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Since the dreaded Covid has done for my job for a good while yet (travel photographer) I've started making the backpack camera bags I've always wanted and built a website to sell them (gokyogear.com).
Obviously a venture like this lives and dies by advertising and I figure Facebook advertising is a good place to start. I have no idea how that works, how much it costs or where to start.
Has anyone used Facebook advertising to sell stuff? Can you pick who they target with your ads? Do you have to pay up front for x amount of ads, or buy credits that get used up when people click on them?
What about Google ads? I presume you have to choose keywords and the cost of those varies with their popularity. Any tips on using Google would be appreciated.
Also, feel free to test my website effort to destruction, it's the first time I've made something like this, so there's bound to be mistakes.
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Optimise images and page load time before you spend a penny on advertising.
Go Insta 1st for free.
Use Twitter second for free.
Check traffic and optimise website further.
Try FB / Insta ads. You can target as above, loads of guides and you can target well / test with small amounts of ££.
Use Google last apart from retargeting.
Good luck with the business, gear looks nice..
@Brant is the master of using social media to drive sales.
See if you can get some of his time.
Edit: And maybe make more of the designed and made in the UK
We use Google Ads and Facebook. Facebook we have just joined a large number of groups, local buy and sell and more focused ones.
Google Ads for our business has been ok, but we’ve had much better returns on the Facebook focused side of things.
We used a company to help with the Google Ads side of things, help optimise the site and the adverts, but to be honest that wasn’t necessary.
Not done any for a while but we found Facebook was a lot cheaper gave a better return as you can really narrow down your criteria and location.
The problem with Google is if you are chasing generic key words you are up against some big players with big budgets and it's nigh on impossible to get first page ranking.
Best advice is just dive-in and learn - it's not as complicated as SEO companies make out. And you can spend as little or as much as you like. And the tweaking can become a bit addictive!
Only a small comment on your product - get a logo on them - people love to flash a logo about! 🙂
I tried to Google your website - it doesn’t appear so I would address that first. There’s a Google cookie that you need to install before it will register. You need to put appropriate tags on your pages for search engines to find them too.
IME Facebook is pretty rubbish for advertising unless you able to accurately filter and target your audience - the more niche the better. Also bear in mind that conversion rates for any online advertising are pretty low - out of a 1,000 people who see your advert, only a few will visit your site and then your conversion rates is still likely to be a few percent for those that buy.
It’s the same with Google - all those ad clicks cost you but few will buy and you’re in competition with everyone else. The problem is there are so much false information out there - lots of people promise the earth for £££ but deliver little. Likewise, you can spend lots but nothing in return - be realistic about your product and pricing.
From my experience, Instagram is better for building an audience and encourage engagement - but you have to interact with them otherwise the Instagram algorithm simply doesn’t work. Pinterest can also be good too, but there’s a huge delay - it can take months for your board and content to feed through. Good luck.
IME Facebook is pretty rubbish for advertising unless you able to accurately filter and target your audience – the more niche the better.
Should be easy though, loads of Photography groups you should be able to target. Eg this group:
How about a paid ad on the Radavist? Seems like a good fit (i.e. photography kit handmade by a cyclist).
The logo on the homepage of your website is ace, have you thought about jazzing up the bags a bit with a sewn label maybe?
I was deliberately trying to avoid branding the bags so it's not obvious what's in them. I've worked in places where it's not a good idea to attract attention.
I was thinking of adding a label inside with a 'Made in the UK by xxx' like Hilleberg do.
With google search, I assume eventually it'll just crawl over my site and catalogue it?
I tried to Google your website – it doesn’t appear so I would address that first. There’s a Google cookie that you need to install before it will register. You need to put appropriate tags on your pages for search engines to find them too.
Figured out how to put a verification file on the site - thanks.
Obviously a venture like this lives and dies by advertising
I disagree.
Word of mouth and customer referral, tests online etc surely for a cottage industry are also key?
I would be putting mucho effort into a *lot* of incoming links from a few 'tests' of your gear or questions about your gear.
Lend a few to some of the TalkPhotography forumites, perhaps any other photographer you know.
Set up a Google and Bing Places listing asap with some good images.
Set up a flickr page of all your products - and make sure there is a link for every photo.
Create a couple of short videos for YouTube - create an account in the company name and fling it up there, with a link.
Find the photography groups on Facebook and see if you can post up a product or link, introduce yourself. If a mate is in the group, ask them to borrow and test one of your products and post up in the group WITH A LINK.
Where else do photographers hang out online? See if you can join, maybe write a story about why you set up the business as a little intro without it being a hard sell...
Here is one: outdoor camera bag or holster.
We at work (national charity) find Facebook 'hit and miss', Google OK but not brilliant.
I would do a lot differently before you spend on adverts.
I was deliberately trying to avoid branding the bags so it’s not obvious what’s in them. I’ve worked in places where it’s not a good idea to attract attention.
Again, I disagree.
It is blindingly obvious that the blank case is a camera case.
Get some zingy logo on there asap so folk recognise it.
With google search, I assume eventually it’ll just crawl over my site and catalogue it?
Nope, go and submit it to seach console and bing webmaster.
https://search.google.com/search-console/welcome
https://www.bing.com/webmasters/about
edit: we get 40% of our traffic through search, followed by about 25% social meedja, 20% direct urls, 10% (but a really *good* set of customers) through links, rest are our email marketing.
Again, I disagree.It is blindingly obvious that the blank case is a camera case.
Get some zingy logo on there asap so folk recognise it.
^^^This!
People like to be associated with good brands.