TLDR: YouTube Ads not as efficient as blog posts about YouTube Ads
What I Learned Burning $14k on YouTube Ads for Candy Japan
101–110 of 263 posts
Re: What I Learned Burning $14k on YouTube Ads for Candy Japan
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought it was fine
That is why you are not a digital performance marketer. Even the most newbie member of STMforum would have been able to make an ad that was 100 X better than this.
Slight OT - is STMforum a beneficial thing, or a scheme for fleecing money out of marketing newbies? I have a friend looking to promote some unique products in a commodity market (leaving the safe space of Etsy for direct sales) and I was wondering whether STMforum is worth it.
Re: What I Learned Burning $14k on YouTube Ads for Candy Japan
#103A few things that struck me. Note I primarily do Facebook consulting so I'm pulling broad generalizations from there but I do run youtube ads as well. 1. Using predefined broad audience categories rarely works. Doing keyword targeting or specific video targeting usually works out better. 2. $10 cpm isn't high. I regularly spend $40+ on Facebook that can be 5x+ profitable ROI. Judging an ad buy only by cpm is short si…
What is your clients' average ROI for these campaigns?
Re: What I Learned Burning $14k on YouTube Ads for Candy Japan
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
This lesson struck me hard when I was working with a major conference organizer. Even upon surveying them, they'd struggle to establish how attendees had heard of the event first. For the majority of attendees there was no direct way to correlate ticket purchases with ad spend because almost no-one immediately buys a $1000+ ticket after clicking an ad :-)
Market research is the easiest way to solve these problems!
What if you provide a discount code in the ad that’s unique to the ad? Subsequent ads have slight lower discounts so there’s an incentive to use the code from the first ad they saw.
Re: What I Learned Burning $14k on YouTube Ads for Candy Japan
#105As others have mentioned, the ad isn’t a good use case for this kind of blind marketing. There is simply no hook, evocation and it’s not emotional. It would work better as a landing page video to further explain the service to an already engaged potential customer, but not to new prospects targeted with route filters.
I think it could work a lot better as is if it was used for retargeting. i.e. people who have already been cookied and visited your site but haven’t yet made a purchase, or clicked through on some of your email marketing.
Re: What I Learned Burning $14k on YouTube Ads for Candy Japan
#106People inexperienced in online adversities often think that they can pay for conversions. That is not the case. You’re paying to get your message out. Very very few people will immediately act because of an ad. But if you hit them enough, they may later convert. Tracking those late conversions is imprecise. This does not mean advertising is useless. But it is not generally a game for those with a tiny budget or a sho…
Precisely - "marketers" these days don't grasp the concept of brand building. Just because you can measure directly results it doesn't mean the goal is to get a direct conversion - specially from a platform like youtube where people are actively consuming content - not buying stuff. The idea of compound investment into brand building doesn't seem to exist. I don't know if these guys thought that decades of TV adverti…
I have no question that people who have built brands believe that it was successful. We can even look at "big brands" like Coke -- they sell sugar water + a brand -- surely that must be real.
My nuanced take is that a brand "exists" in the sense that we are able to understand it, what it represents, etc. What we do not know is if that's the best way to spend resources. All the money that went into Intel Inside -- what if they spent it on something else? No marketer can know that; the question as a marketer: "is this the best thing I can do with my resources?" Nothing about "building a brand" provides objective feedback or testable predictions about the usage of that dollar.
Suggesting that TV advertising can't be a scam because so many people have put so much effort into it is another fallacy. Old school TV advertising was done by people whose jobs dependent on the revenue stream -- even if branding were completely ineffective; if they got paid, I wouldn't consider that irrational.
Brands happen. They can have value, but we can only try to prove that value after the fact.
Direct response, on the other hand, tends to be less full of b.s.
Re: What I Learned Burning $14k on YouTube Ads for Candy Japan
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've gotta agree with this, I feel like I should have a subscription like this and couldn't talk myself into it even when I was trying. What's so cool about Japanese candy? There are a ton of other services out there like this one, why should I get this one? These are the questions I had that talked me out of it. I say this hoping it helps, I felt really inclined to want to subscribe from past interest and I don't kn…
I understand you mainly asked the questions to provide feedback, but as a subscriber i can give you some info that might help you decide: A lot of the sweets are made with cane sugar, which tastes distinctly different from the typical american fare. Beyond that they also have some taste combinations that you usually don't encounter in the us. Savoury snacks with sea weed tastes are pretty nice.
The "what is Japanese candy like" can be answered by going to ITSUGAR and getting some... well... Japanese candy ( https://itsugar.com/crave-japan-blind-box.html )... or Amazon ( https://www.amazon.com/Japanese-assortment-dagashi-TONOSAMA-... - its even prime - I can get it tomorrow!). After I clicked that link, I've got on the order of 50 different Japanese candy boxes showing up in the "related to items you've viewed". So why Candy Japan rather than another one?
I'll point out that the savory snacks and sea weed are part of the "eww" mindset. When the pitch is "we're going to send you a bunch of random candy" I dread the prospect of opening it up and getting a box of sea weed. The repetition of "unique candy" reinforces that "I'm probably going to get sea weed"
While there may be good candy out there, trying to market it needs to take more into consideration that they're selling to an American sweet tooth. The Japan candy consumer who already has a different subscription service or connection needs to be sold on value (better selection, better quality, better price).
As to the sugar source debate... I've got a fondness for some european candies (particularly the Haribo candy berries). Yes, its a corn syrup base, but even the different traditions in making candy for a different pallet will change the flavor profile. Trips to Ieka find a purchase of Jelly Mice. All that matters at the end of the day is the "does it taste good?"
Re: What I Learned Burning $14k on YouTube Ads for Candy Japan
#108People inexperienced in online adversities often think that they can pay for conversions. That is not the case. You’re paying to get your message out. Very very few people will immediately act because of an ad. But if you hit them enough, they may later convert. Tracking those late conversions is imprecise. This does not mean advertising is useless. But it is not generally a game for those with a tiny budget or a sho…
Disagree. I had a startup selling a piece of software that immediately solved a major problem for a small niche of users. Paid for conversions on common search terms and they were ROI positive since each click converted at 25% to signup, and then the product spread around the companies where one user adopted. Sold the company for >$10m.
How did you find the niche? Any reading material I should see?
Re: What I Learned Burning $14k on YouTube Ads for Candy Japan
#109People inexperienced in online adversities often think that they can pay for conversions. That is not the case. You’re paying to get your message out. Very very few people will immediately act because of an ad. But if you hit them enough, they may later convert. Tracking those late conversions is imprecise. This does not mean advertising is useless. But it is not generally a game for those with a tiny budget or a sho…
Disagree. I had a startup selling a piece of software that immediately solved a major problem for a small niche of users. Paid for conversions on common search terms and they were ROI positive since each click converted at 25% to signup, and then the product spread around the companies where one user adopted. Sold the company for >$10m.
Sounds like that was more of great product than a successful advertising campaign, even if it did help.
Re: What I Learned Burning $14k on YouTube Ads for Candy Japan
#110As a marketer, videographer, and someone with a sweet tooth, it's not a great ad. Get to the point. Show the actual product. Tease me with things I can expect to receive. Maybe show reaction videos of people opening and trying the candy (and loving it).
Also, you'd probably get higher ROI sending $14k worth of Candy Japan to YouTubers in the hopes they'd open it on their vlog and mention the website.