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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

#131

Post by e_b »

libertine wrote: post #58
DisruptiveDave wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd venture to say it's not the marketers acting on their own in many cases. Shit runs down hill. VCs want fast returns, CEOs want their investors to be happy about their CAC, marketers want to prove their value in this system. And EVERYBODY is obsessed with analytics, often as a poorly constructed crutch. You try pitching brand building in that environment.

But I understand that, so maybe it's a matter of choice. What kind of brand you want, and set it right away from the beginning because it will define your media channel/production investment. I think that brands who had strong branding advertising are still well positioned in people's minds, and it's indeed an investment that should be made with a massive ROI. Now, it's a long term game. Doesn't suit the status quo l…

The long term brand plan must be set by the CEO and in the example provided by the parent, the CEO only cares about keeping investors happy in the short term, alas no spend without immediately identifiable ROI.

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

#132

Post by Meekro »

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.

They're not selling the product itself, but the cute Japaneseyness of it. And that's good, if they managed to target their ads to the right people. I really loved the ad, and I think I'm in the right segment: I love cute anime, and I want to live in Japan someday!

The blog post wasn't totally clear on this point, but it sounds like the problem was that YouTube's ad tools weren't good enough to get them the fine-grained targeting they needed. They'd put in "anime" as a keyword and then their ad would be shown on totally unrelated videos. There is plenty of anime on YouTube -- if they could attach their ad to that, and nothing else, I think it would have done well.

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

#133

Post by jsonne »

cpncrunch wrote: post #103
jsonne wrote: post #95

A 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?

3 to 5x on a cold audience. 5-10x on retargeting campaigns and upsell/cross sells. It really depends on the client though.

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

#134

Post by dmix »

Meekro wrote: post #132
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.

They're not selling the product itself, but the cute Japaneseyness of it. And that's good, if they managed to target their ads to the right people. I really loved the ad, and I think I'm in the right segment: I love cute anime, and I want to live in Japan someday! The blog post wasn't totally clear on this point, but it sounds like the problem was that YouTube's ad tools weren't good enough to get them the fine-grain…

None of the actual (appealing) candy was shown in the ad nor was the most interesting part of his business (the personal need that drove him to created a delivery service) communicated. I was a subscriber to Candy Japan for a few months and I really felt it undersold his offering.

It should have been:

1) a personal story of him going to Japan

2) him going back the US... and missing the awesome Japanese candy you can't (easily) find in western countries

3) him starting a service to ship Candy (right from Japan!) to people every month for a (not-to-expensive) subscription!!!

That's a great story/ad. His ad was generic and soulless. And the honestly annoying childish voiceover really didn't help sell it the candy to me at all.

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

#135

Post by shiftpgdn »

clay_the_ripper wrote: post #73

Speaking as a marketer: getting positive ROI on ads is hard. That’s why people hire professional marketers to market things. I often find that non-marketers think they can do marketing, and then when it doesn’t work, they tend to blame the platform. I hire engineers to do engineering work, and likewise business owners should hire marketers to do marketing work.

It's really REALLY hard to separate the real professionals from charlatans especially in the marketing world.

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

#137

Post by zaroth »

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.

The question is - for $3,000 was it possible to make something much better? If so, is this information readily available / why was it missed?

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

#138

Post by lugg »

avree wrote: post #120
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.

Additionally, just because someone is interested in Japanese candies, doesn't mean they like anime. The high-pitched annoying cartoon voice really turned me off right away, and it's not immediately obvious in the first 10 seconds (which is how long you have to watch before you can skip on YouTube) what it's for (after all, CrunchyRoll is a service for watching anime online, not ordering crunchy rolls.)

I believe that is intentional. Sentence missing from the blog post is still up on the reddit post[1]:

> Here's the end result. If the video tingles your weeaboo senses, that's intentional, as I want clearly uninterested people to skip the video as fast as possible. I'll explain why next.

...

> Now you might understand why I want to get people not in my target audience to skip – it's cheaper because you don't pay when people skip your ad!

In other words - you're probably not in the target audience.

Not saying I agree with why he is saying you shouldn't be in his audience (you're clearly interested in Japanese candy) but maybe you're not because you have an interest but would likely still cancel earlier than his normal audience. (which would have a much higher lifetime value making the numbers much harder to run)

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/8062vs/what_i...

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

#140

Post by lugg »

dmix wrote: post #134
Meekro wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not selling the product itself, but the cute Japaneseyness of it. And that's good, if they managed to target their ads to the right people. I really loved the ad, and I think I'm in the right segment: I love cute anime, and I want to live in Japan someday! The blog post wasn't totally clear on this point, but it sounds like the problem was that YouTube's ad tools weren't good enough to get them the fine-grain…

None of the actual (appealing) candy was shown in the ad nor was the most interesting part of his business (the personal need that drove him to created a delivery service) communicated. I was a subscriber to Candy Japan for a few months and I really felt it undersold his offering. It should have been: 1) a personal story of him going to Japan 2) him going back the US... and missing the awesome Japanese candy you can'…

That's a good idea but I suspect you're being a little hard on a guy that went to the expense and clear trouble of getting something like this made, dropping the coin and then sharing the story for us to pick apart.

I doubt anyone gets their video based marketing right the first time - another thing an agency would have helped him avoid.

Me: I don't really care about the video or the product, I'm just glad he shared the marketing experience.

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