New Microstock Earnings Analtytics Feature on LookStat – Collections
Posted on October 21st, 2009 in Screenshots | 29 Comments »
We just released a new feature for microstock analytics that we think has great potential. The feature is called ‘Collections’ and it allows you to create arbitrary collections of images and then track the sales of those collections.
You can access the feature by clicking on the ‘Collections’ link visible in the left column of the screen when you log in to your LookStat account. As you create collections, they will become visible in the left column, as you can see in the screenshot below. Images can exist in more than one collection, so you can create collections for shoots, models, concepts etc.
We’re really excited about the potential of the feature and would love your input as we build on this initial release. Thanks for your continued support and please let us know what you think!
29 Responses
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Lee Torrens, Rahul Pathak. Rahul Pathak said: new #microstock analytics feature on lookstat – track sales of collections of images – http://bit.ly/qq82Z – feedback appreciated. [...]
Bingo! Just to push a bit…. waiting for other agencies
Appreciate the nudge Roberto
Hi Dmitry,
I hear you and as the sites open up more, we'll be able to integrate more stats as well. Our goal is to provide enough tools to gain useful insight even from one site and then to build on that.
Rahul
Hello Rahul,
I tested your great collection addition and came up with some helpful improvements:
- option to show only images that are in no collection/one collection/two collections etc.
- show the number of images in a collection (like “Model Mike (34 images, 3 videos)”), not only in the collection page, but on every page where collection folders are shown
- option to sort the shown images (I don’t know what the current search order is, but at least sorting by upload date whould help to group similar images)
- what about images that haven’t been sold yet? How can they be added so future sales will automatically recognized for a Collection?
- option to easily remove images from folder on their detail page (I mean this page – https://www.lookstat.com/users/_____/details/_______/earnings/last7/sites/all/pages/1 )
Would be great to have these options.
Okay, I am sure I will come up with more…
Thanks Cathy. Would welcome any feedback on how we can make it more useful (and hopefully integrate with Pixmac stats too)
Great, thoughtful feedback. Thanks Robert. Most of the items you mentioned are on our list. This feature is one we're going to continue to build on – we think it can really help photographers understand the drivers of their success
Thanks for the feedback (and the nudge) – all appreciated
This is AWESOME! I remember requesting this type of feature, can't wait to see it develop further
Thanks Chris! We're excited about this and are actively working on making it better and more useful. Feedback/ideas are always appreciated.
Hi Rahul,
) as weekly or monthly totals are. Thanks, it's looking great so far!
I echo Robert's request especially the sort option. The layout and look of the collections is great, it's just almost impossible to create them when you have a large portfolio like mine. I'd also like to add the request to show the graph charting by month, not just by day. Daily fluctuations in single photo or collection sales are not as relevant to us ( or at least me
@Rahul: The collections make it even more obvious that the system still doesn’t recognize some of the same images (maybe due to different watermarks or the like). Maybe it would be possible to manually “connec” these same images to “one”?
Bye,
Robert
Thanks, Robert. We do have a manual connect feature that is under development and should be out shortly. I agree it is an annoying problem, and we will solve it.
Steve,
Great comments. The monthly view also makes a ton of sense.
Rahul
This is a really great feature, and will be an essential way to analyze my shoots i think. A feature i'm missing though, is the ability to see the average earnings per image in a collection (not average earnings per download which is already available, but overall) – that way you can easily compare collections to each other, and see which ones creates the biggest outcome per image. Hope to see this implemented in the future and thanks for a great program. Nicolas
It would actually maybe also be a great feature if you could select some of these collections yourself to show up on your dashboard, so you can compare them to each other and the overall sale.
Hi Nicolas,
Thanks for the input and I'm really happy to hear you like the feature. We're working on adding average RPI as well as more ways to display and chart collections data. The metrics we have in mind at the moment are average RPI, the ability to put in a cost amount so you can track profitability of the shoot, and also, sell-through rate. Are there others we should be considering?
Rahul
I'd like to thank everyone for their comments and suggestions. We're iterating on the collections feature, and we hope to have many of your suggestions completed shortly. Please keep the comments coming.
Sounds great, exactly what i was looking for! As another guy noticed an optimization of the portfolio index, where you select the files for your collections, for example the ability to sort by date
I'm still testing it all out and so far it looks great, but if i stumble upon anything which i feel could be improved i will write you guys right away.
That's great, Nicolas. We'd appreciate the feedback. There are a lot of rough edges, but we're excited about where we can take the feature!
To make this really useful for me, I would also need to be able to filter stats for a particular time period. For example I would like to show the profitability of each of my shoots for the first say 6 months, each having a different start date. Otherwise comparing averages from two collections when one is a year older than the other wouldn't be a fair comparison. Comparing apples to apples as they say. Thanks!
Totally agree Steve. The correct analysis requires the upload date of the image to be taken into account so you can make reasonable comparisons. This is actively being worked on.
The collection features looks very promising I am glad you are building things. However I tried several times but was not able to create a new collection (I am using Firefox)
The collection features looks very promising I am glad you are building things. However I tried several times but was not able to create a new collection (I am using Firefox)
Hi Laurent,
Thanks for the heads up. I've emailed you directly to follow up on this.
Rahul
[...] added a new ‘collections’ feature which allows you to analyse sales on arbitrary groups of your images, then continued their series [...]
is good, but why the collection name can not contain spaces ? i.e. "new york" is not allowed.
Hi Alex,
Thanks for the feedback. If you wouldn't mind, please email me directly (rahul@lookstat.com) and we'll look into this.
Rahul
[...] created the collections feature to allow photographers to do just this. Stay tuned for more on this coming [...]