Marketing must be a frustrating job. The number of advertising channels is exploding: YouTube, sponsored ads on targeted sites, general search engine placement ads, Twitter, Facebook, even Pandora radio with ads catering to the tastes of listeners of particular music genres. With so many channels and campaigns running simultaneously and competing for attention, understanding the impact of a given campaign must be a challenge. Ooh, sales bumped up a fraction — was that because of a tweak to the keywords in a campaign, or just because the weather is warmer/colder/drier/wetter and impacted buyers’ moods?
Why am I musing about this? A little microscopic experiment. I received a coupon for $100 in Google AdWords if I spent $25, so I thought I would test the waters. I wrote my ad copy, selected some likely keywords, set my daily spend limit and fired it up. Sure enough, traffic to BIts of Nature did increase, changing from a dozen or so visits a week to double that per day.
Two weeks later the money was burned through. What did I get? Nearly 82,000 “impressions” — my ad appeared in a search result and so presumably was “seen” by a person, akin to driving by a billboard on the highway. Seen, but that’s it. Approximately 400 people actually clicked on the ad and visited the site, which is what actually results in money being drained from my Google account. This came out to about $0.40 per click on the ad.
The result? Zilch, nada, bupkis, doughnut hole – no sales of prints, no calendar sales, nothing. Didn’t even get any comments posted on any of the art.
A few more short-term eyeballs, no art on anyone’s walls as long-term eye candy.
I really didn’t expect any sales so I can’t say that I’ve been let down. It is likely more a testimony to the myriad competing demands for those eyeballs and the range of artists out there with competing wares. Take a simple search on Fine Art America for “Lambs Ears”, a fuzzy light green plant that cooperates nicely in filling in our flower beds with some ground level interest: http://fineartamerica.com/art/lambs+ears. The result is at least 90 photos or other art featuring these plants (buried among a couple of hundred pics of sheep of various ages). The demand for pictures of Lamb’s Ears plants would seem to be … um … low. Yet even this niche “market” has plenty of offerings just on this one web site.
The moral of the story? Artists, love your work. If someone buys it, count your blessings. Oh, and have deep pockets to advertise like crazy if that’s your business plan, because you’ll need a lot of “impressions” before you get a chance to make an impression.