Author Topic: Adobe sales are very slow. (Read 8043 times)

oscarcwilliams · « **on:** December 15, 2021, 01:15 »

My sales have ceased going on a whole week at Adobe. Anyone else notice the difference in their sales? Thanks

Wilm · « **Reply #1 on:** December 15, 2021, 01:43 »

Quote from: oscarcwilliams on December 15, 2021, 01:15

My sales have ceased going on a whole week at Adobe. Anyone else notice the difference in their sales? Thanks

No, Oscar, for me it is reasonably normal and constant.

Pacesetter · « **Reply #2 on:** December 15, 2021, 01:44 »

My sales have pivoted to the other direction and some of the best ever. Earnings are more than double Shutterstock this month. Wasn't like that a couple of weeks ago as you can read my earlier posts in this thread.

whosvegas · « **Reply #3 on:** December 15, 2021, 02:00 »

AS for 2 complete weeks complete dead
Seams AS becomes the new Dreamstime

Hope this will change soon!

Justanotherphotographer · « **Reply #4 on:** December 15, 2021, 03:10 »

All good here. One of the only agencies on the up.

MatHayward · « **Reply #5 on:** December 15, 2021, 10:08 »

Would those of you reporting dramatic swings in your sales please share a link to your Adobe Stock portfolio and let us know when your most recent submission was and how many files you had approved ytd in 2021. That would be helpful in identifying any sort of pattern.

Thanks,

Mat Hayward

For Real · « **Reply #6 on:** December 15, 2021, 10:23 »

Quote from: MatHayward on December 15, 2021, 10:08

Would those of you reporting dramatic swings in your sales please share a link to your Adobe Stock portfolio and let us know when your most recent submission was and how many files you had approved ytd in 2021. That would be helpful in identifying any sort of pattern.

Thanks,

Mat Hayward

Thanks Mat!

Justanotherphotographer · « **Reply #7 on:** December 15, 2021, 10:23 »

Quote from: MatHayward on December 15, 2021, 10:08

Would those of you reporting dramatic swings in your sales please share a link to your Adobe Stock portfolio and let us know when your most recent submission was and how many files you had approved ytd in 2021. That would be helpful in identifying any sort of pattern.

Thanks,

Mat Hayward

Hi Mat, could you please answer the question regarding Creative Cloud Express rates, or at least let us know you wont be clarifying how much we will be paid so we aren’t left hanging.

For Real · « **Reply #8 on:** December 15, 2021, 11:04 »

My sales tend to be seasonal, for example 26 downloads and 14 of them are Christmas images, thus could explain the low amount of downloads for some folks.

Just_to_inform_people2 · « **Reply #9 on:** December 15, 2021, 13:11 »

Quote from: MatHayward on December 15, 2021, 10:08

Would those of you reporting dramatic swings in your sales please share a link to your Adobe Stock portfolio and let us know when your most recent submission was and how many files you had approved ytd in 2021. That would be helpful in identifying any sort of pattern.

Thanks,

Mat Hayward

With all respect Mat, instead of asking contributors questions like these it would be more helpful if Adobe would explain how ranking of a photo works within their search algorithm.

For example. I had a full moon photo which was selling pretty well. Multiple sales a week. But then it dropped from the the first three rows (in all regions by the way, at the same time) to the bottom of the first page and then it didn't sell anymore.

Yes, I did not have time the last few months (due to my main work) to go out and shoot and upload. So maybe this is the reason that this specific photo (although it was doing pretty well) to have dropped in ranking?

But it would be nice and very welcome to the contributors to explain how Adobe ranks photo's. Because in my case, sales are slow because of ranking change and maybe some seasonal factors, but not some other factor I would assume.

Since Adobe does take it's contributors seriously (unlike other agencies) and that's why we see you here I guess, could Adobe at least be honest about this ranking system, so we, as contributors, understand what to expect? I think ranking is almost everything unless you have a very unique photo. Buyers are lazy and don't tend to look further if they don't have to.

Pacesetter · « **Reply #10 on:** December 15, 2021, 16:08 »

197 files uploaded this year to date. My ytd sales trend below, this month turning out to be going very well, beyond expectations with earnings 2.5x in Dec 21 compared to Dec 20. I had a break from uploading for several months until a couple of weeks ago due to focusing on moving from Canberra (a rather isolated city and yet the capital of Australia) to Sydney (my home city) where there is now a world of content I can find.

Wilm · « **Reply #11 on:** December 15, 2021, 16:23 »

No agency or company that conducts business over the web will ever provide insight into the algorithm. But even if the company did, it wouldn't do anyone any good, because then everyone would adjust their wares to that algorithm and the company would have to generate new algorithms to define a new ranking in searches.

I'm not sure I'm interpreting Mat's lines correctly. But I take from his words that recent upload activity plays a role in the ranking of the portfolio.

