Views to Zooms to Sales Ratio

[John J Bloomfield]

I was wondering if you guys see a correlation between views/zooms/ and sales?

In relation to how many images you have uploaded?

 

[Martin Carlsson]

- Definitely a correlation between views/zooms and sales.

- More uploads = more views, zooms and sales.

[John J Bloomfield]

7 hours ago, Martin Carlsson said:

- Definitely a correlation between views/zooms and sales.

- More uploads = more views, zooms and sales.

What sort of ratios do you see?

 

[Martin Carlsson]

About 65% of zooms convert into sales, a number that has been increasing over the last 2-3 years.

[wiskerke]

2 hours ago, Martin Carlsson said:

About 65% of zooms convert into sales, a number that has been increasing over the last 2-3 years.

 

Wow! Have your sales gone up or your zooms gone down? 😂😂

Sorry couldn't resist. 🙄

Oh I see your sales have been increasing. So that's good.

 

My zooms have gone down a little bit btw.  I have been keeping my numbers and ratios, not percentages. But you are right it's better to describe zooms/sales as a conversion rate.

- It could be argued though, that the real conversion rate is views/sales. I'm certainly keeping those records. I call it CTR for sales.

 

So let's get to work  (bored of Photoshop):

yr          zooms   conversion

2007    447         5.8%            
2008    837         6.4%
2009    444        13.4%
2010    307        24.1%
2011    307        30%
2012    328        40.9%
2013    424        47.6%
2014    504        36.7%
2015    771        28.4%
2016    922        38.1%
2017    774        40.7%
2018    742        44.6%

Sales: 26 in 2007 and 331 in 2018. 2016 has a lower %% but actually a higher sales amount, which is difficult to see for innumerates like me.

(2007 is the first year I have kept sufficient numbers.)

 

What we're seeing is at least two things: the growing of the total collection on Alamy hence the massively increased competition, and the changes to/improvement of the search engine.

(Keeping the quality of the collection out of the equation.)

 

Let's do my CTR for sales in %% and add that; and for good measure add my CTR numbers as well:

Year     Z/S=%   V/S=%   AvCTR TotCTR

2007     5.8%     0.07%    1.15    1.15
2008     6.4%     0.06%    1.17    0.95
2009    13.4%    0.13%    0.31    0.51
2010    24.1%    0.12%    0.39    0.44
2011    30%       0.16%    0.34    0.53
2012    40.9%    0.22%    0.16    0.58
2013    47.6%    0.25%    1.04    0.53
2014    36.7%    0.19%    2.75    0.51
2015    28.4%    0.22%    1.27    0.78
2016    38.1%    0.33%    8.29    0.87
2017    40.7%    0.41%    0.83    1.01
2018    44.6%    0.38%    0.58    0.85

 

Z/S = Sales to Zooms

V/S = Sales to Views

 

And this is where my eyes start to glare over, even more than they already do in the real world. Because there's no nice number that's predicting sales.

Every number does have a meaning to me though:

 

No views; no zooms; no sales: this is not your sport.

Many views; no zooms; no sales: You're doing something seriously wrong. Maybe just keywording. Probably more than that. Style? Technique?

Many views; some zooms; no sales: also something wrong, could be technique or style.

Many views; many zooms; no or few sales: definitely style or technique.

Many views: some zooms; many sales: you're a perfect match for Alamy.

Too many views however will lower your ranking on the page: go shoot popular subjects that return less than 2 pages of images; cut back on keywords.

(from a discussion here in 2015 - only it said 5 pages in that last line.)

 

Hmm maybe I'd better get back to Photoshop. 😉

 

wim