How to Compete in the Red Area of Marketplace Ads
It’s been a long time when some markets tried to offer “advertising features” on their platforms. Of course with some promos and fees in many choices. But do we realize that every time, these costs have increased and increased over time…
In order to compete with the similar product (from another store), the marketplace recommends advertising costs based on existing request and offers. If the parameters used for that cost are calculated from the number of advertisers and how much they offer, the average advertising cost will increase over time.
I’m doing a quick research when I used ads feature from one of the biggest marketplaces in Indonesia. The first day, they recommend 350 rupiahs for each product. Then, 7 days later, they recommend 400 rupiahs for each product. 14 days later, they recommend 450 rupiahs for the same product. And finally, we spend over 1 million in a month just for our product advertising. Is that effective? I may say yes because our sales increase by 40% more than before but it still not comparable to the benefits we get. It more getting worst when we stop the ad, our sales also go back down.
The marketplace is growing up, there is so much store, so much product to sell with the same preference (maybe) and same target market. I don’t say marketplace ads are bad, that’s very good for rising up our product but we should be ready to face every consequence we get when we placing an ad. So this is what we do to cover the loss of advertising costs.
- Make Sure There are Another Ads
If we have a marketplace, better we have another media to sell our product. Now, mostly every store have their social media account. It’s really effective to make our product distribution keep on track. We can utilize existing ads to attract more buyers through social media. So during advertising in the marketplace, we should actively build a reputation outside the marketplace.
2. Follow the Ads Price Recommendation
Just follow the rule. If we set the price (ad price) below it will make our product useless. Imagine that there is same product at top of the list while our product is at the bottom (that’s not funny hah). And don’t set the ad price higher because it will make instability, or maybe in the future, it will be out of reach. Just follow the rule…
3. Explore Everything with The Ads
Good sales can increase reputation, so as long as advertising costs are still affordable, use it to increase store reputation so that in the future we don’t need to advertise as much as this time.
4. Make long-term plans
Manage your product and your ads package wisely. Make a short list about “what product to show” or “what package o offer” during a month. Usually
I advertise different product packages for certain dates or weekend days. For example, I promote a lot of fan products during hot weather, promote some secondary product on payday date etc.
Finally, Don’t forget to maintain the product quality, quality is the best foundation in this disruption era.
Feel free to add your experience about ad marketplace below.