Etsy's Marketers Wants To Keep It Feeling Human

As consumers seek out hand made gifts, Etsy has built its reputation on craft, creativity, and authenticity. With 8.1 million active sellers and 95.5 million active buyers, the marketplace now connects people buying and selling in countries around the world.

But as online shopping becomes increasingly automated, Etsy is putting more emphasis on what it sees as its defining difference: human connection. It also doesn’t hurt to have superstar Olivia Rodrigo in your corner. The marketplace recently connected her with ten female-owned small businesses to create handmade merchandise for her Daisy Chains Music Festival. Sellers saw orders jump to more than 2000 per cent proving the power for putting people and their craft first.

Senior director of global brand creative Haelim Paek has been helping steer that message, most recently through its Celebrate Being Human campaign, released in May.

"If there's one thing that defines Etsy as a brand, its human connection. Etsy is a marketplace built around people, and behind every shop is a real person with a story, a craft, or a creative passion. And behind every purchase is someone looking for something meaningful," explains Paek, speaking earlier this summer.

The campaign follows a buyer searching for a thoughtful gift, while expanding the definition of which moments deserve to be celebrated. It is a significant message for Etsy at a time when the platform is introduce AI tools designed to make its shopping experience more personal and discoverable, including conversational features.

That tension is becoming increasingly important. Creators are seeing their work and styles replicated elsewhere online, while Etsy itself changed its policy in 2024 to require AI-generated art to be labelled as such.

In August, Etsy revealed that it had driven $668m in revenue during the second quarter, up 6.2 per cent while Etsy marketplace grew 9.3 per cent during the same period. Despite that, the business has also announced a major restructure.

Against that backdrop, the brand is making a case for the human stories behind what gets bought and sold on its platform.

The marketer behind the realism

Paek’s route into marketing was not linear. Her background in design continues to shape the way she approaches creative work, teaching her to use creativity as a problem-solving tool, think expansively, explore possibilities, and look at challenges from different perspectives.

She says it also gave her an appreciation for honing her own craft, paying attention to detail, and developing her taste. "I'm most energised when we create work that makes people feel seen. I love finding those universal truths and turning them into stories that feel personal."

Based at Etsy’s global headquarters in New York, Paek is now helping lead a broader shift in brand strategy, one intended to reflect a growing appetite for deeper and more meaningful connections.

From products to people

For Paek, Etsy’s strength lies in the thoughtfulness and individuality running through both its products and the people behind them.

“What I've always loved about Etsy is that it makes the internet feel a little more human. There's a sense of thoughtfulness and individuality that comes through in everything from the items themselves to the people behind them... In a world that can sometimes feel increasingly impersonal, Etsy is a reminder that creativity and connection still matter.”

When Paek joined Etsy more than eight years ago, much of the brand’s storytelling focused on the creativity shoppers could find on the marketplace.

The latest strategic shift is broader. Rather than concentrating primarily on products, Etsy wants to tell more stories about the people behind those objects and the role they play in buyers’ lives.

“As a creative, that's been really exciting. Instead of starting with a product, we're often starting with a human truth, a feeling, or a moment and then finding the role Etsy can play within it”.

Celebrating the everyday

As more of everyday life becomes automated, Paek says Etsy’s brand team has seen people gravitate towards things that feel personal, expressive and distinctly human.

That insight offered the opportunity to tell a bigger story about the connections created through the things people make, give and share.

“From a creative standpoint, our job was to make that idea tangible, and to show that our most human moments deserve to be celebrated in deeply human ways.”

It has also prompted Etsy to look beyond the major milestones with which the brand has traditionally been associated, such as weddings, birthdays and holidays. Instead, it wants to celebrate smaller, everyday moments too.

Paek believes that gives the brand a richer creative canvas and allows it to show the different roles Etsy can play in people’s lives.

“We're looking for ways to tell stories that feel more human and relatable, whether it's a major life milestone or what we like to call a 'ministone,' the everyday moments that help shape who we are.”

Making advertising feel human

Part of the strategy is about broadening what people associate with Etsy. Rather than appearing only around life’s biggest occasions, the brand wants to show up around smaller but still meaningful moments.

Celebrate Being Human widens that frame. It continues to celebrate Etsy’s sellers, but places greater emphasis on the people living their lives through the things those sellers create.

“The story follows a person through moments big and small, with Etsy woven throughout. In doing so, it highlights the role sellers play in helping people celebrate, remember, express themselves, and connect with one another.”

The campaign leans into emotional storytelling around identity, self-expression, belonging and memory, attempting to create work in which audiences can recognise something of themselves.

“As creatives, we're always looking for ways to make work feel less like advertising and more like a reflection of real life,” claims Paek.

It is a direction she is keen to continue exploring as Etsy looks for more ways to reflect the different roles it plays in people’s lives. At the centre of that thinking is a simple idea: every seller, buyer and purchase represents a story of creativity, self-expression and connection.

For a marketplace increasingly surrounded by automation, Etsy is betting that its most valuable differentiator may be the thing technology cannot easily manufacture: the feeling that there is another person on the other side.

The world of marketing according to Haelim Paek

What do you enjoy most about being a marketer?

I'm most energised when we create work that makes people feel seen. I love finding those universal truths and turning them into stories that feel personal. Etsy is such a rich place to do that–it's built on real human connections between buyers and sellers, and our sellers have stories worth sharing with the world.

Which campaign in your career stands out for you the most and why?

It's hard to pick just one. Two really stick with me from Etsy.

The first is our holiday campaign with Waldo [Where's Wally?]. Partnering with our agency, Orchard, we brought a beloved childhood character to life in a way that felt fresh, emotional, and distinctly Etsy. Building out a live action Waldo universe and finding a reason for Etsy to exist in his world was a lot of fun.

The other is Shop Non-Billionaire Jeffs. The concept came from our internal creative team several years earlier, but the timing just wasn't right to act on. Getting to finally revisit it, visit our three Jeffs at their homes, and learn who they are and see their craft up close was a special experience for the team. And bringing it to life with our incredible partners at Orchard at a moment where it felt culturally relevant made it even more rewarding.

And what frustrates you?

More than frustrating, the biggest challenge for teams is misalignment around the work they’re trying to create. We're lucky to have incredible strategists that provide really tight briefs, but great work always starts with a clear, shared understanding of what problem you're actually trying to solve. When that's missing, everything gets harder.

What excites you about the future?

Right now, Holiday! I know it's summer, but we're already deep in creative development mode. Every year we set a high bar for ourselves in terms of the creative we want to put into the world, and it’s always a fun challenge. I’m excited to see where we land this year and what new stories we'll tell. Holiday is one of the biggest moments for Etsy, so keep an eye out!