And there may apply to the entire contributor portfolio then:

- who has not uploaded anything, is not in a good position
- who has uploaded a lot and the material is usable, is in a better position
- who has uploaded a lot and the material is bad, is in a worse position than the one who has uploaded nothing.

Evaristo tenscadisto · « **Reply #12 on:** December 15, 2021, 18:41 »

Define what is bad or good material?
For example if it's Editorial footage from a good camera, not shaking and without grainy noise i will usually not buy it!
Normally when i buy, i buy more doc stuff so i prefer rather natural and more amateur than "candy" Pro stuff. It seems more real, believable and natural.

So maybe what we think it's trash perhaps is gold for others.

In my opinion Content is King no matter the "quality". I rather use "Demand" to define what you call bad or good. If there's demand then you probably sell more then something that have few demand. Now if you don't upload i am sure that you will never sell.

Pacesetter · « **Reply #13 on:** December 15, 2021, 18:46 »

Good image material is commonly defined as ultra-sharp focus at 15,000%

Level6 · « **Reply #14 on:** December 15, 2021, 22:08 »

Quote from: Evaristo tenscadisto on December 15, 2021, 18:41

Define what is bad or good material?
For example if it's Editorial footage from a good camera, not shaking and without grainy noise i will usually not buy it!
Normally when i buy, i buy more doc stuff so i prefer rather natural and more amateur than "candy" Pro stuff. It seems more real, believable and natural.

So maybe what we think it's trash perhaps is gold for others.

In my opinion Content is King no matter the "quality". I rather use "Demand" to define what you call bad or good. If there's demand then you probably sell more then something that have few demand. Now if you don't upload i am sure that you will never sell.

I'm or was living proof of that, some of my editorial was and is complete crap compared to the staged and "stocky" looking videos and my stuff used to sell daily, stuff I clearly shouldn't have uploaded but I batch upload and tag an sure enough that stuff would sell.

Wilm · « **Reply #15 on:** December 16, 2021, 02:13 »

Quote from: Evaristo tenscadisto on December 15, 2021, 18:41

Define what is bad or good material?
For example if it's Editorial footage from a good camera, not shaking and without grainy noise i will usually not buy it!
Normally when i buy, i buy more doc stuff so i prefer rather natural and more amateur than "candy" Pro stuff. It seems more real, believable and natural.

So maybe what we think it's trash perhaps is gold for others.

In my opinion Content is King no matter the "quality". I rather use "Demand" to define what you call bad or good. If there's demand then you probably sell more then something that have few demand. Now if you don't upload i am sure that you will never sell.

When I wrote "bad," I meant "unusable," the opposite of usable, which is what I wrote in the line above.

You worded it well: bad means "no demand".

"Content is King." I agree. That's one option.

The second option is visuals that are so aesthetically pleasing that they positively stand out from the mass of millions of other images.

And the optimum is when you manage to combine option 1 and option 2.

Just_to_inform_people2 · « **Reply #16 on:** December 16, 2021, 02:35 »

Quote from: Wilm on December 15, 2021, 16:23

No agency or company that conducts business over the web will ever provide insight into the algorithm. But even if the company did, it wouldn't do anyone any good, because then everyone would adjust their wares to that algorithm and the company would have to generate new algorithms to define a new ranking in searches.

I do not agree. If Adobe would just state that the ranking is based upon, number and frequency of uploads of the contributor, sales of the photo, sales vs views, region, age of the photo etc... that they shuffle every so many weeks or months, it would be just honest communication in the cooperation we have with them.

And if that leads to more uploads, better quality photos then that would be beneficial for them and buyers as well.

It's not that I am asking how to beat the casino at the black jack game or the answer to the million dollar question.

Wilm · « **Reply #17 on:** December 16, 2021, 03:51 »

Quote from: SVH on December 16, 2021, 02:35

Quote from: Wilm on December 15, 2021, 16:23
No agency or company that conducts business over the web will ever provide insight into the algorithm. But even if the company did, it wouldn't do anyone any good, because then everyone would adjust their wares to that algorithm and the company would have to generate new algorithms to define a new ranking in searches.

I do not agree. If Adobe would just state that the ranking is based upon, number and frequency of uploads of the contributor, sales of the photo, sales vs views, region, age of the photo etc... that they shuffle every so many weeks or months, it would be just honest communication in the cooperation we have with them.

And if that leads to more uploads, better quality photos then that would be beneficial for them and buyers as well.

It's not that I am asking how to beat the casino at the black jack game or the answer to the million dollar question.

Well, there is a well-known factor that influences the ranking of images at AS: the order of keywords.

All other factors are unknown to me.

But again, even if we knew the factors that influence the ranking of images in search, nothing would change.

