The Rebranded Teacher
The Rebranded Teacher
Fixing Low-Converting Listings on Teachers Pay Teachers
Ever wonder why a product with steady views still stalls at the checkout page? We walk through a live teardown of a fall pre-K morning work resource and show exactly how to pinpoint whether thumbnails or the preview are killing conversions. Using simple ratios—view to preview and preview to purchase—we turn a fuzzy problem into a clear plan, then apply it step by step with real numbers and an easy framework you can copy for any TPT listing.
First, we map the buyer journey and explain why thumbnails only earn curiosity while the preview must close the sale. Then we run the math: a strong 60.6% view-to-preview rate tells us thumbnails are pulling weight, while a 15% preview-to-purchase rate signals the preview is the bottleneck. From there, we outline fixable gaps: too-small page images, vague skill lists, and missing outcome language that leaves buyers guessing. You’ll hear how to redesign the preview like a mini sales page—bold benefit headline, zoomed-in pages with readable overlays, clear skills, two to three minutes per day messaging, and a simple list of flexible uses that fit classrooms and home routines.
We also show how improving conversions compounds traffic. Lifting preview-to-purchase from 15% to 33% doesn’t just double revenue per 200 views; it nudges TPT’s algorithm to show your product more often because it earns more per visitor. Finally, we share practical copy swaps, layout tips, and a smart cross-sell move that invites buyers to explore the full themed line so carts grow beyond a single resource. If you’ve struggled to boost sales without buying ads, this data-first approach will help you focus on the one change that matters most right now.
If you found this helpful, follow the show, share it with a fellow TPT seller, and leave a quick review so more educators can discover these tactics. Got a listing you want us to diagnose next? Send it our way.
Watch This Episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/0b-3Un4RuVQ
Check Out My YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/laurenfulton
My Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laurentschappler/
My Other YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LaurenATsch
Free Rebranded Teacher Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/749538092194115
Do you have a TPT resource that is getting views, but people are not purchasing it, or at least not nearly as many people as you would like? Well, in this episode, we are gonna help you diagnose why a resource is not selling, help you figure out why your conversion rate is low and how to improve that conversion rate based on data. And I'm gonna give you a live demonstration of this from one of my own products in my TPT store. So let's go ahead and get started. First of all, if you are listening on podcasts, you want to make sure that you are checking out the YouTube version of this because I'm going to be sharing my screen with you and showing you where I'm getting some of these stats, where I'm getting some of these numbers, and how to look at a resource. I'm gonna give you a product example so that you know how to look at the resource and try to figure out what is going on with that resource. So if you are in the car, you're driving right now, you can still get a lot of really good info on this, but you're going to want to make sure that you check out the YouTube version of this video so that you can see exactly what I'm talking about and follow along with me as we diagnose this issue. If you are new here, hi, I'm Lauren Fulton. I've been selling on TPT for over nine years and I'm consistently in the top 1% of TPT sellers in the industry. I know a thing or two about diagnosing a conversion rate problem, and we're gonna be talking about that today. But before we get started, make sure you hit that subscribe button and a like this video so that you can see more content like this to help you grow your TPT business. All right, let's get to it. So I have this resource in my store. I actually have a couple of them. This is my second store. So I have two TPT stores. I have one that is like a hobby store, and this is my hobby store, like my homeschool store that has like pre-K and kindergarten resources in it. It only has like 14 or 15 active products, like it's a very small, very much a hobby store. But I have this resource right here. It's a fall preschool morning work resource. Let me show you what it looks like. So it's this pre-K morning work, and it's pretty basic. It's just 26 days of fall themed morning work where the student practices with learning the day of the week, they have a letter of the day, they have a number of the day, and they're doing different preschool activities like letter recognition, number recognition, counting, and beginning sound and all with a fall theme. This is getting, I'm not gonna say like a ton of views. If I look at the activity of this, which I'm in my product statistics tab, so I'm gonna go to my product statistics tab, and right now this has about 198 page views or about 200 page views. Now, this is over the course of a year. So this was posted September 10th, 2024, and the date of this recording it is September 20th, 2025. So about 200 page views over the last year, which is not a lot of page views. First things first, I would say that if I could work, I should probably work on search engine optimizing this a little bit more. But I'm gonna say this also. If you have a resource that you have worked really hard to search engine optimize, but you're noticing that it is not converting, sometimes fixing the conversion rate can help you get more eyes on your product because when a product has a strong conversion rate, TPT will naturally kind of move it up in the algorithm a little bit more. So, like assuming it's search engine optimized, then it has a better chance of getting more views because TPT will prioritize it over something with a lower conversion rate. Okay. Now we're talking about like small differences here, we're not talking about major differences, but ultimately TPT wants to make sales. So if I can improve the conversion rate on this product, I really think that it will be shown to more people. And because we're coming into the fall