October 2024 TPT Town Hall - Spark Notes Version

Teachers Pay Teachers hosted the Fall Town Hall on Wednesday, October 30th, 2024. Paul Mishkin (IXL CEO), Amy Berner (Director of Seller Happiness at TPT), and Will Essilfie (TPT Product Manager) all spoke about the updates that have occurred since the 2024 Summer Town Hall. A few main points discussed were TPT search updates & ranking, Product Updates, and the TPT Forward 2025 announcement. If you weren't able to attend the Town Hall or have time to watch the replay, here is your "Spark Notes" version! 

Recent Teachers Pay Teachers Sales Trends

IXL CEO, Paul Mishkin discussed how TPT sales prior to July were beginning to have a negative trend. Once the 2024-2025 school year began, there has been a positive trend in sales. In July 2024, sales were up 1.4%. In August 2024, sales were up 1.2%. In September 2024, sales were up 7.1%. October 2024 is just about even compared to October 2023, potentially due to the hurricanes that hit the southeastern region of the US at the beginning of the month. There were 5 days that had a noticeable impact on TPT sales as a whole. 

Paul also discussed that all buyer segments were up in September - the fastest-growing buyer segment has been parents. He said that parents purchasing on TPT has increased 18% year over year. The homeschooling resource segment also increased by 17%, and this is tracked separately from the parents segment. 

Teachers Pay Teachers Search Updates

TPT search and ranking was discussed for a large chunk of the town hall. Amy stated that "changes to search aren't announced unless they are substantial." Amy also reiterated that the goal of improving search is to help buyers stay on the site & get the resources they need without leaving empty-handed. I think we've all noticed a recent change in search & ranking, so this is big! 

So, what's different?

The main difference is that TPT search is now more responsive to recent buyer behavior. This isn't totally new, but they enhanced search to align with modern search best practices, which most search marketplaces already have. I like the way Amy stated the change - "Think of it as turning the dial up to listening to buyers more." 

TPT & Google Search Results

Looking at the data from August to October of 2023 and comparing it to August to October 2024, TPT has seen a 16% increase in clicks from Google searches to TPT. There also has been a 20% decrease in impressions. Paul stated that this is due to Google cleaning up their search to take away spammy, low-quality results, duplicate pages, and other things that are not indexed properly. But overall, there has been a 48% increase in the TPT clickthrough rate from Google! The higher clickthrough to TPT attests to the higher quality resources and appearance in search engines that make them more clickable. 

The Big Question: How does all of this affect your product ranking?

The TLDR answer is that the products that are selling well, relative to their ranking, over time will rise in the ranks. If a product is selling poorly, relevant to their ranking, over time will go down in the ranks. The goal is to bring the most compelling products to the top of the search results. 

AKA - you want to have a higher conversion rate associated with your increasing product page views. 

This change has been in place since the switch to the GA4 analytics this past summer (June/July 2024). Since then, there has been a big upward trajectory in sales. So, this means that the change in search is helping to achieve the goal of keeping the buyers in TPT longer and purchasing more. 

It was stated that SEO still plays a huge role in how buyers find products in search. It was stressed that "SEO is a long-term, never-ending effort" and that it is proving to be more effective. 

Okay, but what about pointing traffic to TPT? How does that impact a resource's search ranking?

Amy answered stating "No, pointing traffic to TPT will NOT impact resource rankings in TPT." She means pointing traffic from ads, Pinterest, blogs, etc. TPT search takes into account the search results and conversion rates from TPT search results. Driving traffic to achieve more sales and positive reviews is always helpful, but conversions help rank higher in search.  

Remember that SEARCH IS COMPLICATED! There are hundreds of factors that are taken into account and weighed differently. Not one thing will bring something up or down in search. Make sure to use TPT search best practices, but note that nothing is guaranteed due to the complexity of the search algorithm. The importance of having updated resources and adding resources that meet buyer's needs. Here is a list of commonly searched terms for November & December of 2023 that can help! 

TPT Product Updates

1. Manage & Respond to Reviews From Your Inbox:

   You will now be able to respond to reviews from your inbox. My favorite aspect of this update is that buyers who leave reviews will get an email with your response! You can also set saved responses to save your time! To save you even more time, a VA now has access to help you manage and reply to reviews, if you allow them. 
   
   

2. No More Primary Free Resource:

   If you are a new TPT seller, you no longer are required to have your first resource be a freebie. You also can decide if you wish to remove free resources from your store entirely. TPT will also be removing the "Freebie of the Day" section on TPT mobile to increase the space for more paid products to be featured. 
   
   

3. A New Login Experience:

   Gone are the days where if you wanted to purchase a product, but you weren't signed in and you had to go to the clunky, old sign in page. Yes, the one with the red buttons! TPT has now made the process more seamless when buyers are on the product page. 
   
   

4. Meta Pixel Update:

   You can now see purchase data in your Meta Ads Manager. But note that Meta will sometimes inaccurately count the number of purchases. IT will show you total sales, not total earnings. To help with this, use UTM codes and refer to your TPT dashboard. 

TPT Forward 2025 Announcement

The 2025 TPT Forward Conference will be in Nashville, TN at the JW Marriott hotel! The conference will be July 8-10, 2025 and a block of rooms at the Marriott are available. Tickets are currently priced at $199 until December 31st. From January 1st - April 30th, ticket prices will be $249. Starting May 1st, ticket prices will be $299.