There are 40,112,000 search results for the search term "landscape". Of these, 10,000 results are displayed - the remaining 40,102,000 images and videos are invisible to the searcher. Every 40,000th image is visible in that case.

If the factors you mentioned were known and the contributors would upload even more images, it would lead to the fact that at some point only every 50,000th image is visible. Even if the uploaded images then had better quality, then perhaps at some point the overall quality of the image database would improve, but that has nothing to do with the ranking of the contributors' images.

It reminds me of the SEO agencies. They all promise to get their clients' websites to page 1 in the search engine because they pretend to know how the algo works. But if you have 500 dentists in one city, not all 500 of them can be on the first page of the search engine – even if all 500 of them hire an (or all the same) SEO agency. In other words, how to get on the front pages of the search engine is a mystery - even if you tell us a few factors.

Reimar · « **Reply #18 on:** December 16, 2021, 09:17 »

Quote from: oscarcwilliams on December 15, 2021, 01:15

My sales have ceased going on a whole week at Adobe. Anyone else notice the difference in their sales? Thanks

Good month so far for AS. Over $100 compared to the same from Alamy and half that for SS. I haven't been adding much lately.

Uncle Pete · « **Reply #19 on:** December 16, 2021, 10:02 »

https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/en//pubs/archive/46485.pdf

https://medium.com/adobetech/evaluating-addressing-position-bias-in-adobe-stock-search-9807b11ee268

First 30 days, buyers are influencing the ranking of images, based on the keywords.

Phrases and word combinations are searched as those specific combinations, not split.

Worst mistake someone can do to their own images, is have irrelevant keywords, which display your image to buyers.

Uploading in waves, or over a period of time, will probably not help, as the trends and words buyers are searching for change.

Adobe trends have been good at predicting, and they market or push these trends. Check the Adobe trends page for current images that are selling also.

Quote from: SVH on December 15, 2021, 13:11

But it would be nice and very welcome to the contributors to explain how Adobe ranks photo's.

There you go.

Just_to_inform_people2 · « **Reply #20 on:** December 16, 2021, 11:32 »

Quote from: Uncle Pete on December 16, 2021, 10:02

https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/en//pubs/archive/46485.pdf

https://medium.com/adobetech/evaluating-addressing-position-bias-in-adobe-stock-search-9807b11ee268

First 30 days, buyers are influencing the ranking of images, based on the keywords.

Phrases and word combinations are searched as those specific combinations, not split.

Worst mistake someone can do to their own images, is have irrelevant keywords, which display your image to buyers.

Uploading in waves, or over a period of time, will probably not help, as the trends and words buyers are searching for change.

Adobe trends have been good at predicting, and they market or push these trends. Check the Adobe trends page for current images that are selling also.

Quote from: SVH on December 15, 2021, 13:11
But it would be nice and very welcome to the contributors to explain how Adobe ranks photo's.

There you go.

Thanks Pete,

that is something I can work with. Especially the second link. So, your sales are corrected for position bias and that determines your new position when they do the reshuffle.

I guess

Level6 · « **Reply #21 on:** December 16, 2021, 12:26 »

It reminds me of the SEO agencies. They all promise to get their clients' websites to page 1 in the search engine because the pretend to know how the algo works. But if you have 500 dentists in one city, not all 500 of them can be on the first page of the search engine – even if all 500 of them hire an (or all the same) SEO agency. In other words, how to get on the front pages of the search engine is a mystery - even if you tell us a few factors.
[/quote]

Not sure about the stock agencies and what algorithms each use but with Google, one way to rank #1 is to say something bad or politically incorrect and you'll rank number one alright but also get cancelled.

The the other way I've heard to to not try too hard to get ranked high, algorithms are smart and can detect this so if you just put a good descriptive title and relevant keywords it might be better.

The other thing and I haven't tried this is the most commonly misspelled or mistyped words, there's a list of them out there and certain words are always misspelled the same wrong way.

You mention dentists as an example, two years ago I needed a part for an electric stove, something simple that I can fix myself, couldn't find one local appliance parts store in my city but I could many all over the world not even close to me despite typing in my city name in the search......I eventually found one but it took awhile.

Something tells me these SEO agencies view success by metrics like most startups, they don't care if you get a million hits from customers who will never buy your product, they just want to show they got you a million hits.

Uncle Pete · « **Reply #22 on:** December 17, 2021, 11:13 »

Quote from: SVH on December 16, 2021, 11:32

Quote from: Uncle Pete on December 16, 2021, 10:02
https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/en//pubs/archive/46485.pdf

https://medium.com/adobetech/evaluating-addressing-position-bias-in-adobe-stock-search-9807b11ee268

First 30 days, buyers are influencing the ranking of images, based on the keywords.

Phrases and word combinations are searched as those specific combinations, not split.

Worst mistake someone can do to their own images, is have irrelevant keywords, which display your image to buyers.