season, I really want to work on that. So I'm on the low end of what I would recommend for diagnosing. I usually would say, like, you need at least 300 page views to make a legitimate diagnosis. In this case, I think the problem is so obvious that even with the lower number of page views, like 200 page views, that we're gonna see what the problem is. So when a buyer looks at a product, they have a couple of things that they first do when they come to the page. The first thing that they do is they kind of scroll over the thumbnails on the page. So they're looking at those little square thumbnails and they're readingslash looking, and then they choose whether or not to look at the PDF preview. So they then make a choice. Usually they don't look at the thumbnails and then decide to scroll down to the product description. That's not usually what happens. They usually go thumbnails and then they click view preview if they're still interested. If a buyer chooses to look at the thumbnails and then decides not to purchase, they've lost interest at the thumbnails. So the thumbnails would be the problem. Okay. If however the buyer chooses to click on the preview, and after clicking on the preview, they choose not to purchase, then the problem is likely with the preview. So what we want to do is we want to decide, or maybe the product description, right? But what we want to do is we want to decide is the problem the thumbnails or the preview or both? Because I don't want to just go in and start trying to like fix everything and feel like, is it the price? Is it the product description? Is it this? Like we know from TPT that the vast majority of buyers make their decision about whether or not to purchase a product from the preview. So if I can't even get them to the preview, then I need to do some work on my thumbnails to get them to the preview. If I do get them to the preview and they still don't purchase, then likely the preview is the problem. So we have these things in data, and let me pull up a Google Doc here and I'm gonna kind of show you what I'm talking about. We have what's called a view to preview ratio, and then we have a preview to purchase ratio. And this is how the conversion rate breaks down. So this is like you have conversion rate, and then your conversion rate breaks down into these two ratios. If I were to just look at my conversion rate, I have a conversion rate of 9.09%, which for a$3 product is on the low end. I definitely want to do something to improve this conversion rate. It's just a matter of what. Now you can see this kindergarten morning work that is posted above it. It has a higher conversion rate, 14.63%. However, it only has 41 page views. So it's really just not anywhere near enough data for me to diagnose the issue. So I'm gonna start with my conversion rate is 9.09%. So I know there's an issue with the conversion rate. I want to get that up. Ideally, I would like to see that closer to that 14 to 15%, or maybe even closer to 20%. But for right now, I'm gonna aim for like 14%. Okay, so I'm gonna say goal is 14%. By the end of the fall season, that's where I want it to be. And then now I'm gonna look at the view to preview ratio to figure out is the issue my thumbnails or is the issue my preview, my PDF preview? Where should I focus my time first? So to calculate the view to preview ratio, I'm gonna go into the activity portion of product statistics, and I've got 198 page views and 120 previews. So I'm gonna say my view to preview ratio is the number of preview views, and this is all time, divided by the number of page views. Okay, which in this case is 120 divided by 198, which equals, and again, I would say that in general I really want closer to 300 views to accurately diagnose this, but in this case, it's gonna be really obvious what what the issue is. So I have 120 divided by 198, and that gives me 60.6%. This is a very high view to preview ratio. So this is high, which means that thumbnails, and if you can hear me typing, I'm typing the notes out on the screen for people who are watching on YouTube, so it makes it a little bit easier for you to follow along. The thumbnails are performing well, they're doing their job, they're getting people to look at the preview. Now I want to look at the preview to purchase ratio. My preview to purchase ratio is the number of purchases divided by the number of preview views, which in this case is 18 purchases divided by the number of preview views, which in this case is 120. So I've got 18 divided by 120, and that is 15%. So only 15% of people, after looking at the preview, decided to make a purchase, which means that 85% of people looked at that preview and said, nah, that's all right, I'm good. I can do without that. Okay. So this is a low performing preview. My preview is not performing well. Now, my goal, baseline goal, is to go 33% here, 33% here to see at least that. Now, ideally, it's gonna be a little bit higher. I like to see 40 and 40. If I could see 40 and 40, then I feel like we're pretty good. In this case, it's 60 and 15. So my thumbnails are doing a great job. My preview is really leaving a lot to be desired. So here's what I'm gonna say is that if I could take the same 200 views and I could improve preview to purchase ratio to equal 33.3%. So one third of people, then I would go from, let's see here, 200 people would view from those 200 people, 60.6 people would view the preview. So that's 120 people would view the preview. And then of those 120 people times 33%, that would mean 40 would make a purchase instead of 18. So what that means is instead of making 18 times three, of course, this is not accounting for fees, so instead of$54 for every 200 views, I would be making, let's see, 40 times three,$120 for every 200 views. So here's what I want you to think about. If I could make it so that if TPT, when they send 200 people to my product, 40 people purchased versus 18 people purchased, do you think that TPT would start to move my resource up the search engine ranking more if I have 40 people purchase versus if I have 18 people purchase? Yes, absolutely. And the reason why is this if TPT makes 20%, 20% of$54 is$10 and 80 cents. So as is right now, they make$10 and 80 cents for every 200 views they send to my product. If I could increase it though to where 40 