Could Shapeways' advertising budget be better spent?

I was browsing a website today and there was a Shapeways ad in the corner. This ad showed a (very nice) slideshow of my Heart Cage jewellery range: the ring, the pendants, bracelets, the lot.

However, this ad is presumably targeted based on my browsing history, and is therefore showing me things I designed. I wonder how many SW ads actually reach people who are NOT the designers of the objects themselves, and whether the ad budget could not be more wisely used/targeted?

Thoughts...?

I suspect you may be seeing this from the wrong perspective - that of a designer concentrating on own works. The rationale behind the ads - at least as I understand it - is that it will remind you of shop items that you found interesting, but may not have decided to buy just yet. (Or if you did buy, the ad would remind you that you bought something interesting there recently and might want to go on a shopping spree again).
If you had not been updating your jewelry offers to include the new metal options, chances are the ad may have shown you somebody elses designs - and for the vast majority of potential customers out there, it simply cannot make the mistake of presenting them their own designs as they do not have any.

It is true, I am rather self-centred - how could it be otherwise? And it is true, I have just been adding the new metals to each (there must be someone who wants to pay more than ten thousand dollars for a platinum bracelet, surely).

But I would say as a feeble kind of come-back that I have seen SW ads many times, but I do not think I have ever seen them for someone else's designs.

Fair points, well made though.

It is not based upon Shapeways selecting the models.... Shapeways themselves do not select what you see there.
The item selection is based directly upon what you've recently browsed.
Same thing with Amazon. You are likely not selling anything on Amazon, but the most recent thing you searched for on Amazon will be offered back to you time and again.
It's all done in your browser - Shapeways pays for the outer frame of the Ad to be there, but the internal content is whatever you've recently had activity with.

I will admit .. it's a bit creepy for items to show up in this manner - almost like you're being watched.
Especially when the box is showing you an item that you uploaded less than two minutes ago.

..... or, it's the NSA.

Just wait for the youngest daughter of the 9th wife of the third cousin to a Saudi prince to notice - the whole clan will want one, you can buy up shapeways and live happily ever after.

No, never ever, in particular not any naughty things as mentioned in the recent t&c thread started by numarul7 that ended up discussing the workings of these targeted ads

Guess things will get interesting when the ads start offering sushi dishes after the first-ever visit to a japanese restaurant, or models of the locomotives that used to run on the long-demolished track that you were using as a hiking trail the other weekend...

Crap, you got me again... senile now, to add to the other complaints... okay delete the whole thread and shoot me.

It is creepy, and not very useful. I don't mind the NSA (or SW or Amazon come to that) snooping on me, if at least they would suggest something that I hadn't already thought of myself!

Yeah, good points, Stony and MKR.

Reading this gave me an idea though. Pete! I think It's pretty cool that you regularly participate in the forums! Most CEOs are untouchable and for the most part nonexistent, so it's pretty darn cool to me that you're around in the forum.

So ok, here's what I thought of.

When I stand back and look at the gestalt of Shapeways I see a conglomeration (I think that's the third time I've said conglomeration in the forum today. HAHA! Weird!) of products. Most are what I'd term to be 3D printed products, while others are more in line with traditional products, namely the precious metal jewelry products. You've increased resolution, increased finishing options, lowered production times, offered faster shipping options and offered a great selection of precious metals. What you've done with 3D printing and Shapeways is great! So now what? I'm thinking of a Shapeways subsidiary devoted to just jewelry. Something exactly like Shapeways, but when customers show up for jewelry shopping they will only see jewelry.

You have the unfair advantage in the jewelry industry right now since you have bajillions of designers working for you. Nobody else has that to the degree that you have it right now. When it comes to jewelry, you are drifting away from Shapeways in how Shapeways relates to 3D printing since you are becoming more like a state of the art jewelry manufacturer operating like all the other jewelry manufactures, but with an army of designers backing you up. What I can see happening here in the near future is Shapeways becoming the absolute leader in the jewelry industry! Shapeways is going to be the new Tiffany & Co.!

It's all very interest to me and I can hardly wait to see what's going to actually happen regardless of which route you take.

No need to reply. I know the competitors are reading this too! Hi there competitors! HAHA!

Just keep it in the back of your mind.

