At least, by posting on [HN] for free, you can target and engage at least [me]. Honestly, I watch youtube on my TV with chromecast and rarely see ADs, may be google did not show ads on their products.
What I Learned Burning $14k on YouTube Ads for Candy Japan
151–160 of 263 posts
Re: What I Learned Burning $14k on YouTube Ads for Candy Japan
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even better would have been paying one of the popular unboxing channels to make that video (well... not too popular or it would be crazy expensive!).
His competitors are already doing this very aggressively (based on a number of channels I've unsubscribed from because I don't want to watch them eat candy), so it seems like it works.
I made a little Elsagate scraper thingy, scrapes video metadata and thumbs of channels and takes note of featured channels, channels mentioned in descriptions and channels videos that get mentioned belong to; then I go through those, tag them as EG or not EG, rinse repeat. My point is that EG channels link lots of channels showing hands unpacking sweets and talking about them (just like they link to official cartoon channels and whatnot).. I'm just seeing this tiny, random fraction, and yet there's so many it did dent my faith in humanity some more.
I really wonder about the target audience, I can't come up with more than toddlers and Anne Wilkens from "Misery"... as for the creators, they "just want to make some money", and I know I'm mean about something that harms nobody and is voluntary to watch. Though I'm not blaming them at all for being linked from EG, I do find them demented in their own right, and can see why EG would approve of them.
Re: What I Learned Burning $14k on YouTube Ads for Candy Japan
#153The 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.
Shouldn't there be a group of people who maybe care how Candy Japan works and are curious to find out and perhaps buy some afterwards?
Why didn't it work on those people?
Re: What I Learned Burning $14k on YouTube Ads for Candy Japan
#154I ordered a voiceover with a professional actress reading out the lines properly. Where does a person order voiceovers?
If you have played a video game with a voice acting not from a famous performer/actor, those are typically done by professionals who specialize in voiceover roles, almost all these will be credited in the video game listing on imdb.com and the performer's contact or agency info is linked from there.
Re: What I Learned Burning $14k on YouTube Ads for Candy Japan
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I'm the "target audience" but the use of English made me flinch.
Re: What I Learned Burning $14k on YouTube Ads for Candy Japan
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> 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) My wife loves Japanese candies and…
The blog posts are how I originally discovered Candy Japan (which is a great service by the way. I definitely recommend). But we are a weird demographic. I doubt the majority of his customers are HN readers.
Re: What I Learned Burning $14k on YouTube Ads for Candy Japan
#157Since it’s a bidding system, someone’s getting good returns on these ads and I’d speculate it’s just a small handful of people who actually hit a sweet spot, with the rest filled by people doing temporary campaigns or testing out campaigns.
Margin and volume are the key to advertising. Coca cola needs to sell a lot of extra coke to make a return, and they do.
At the other end, car companies. You only need to move a tiny fraction of people left or right on a $20K purchase to justify a hell of a lot of ads. 1,000 car buyers changing from a Toyota to a Hyundai is a massive return.
Re: What I Learned Burning $14k on YouTube Ads for Candy Japan
#158The 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.
Look at all the free advice it elicited. What would it have cost to have people make all the comments on this thread? I reckon this post has accrued its value already.
Re: What I Learned Burning $14k on YouTube Ads for Candy Japan
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Correction - statistically they're not in the audience. i.e. even if you'd one person would be a good Candy Japan customer, YouTube ad billing incentivizes you to lower the false-positive rate (ie the number of people who view your ad but don't buy) rather than the false-negative rate (ie The number of people that skip your ad but would have been interested in the product).
Sometimes you get it wrong, like with GP, but that's worth it.
I think this is a Good Thing - it makes advertisers and YouTube care in dollars-and-cents terms about not wasting ad viewers' time and attention.
Re: What I Learned Burning $14k on YouTube Ads for Candy Japan
#160The 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.
Spot on. Old talk by Simon Sinek presents it pretty well, start with the why: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp0HIF3SfI4&t=3m20s
That was a great talk. One of the reasons I love the "TED video" culture. It revolves around pointing out why things everyone knows and feels are obvious...actually work. The "why didn't I think of that explanation" feeling. I guess I just love having my instincts and impulses explained and dissected. Understanding self. Higher platitudes.