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What I Learned Burning $14k on YouTube Ads for Candy Japan

candyjapan.com

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Re: What I Learned Burning $14k on YouTube Ads for Candy Japan

#121

Post by Francute »

Honestly, I have no idea about ad campaigns. However, I've felt that the ad itself wasn't good enough.

And, when you say "a typical YouTube ad is 30 seconds" doesn't mean you have to make one so long, you could have considered it more as an upper limit instead of a goal. Your message was simple, and i've felt the ad was unnecessarily slow and long. Being more specific, you lost me exactly after the first 8 seconds.

On the other hand, the ad taught me that it's possible to buy japaneses candies easily and where i could get them. If someday I, or one of my friends, want japanese candies, I could simply point to your website. (And in fact, I already made a friend interested about it before reading your post).

Lastly, the ad itself is boring, maybe with some background music or even a voice more like "Hatsune Miku" could been a little more fun to see entirely.

Re: What I Learned Burning $14k on YouTube Ads for Candy Japan

#122

Post by mikekchar »

shagie wrote: post #107
Mithaldu wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 view…

You may be disappointed if you choose the amazon link. I had a hard time finding any candy in that box. It seems to be made up of mostly senbei (rice crackers) and Umaibou (think Cheetos in a stick). The seaweed makes a lot more sense when you realise that it's savoury, not sweet. For some reason, quite a lot of Japanese children do not like sweets. I don't think any of my friends kids like sweets. Korean style flavoured nori seaweed is a really popular snack (especially with really young children -- 1-4 years of age).

But, getting a bit more on topic, that amazon link is "dagashi", which is just inexpensive snack food. It can contain candy (in that box I notice "Milky" which is a hard candy), but things on the same level of potato chips would be in that category. I don't know for sure, but I think CandyJapan sells only candy. The "It'sugar" link seems to be much more similar.

I'm going to guess that his target market is people who have an interested in Japan (possibly through anime) and would like to try an assortment of Japanese candy. I think his home page does a lot better job of explaining the product than the ad did, so possibly it's something to think about in the future.

Re: What I Learned Burning $14k on YouTube Ads for Candy Japan

#124

Post by acangiano »

TylerE wrote: post #119
nkkollaw wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought it was fine

"Fine" is how you go bankrupt. There is way too much competition out there for 'fine' to be enough.

Fun fact, the word "fine" means "the end" in Italian.

Re: What I Learned Burning $14k on YouTube Ads for Candy Japan

#125

Post by ggg9990 »

282883392 wrote: post #109
ggg9990 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The product always needs to be good. But targeted ads such as on Google allow entire categories of businesses to exist. My company would have never been started without Google AdWords - there would have simply been no cost effective way to find the users who needed the product.

Re: What I Learned Burning $14k on YouTube Ads for Candy Japan

#126

Post by spiznnx »

jhou2 wrote: post #29

The ad was terrible. It explained how Candy Japan works. I don't care how Candy Japan works. I want the why should I buy Candy Japan. It should have focused instead on the candies that you can get. Delicious, weird, unique candies only available through this service.

"explaining" is a pretty good technique since Candy Japan is a service that people want, but might not know about. But the ad didn't need to be more than 10 seconds, "Candy Japan sends you different Japanese snacks twice a month. Try something new!". It felt like it repeated itself, and the high-pitched not-actually-japanese konnichiwa was very off-putting.

Re: What I Learned Burning $14k on YouTube Ads for Candy Japan

#127

Post by ggg9990 »

dylanha wrote: post #108
ggg9990 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I had a CS degree but was working outside the field in pharmaceuticals. I was having the problem myself and wrote a crazy Excel spreadsheet with tens of thousands of lines of poorly written copy pasted code to do it. I knew that there would be a market for it so I contacted an old classmate of mine who rewrote it much better as a web service.

That is why I think CS and software engineering should be part of every college degree, so that people can see the opportunity for software where it exists. I wasn’t good enough to be a programmer but I had enough knowledge to see an opportunity whereas most people thought “hm, this is just how this is done.”

Re: What I Learned Burning $14k on YouTube Ads for Candy Japan

#129

Post by rsync »

ggg9990 wrote: post #125
282883392 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like that was more of great product than a successful advertising campaign, even if it did help.

The product always needs to be good. But targeted ads such as on Google allow entire categories of businesses to exist. My company would have never been started without Google AdWords - there would have simply been no cost effective way to find the users who needed the product.

"The product always needs to be good. But targeted ads such as on Google allow entire categories of businesses to exist."

With regard to niches, my experience has been the opposite.

If your niche is small enough, you can't properly bid on adwords for rare keywords because they are flagged as "low quality" and you are forced to either abandon those keywords or pay 10x for them to show.

This, of course, defies the entire raison d'etre of adwords - the whole purpose of which is (presumably) to bid on a keyword that targets that one rare person that searched for that.

But it can't be done - if only 5 or 10 people search for a phrase or keyword every day, it cannot be bid on properly.

Re: What I Learned Burning $14k on YouTube Ads for Candy Japan

#130

Post by nodamage »

ggg9990 wrote: post #84
ttul wrote: post #9

People 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.

Just curious how much the software cost?
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