people were purchasing, then they would make$24, more than twice the amount of money every time they send 200 people. So they're gonna say, well, wait a second, if that's what it's gonna do for 200, let's send 500 to her product. Like let's send more people to her product, let's move it up, let's get some more views, let's get some more clicks on this product because we know it's going to convert better. And so they're gonna start to gradually show this to more and more people as my conversion rate moves up. Now, this is assuming that in comparison to everyone else, like assuming everyone else stays the same, if my conversion rate improves, then they are going to move my resource up in rankings. Now, this is not gonna say that it is gonna move to the very top of the search engine rankings for a really popular search term. That's not the case. But slowly over time, they are gonna start to show this to more people because they know the more people they show it to, the more people will purchase it. And it has a higher conversion rate than its peers. Because if I could improve this to be a 33% preview to purchase ratio, if I could improve the preview and get that to 33% versus 15%, then my resource is going to go from a 9.09% conversion rate to a 20% conversion rate. If I could improve just the preview to purchase ratio, not even the view to preview ratio, but just the preview to purchase ratio by 18%, it's going to improve my overall conversion rate by about 11%. Doing that is not only going to help me make more money with the views that TPT is giving me, but it's also going to encourage the TPT search engine algorithm to give me more views because I have a higher conversion rate. So let's take a look real quick at this preview and let's just talk for a minute about some changes that I'm going to try to make. First things first, I think I'm going to start by highlighting this one month of morning work a little bit more. So instead of saying fall pre-K morning work here, I think I'm going to make it really big one month of morning work. And then I like this two to three minutes each day and breaking down what the students are going to be learning in two to three minutes a day. But I think taking the time to show them a page up close. So like I like this one page where they can see it, but it's still kind of difficult to really see up close. So like I like this page where it says math and literacy. I think I might change that to consistent math and literacy practice. And then right here, instead of just saying still skills covered, I think I might actually like zoom in on one or two of these pages versus having five pages here that you can barely see. I might zoom in really close. And up at the top, say build student confidence in these skills, and then have those skills laid out right here. And then right here, I might change this to say fun for your students or toddler and no prep for you. Because it could be that maybe a teacher is looking at this and they're not, because it says like fun for your toddler, like they're not quite quite seeing the benefit quite as much. But and then I think I'm gonna add one more page that says like ways to use and gives them a list of ways to use this. Like you can use this as morning work, you can use this as like a daily worksheet, that give them different options. Like you can use this as morning work, you can use this as a daily worksheet, you can use this as homework, anything like that, like giving them options for ways that they can use this within the classroom or at home could kind of help them visualize using this in the classroom. But I think one of the big things is gonna be focusing on the benefits and the results or the outcome of using this product versus just having a bunch of lists, plus kind of really zooming in and allowing them to see the pages up close. I think that that could really help as well. And then finally, I think I'm gonna add one last page that encourages them to check out other resources within this product line. So I have other resources within this product line. Like this is a whole product line. I have it for Christmas, I have it for Easter, I have, you know, transportation theme, dinosaur theme. Like I have several different themes for this product line. And I think encouraging them to maybe even go check out other resources within this line could help them see the benefits of like, oh, not only would I be doing this for fall, but I could also do this like all year long because there are lots of options. And so if I choose this route or if I go this route and I choose this option and I like it, then there are more resources like it so that I could incorporate this on a daily or regular basis. And I couldn't encourage them also to go ahead and add multiples to their cart, which is obviously a huge win for me. So those are the three things that I'm really going to focus on is giving them an up close view, focusing on the overall benefits of this product and outcomes of this product versus just kind of making a list of different things that are included. And then finally giving them a call to action to check out other resources within this product line so that they can hopefully add more to cart and get the wheel spinning for seeing how they could use this, not only on a regular basis within their classroom or at home, but seeing that they can use this as on an ongoing basis. If you were struggling in any way, shape, or form trying to follow along with this, listen, you need to go check out the YouTube video on this. I made notes as I was doing this and showed how I was calculating this and where I was getting the numbers inside of your product statistics. So if you were having a hard time following along and figuring out, wait, where did she get that number or what did her preview look like? Or I want to see what this product looked like up close, then make sure you go check out the YouTube version of this podcast episode. It's gonna be super helpful and insightful for you. You can find this video through the link in the description below, but you can also just type in Lauren Fulton on YouTube and my channel will pop right up for you and you can find this video from there. But as always, thanks so much for being here, you guys. I'm gonna see you right back here next week.