Uploading in waves, or over a period of time, will probably not help, as the trends and words buyers are searching for change.

Adobe trends have been good at predicting, and they market or push these trends. Check the Adobe trends page for current images that are selling also.

Quote from: SVH on December 15, 2021, 13:11
But it would be nice and very welcome to the contributors to explain how Adobe ranks photo's.

There you go.

Thanks Pete,

that is something I can work with. Especially the second link. So, your sales are corrected for position bias and that determines your new position when they do the reshuffle.

I guess

I guess?

Yes I only have reports and the webinars and what Adobe says themselves. None of that, except the Google media research is from someone else. None of it is mine, only quotes or paraphrasing.

The way I see it, the first 30 days, our images are ranked by buyer activity. Downloads, views, the usual. AS says, the rank is pretty well established in the first 30 days. They have also said, that changing the keywords will make your image searchable with those words, but won't change your image rank. So yes, that could help, but it's not going to change a whole lot.

I didn't include the advice that said, don't worry about categories too much. But I did include something that they repeated, (not their words) don't spam your keywords, it will hurt your rank.

Best answer and the simple one is, if you were trying to describe your image, what would you say? That's the description. If you were searching for your image, as a buyer, which words would you use to find it?

There's no trickery or magic or involved deep wisdom. Be honest and don't try to trick the system or the buyers. (my conclusion)

Now to guess at why your images started in one place and dropped down? You get a preferential rank as a new image, and then based on the first 30 days and then sales after that, your image will stay or move.

Every time someone uploads a new Full Moon image, they go through the same process, and get a preferential placement until the image, settles into it's individual spot. You aren't being demoted or down ranked, it's just a normal stirring of the new and old into the mix.

I'm glad you asked, because although I had suspected that other agencies do change featured images, words or sets, I had forgotten that Adobe also features TRENDS, in which case any image can be ranked higher or lower, depending on whatever that trend is. And they tell us what's trending. Nice

I enjoyed the position bias article, the parts about top of page two that can be better than bottom of page one? How many pages in do buyers actually search?

On a personal note, I have sales sometimes and I wonder how anyone ever found my image, they are so far down in the pages. I don't get discouraged just because my images aren't on page 1-2-3 or wherever. But I think that if the image has good accurate and honest keywords, someone looking for my photo, will see it. No promises. Everyone can't be on the first pages!

Just_to_inform_people2 · « **Reply #23 on:** December 17, 2021, 17:06 »

Quote from: Uncle Pete on December 17, 2021, 11:13

The way I see it, the first 30 days, our images are ranked by buyer activity. Downloads, views, the usual. AS says, the rank is pretty well established in the first 30 days. They have also said, that changing the keywords will make your image searchable with those words, but won't change your image rank. So yes, that could help, but it's not going to change a whole lot.

There's no trickery or magic or involved deep wisdom. Be honest and don't try to trick the system or the buyers. (my conclusion)

Now to guess at why your images started in one place and dropped down? You get a preferential rank as a new image, and then based on the first 30 days and then sales after that, your image will stay or move.

Hi Pete,

thanks for elaborating at bit more on this.

No, I don't want to trick the system but just understand it. Good advice on the key words and that useless keywords might even hurt your position. Does that inlcude keywords suggested by the agency itself? Because otherwise I stay close to the subject and I do filter out nonsense keywords that are suggested.

But in the case with the full moon photo. So I got on the the first row in some regions but in the first three rows in all of them. I think, because the new upload got sales pretty quickly. So freshness and direct sales helped I guess. Then it stayed there almost five months and sold 94 times. Then from one day to the next it dropped from the first three rows (taking into account all the different regions) to the bottom third of the first page. So not gradually but instantly. It seems there is a reset every so many weeks or months. But that might have to do with the recalculation of sales versus position bias. Understable even.

Would you agree, that this is what happens: You upload, you new upload gets put on top because it's fresh. If it sells, it will stay on top and then when your position bias does not outweigh the actual saleabillity it drops accordingly? But when Adobe hits the reset button or just after a specific period after the photo was uploaded?

YadaYadaYada · « **Reply #24 on:** December 18, 2021, 08:18 »

Any image that sells 94 times in 5 months is good. How did you check rank by regions?

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Author Topic: Adobe sales are very slow. (Read 8043 times)

oscarcwilliams

Wilm

Pacesetter

whosvegas

Justanotherphotographer

MatHayward

For Real

Justanotherphotographer

For Real

Just_to_inform_people2

Pacesetter

Wilm

Evaristo tenscadisto

Pacesetter

Level6

Wilm

Just_to_inform_people2

Wilm

Reimar

Uncle Pete

Just_to_inform_people2

Level6

Uncle Pete

Just_to_inform_people2

YadaYadaYada

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