way this month. So no sales end November. And what I’m going to do right now is I’m going to create a custom UTM code for this. So I’m going to use the builder here. Here’s my product code, the source, I’m going to call it SEOT, S E TPR

(03:12):
Test.

(03:13):
All right? And campaign name. Ooh, this is where I’m going to, but I’m going to buy a different product. Okay? I’m going to

(03:22):
Buy SEOT 0 0 2, change the game.

4. The UTM Experiment

4.1 Applying the Custom UTM Code to the Link

I like that one a lot actually here. Let’s just make sure that there’s nothing there and all time. Yeah. Okay. So I’m going to send a link to story number one about the pilot who’s afraid of flying flies, jet planes. And then I’m going to go on that link. And then I’m going to buy the product number two, which is about changing the game and earn your leisure about these two guys who are changing the narrative about what it means, how you make income.

4.2 Making the Purchase Using a Teacher Buyer Account

There’s, there’s more ways to get successful than just entertainment or sports or drugs in their community. And they want to show that with financial literacy. Yeah, you can become successful too. I like it. Cause the guy in that story was a great teacher from New York. So props to grade eight teachers. So I will create a code here that says, going to SEL story 0 0 1, but buying ssel story 0 0 2. All right, so let’s generate this code. Here is my link. I like to paste things into notepads. So here’s my link. Let’s make it gigantic.

(04:42):
B B B, B, B, B, B, B, ba, ba, ba. All right. So U T M campaign going to SEL L story 0 0 1, but buying story 0 0 2.

4.3 Observations and Assumptions about the UTM Tracking Process

And if I click on this, here’s the link here. I’m going to go to a different browser. So this is Microsoft Edge. Let’s get out of here. Let’s just open up a new tab. I’m going to paste my link here. So I can see the U T M source is SEOT per newer test. And the campaign is going to story one, but buying story two. So I’m going to go to story number one. I am signed in as my teacher buying account. So I have a teacher seller account and a teacher buyer account. And I use my teacher buyer account to test to see how things look on the buyer side because it’s not always the same. So this is my teacher buyer account. And you can see from my purchases if I opened up in a new tab here, this is where I buy stuff to test my products. So I’m not in my seller account, I’m here on story one, I’m not going to buy story one, I’m going to buy story two. So I’m going to open this

(05:49):
And interesting here, there’s no longer any UTM codes here. So now I think even though technically TPT on the backend could have set a cookie to keep track of what UTM code you first landed on, I don’t think that’s happening here.

Oh by the way check this post if you want to know how much can you make on tpt.

So I’m not going to buy story one, I am going to buy story two.

5. The Post Purchase Analysis

5.1 Downloading the Purchased Product

All right, so here’s story two. Going to add one to the cart. I’m going to view the cart and check out secure checkout. Here’s some stuff that I’m going to blur out. All right? So I put in my billing information, let’s submit this order, and

(06:36):
Awesome. So I have just bought my social emotional learning story number two about changing the game. I bought it. And in fact, what I’m going to do is I’m going to make sure I download the product. All right? So let’s download this, save it to my computer.

5.2 The Uncertainty: UTM Attribution for a Different Product Purchase

Perfect. All right. Question for the audience. It doesn’t matter if you’re a TPT tadpole, a TPT hamster, or a TPT hawk. If you’re not sure what I mean by that, check out the video in the top corner. Question for everyone here. So I clicked on this custom U T M TPT link, going to story 0 0 1, but buying story 0 0 2. And I know in TPT we have a traffic dashboard, and I know that I can see U T M codes in here, and it takes about a day to show up, all right? And I know that today, I just purchased this $3 product after clicking on that link, but it wasn’t the first product I saw.

(07:39):
It was the second product I saw. Question for the crowd. If I click on a U T M link, go to a TT P T store and not buy that product, but buy a different product from that TPT store, will it show up in the marketplace? Traffic sources? Leave a comment, tell me what you think, because I legit don’t know the answer to this. Hence the experiment.

6. Experiment Takeaways and Future Prospects

6.1 Encouragement for Testing Assumptions

If you like this on s SEOTpreneur, this channel is about testing our assumptions, right?

6.2 Aspiring to Become TPT Hawks: Improvement and Growth in Sales

Because if we want to get off that hamster wheel and become TPT hawks, then we’ve got to do something different. And one of the things we can do to improve sales on our TPT store is to figure out what works and do more of that stuff. All right?

7. Conclusion

7.1 Appeal for Audience Interaction: Subscriptions, Comments, and Questions

If you like this kind of stuff, subscribe, ask questions, and we’ll see you next time. You know how, no, let’s this again. Okay. This isn’t actually income, that’s just going into something else. Okay? Let’s just keep it simple to recap.

8. Bonus Question

8.1 Theory: Impact of Product Purchases on TPT Search Algorithm Visibility

(09:09):
Hey, you’re still here. I have a bonus question for you. I was thinking about ways that the TPT search algorithm could know if a product was popular or not. And I think one of the signals is if people buy the product. So I have a theory that if someone buys the product, there’s a temporary boost in the visibility of that product.

8.2 Soliciting Audience Opinions on the Theory

And so if you’re still here, answer the bonus question and let me know if you think buying products creates a boost in TPT sales or if it doesn’t really matter at all.

8.3 Closing Remarks

What do you think about that, Harry? We’ll see you next time. Bye-bye.