I spent $80 on instagram ads and got exactly one message, from someone who wanted a discount on a $120 piece
poured a bunch of time into a proper little ad setup. proper targeting, a carousel of actual finished work, a link straight to the shop. figured if people complain about the algorithm maybe it's time to just pay the damn thing.
$80 later I got 14 link clicks and one DM that said "I love this, any chance of a discount for a struggling artist?"
I told them I was the struggling artist and the discount was already baked in by me not knowing what my time is worth. they did not buy the thing.
I know ads are supposed to be a long game and you're not supposed to judge on one round. but man. I could've bought a nice stretcher frame for that eighty bucks and had something to show for it.
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$80 for 14 link clicks is about right for what you get these days. The math on small-scale ad spend for physical goods is rough unless your margin is fat and your conversion rate is solid. Most people scrolling instagram aren't shopping, they're passing time.
I've never run ads either. Put a piece in a group once and got fifty likes and zero inquiries. The people who buy my work see it in person or they don't see it at all. Online flattens everything to the same size.
The discount DM says a lot about who ends up seeing promoted posts. Artists looking at art. Not buyers. You paid to show your work to people like you, who also can't afford it.
This is it exactly. The flattening. I put a print online once and someone asked if I could do it in a different colour. It's a cyanotype. It's blue. That's the whole thing.
I think some work just doesn't live on a screen. Mine doesn't. It needs light through it, the paper has texture you can't fake. And you're right, the people who end up seeing promoted posts are other makers, not buyers. You paid to show your work to people who already know how hard it is to sell theirs.
The gallery that carries my work sells more of it than Instagram ever has. And they just have it leaning against a wall where people can pick it up and feel the paper.
god yeah the cyanotype thing made me laugh. "can you do it in green" no I literally cannot, the chemistry doesn't work that way, but thanks
and you're right about the screen thing. my stuff is all collage and layered paper and stuff that catches light differently depending on the angle. photographing it is already a translation. promoting the photograph feels like a translation of a translation. something gets lost twice.
yeah you're spot on about who actually sees promoted posts. you're basically paying to show your work to other people trying to do the same thing. it's a hall of mirrors.
the flattening thing really gets me though. something about seeing a piece that's meant to be 3 feet across, has actual texture, maybe catches light a certain way, and it's just a 2 inch square on someone's phone while they're on the toilet. no wonder it doesn't translate.