All I know about Shapeways advertising is that a Facebook user once laughed his butt off because they were advertising with the GOATSEarring.

I also laughed.

I sure hope it wasn't a surprise to the marketing team what a Goatse was xD

Im really glad Shapeways is using retargetting.
Considering that when I send someone to my shop
it is quite possible for them to wander off and buy other peoples stuff
that I wont benefit from -
its reassuring to know that at least once they have been to my pages
they will be followed around with images of my items !

I was actually going to do my own re-targetting on FB
but I dont need to because Shapeways is doing it for me - YES !!!

Sounds good Pete! Can hardly wait to see what's going to come next!

I have started to see my products on google ads after my first client purchased one of my pendant. And other added to his list other pendant.

So , I don`t know how Google ads work. Only heard that Facebook ad placing it is better ?!

In that ad particularly there was 3 of my pendant and other 2 pendants of others listed , and from my 3 pendants, two I did not open to see the page on this machine.

And none of the pendants were the one got ordered by client.

I run our advertising initiatives at Shapeways and really appreciate the questions and feedback.

Here's what we're doing:
We are buying ads on behalf of our Shop Owners and continually testing and optimizing our spend. Most of these ads are 'dynamically retargeted,' as you guys have pointed out, which are ads that automatically show you Shapeways products you've seen when you're on Facebook or other websites.

This does mean that we'll show you your own product from time to time, but it's worth it if it means others will see your product too. It's impossible to optimize every single ad, but if we can get a good return overall, it's worth the time and money. We work with a partner, Adroll, to optimize the ads on over 40 dimensions, so there is also a lot that goes towards getting that ad to the right person. As a result, the majority of these ads are shown to buyers and shoppers, not to Shop Owners. I'm happy to share that they are producing strong returns on getting a new customers to complete their purchase.

We've done a lot of testing in the past and have found dynamic retargeting ads to be most effective. We're also continuing to test across channels, including Google Shopping, Adwords and others... it's definitely a continually iterative process.

PS - @PeregrineStudios, the goatse earring gauge was definitely not a highlight of our ads! We ran a test to show some top viewed products in these dynamic ads and guess what lots of people have viewed within a certain specified timeframe!!! Lesson learned!

OK i am Speaking now as "Customer" from Other Online Shops (Especial Dive Stuff).


I am not a big fan of this retargeting. Like I mention it above as my experience of other shops where I am customer.
Mostly it shows the 3 to 5 product i watched for.
For me as customer its boring and useless. I know i had watched this underwater light in the Shop (Other Shop not Shapeways). Now it Follow me up for weeks.
I know the shop has it in the Program, so I personal more interested in similar products, not this one I already watched.
This criticism is more relate to the ´"strict" retragetting system and not special to Shapways. But this is the way how I percipience the retragetting.

I dont know how you see this very "strict" retargeting with only the products you already watched in the shop.

So my wish would be that the retargeting is a little more wider and shows more products witch are "similarly", what ever this similarly means.

Thanks so much for the info. I understand the effectiveness of your endeavors to bring someone who is already aware of shapeways to the point of making a purchase. Could you provide more information on how you attempt to attract new clients? It'd be great if you could keep us posted as you explore new avenues. I know shapeways is out there trying to drum up business, but sometimes your efforts aren't evident and it can feel a little lonely as a shop owner self-promoting

Thanks again,
M

This "similarity" thing is going to be your problem. We saw you shopping for a dive torch, so how would you like a fishing net, or a refurbished attack submarine ? Even amazon gets its "suggestions" wrong often enough to be almost useless (at least in my experience) .

Which brings me back to my original point...the adverts/retargetting/whatever are a nice idea, but how effective are they? If Amazon can't make it work (and they can't ) what hope for anyone else?

Probably hard to quantify when you have no parallel universe to tap into for comparison. I guess they are operating on something like "since then, the number of sales per site (re)visit has increased, so it appears to work", but there is no telling if customer X broke down after the fifth confrontation with his secret craving, or if he was already set on buying the item anyway. At least when they try to show something that is already in the browser history they are less likely to select something completely outside that person's interests.

Thats not the point. Everything is better as seeing the same torch 1 Moth in the Advertising. Even an "refurbished attack submarine" ... it will pull my Attraction back to the website and maybe i Look for all the new cool stuff.