Most promoted posts aren't profitable
In the post a quick look at @null, and the profitability of promoted posts by @furion, after analysing the last ten days of data (01-09-2016 to 10-09-2016), he makes the following conclusion about promoted content:
If we look at all the posts that have been promoted, we can see that in general, they have been very profitable so far.
Sadly this is a mistake. Analysing all promoted posts show that most are not profitable. Most promoted posts failed to earn more than the cost of promoting them.
Results
Only 36.78% of the posts that were promoted ended up being profitable. Out of 764 posts that were promoted only 281 were profitable; 483 were not.
This is what I would expect. I've seen a lot of posts on the promoted pages with a low reward and relatively high promotion cost.
It's a new feature and the cost of promotion hasn't found a balance. Over time a good value for post promotion will be found and more posts will become profitable.
Method
I gathered all transfers to the @null account and parsed out the permlink from the memo field. I then gathered the post content and compared its promoted value (the amount spent on promotion) with its total_payout_value(the amount earned).
I did this only for the following posts:
- That have a
promotedvalue greater than zero - That have had their first payout
It's possible that a post may become profitable after the first payout; however, since there's not enough promoted post data, I have to stick to the first payout. Since posts are removed from the promoted feed after the first payout, I think it's more indicative of the promoted feature. Moreover, my feeling is that posts seldom do better on their second payout.
That you would earn more then the promotion cost doesn't even make sense. Advertising costs money and the point of promoting is to spread the word and build a reader base. The point should not be get more money back on the individual post....
It does make sense for some people. See my comment answering @smooth, below.
@dantheman I'm interested to know why you upvoted the comment above but not the post, but did upvote the post by @furion? In his post @furion asked the question of profitability and came to the opposite conclusion, which I corrected in this post. I see that as adding value. Or is it the conclusion your downvoting? Had the conclusion in this post been the opposite, would I now be sitting on $500 as well?
I very much hope that promoted posts are never profitable. The ideal case for the promoted feature is to add value from external to the system, and not be a circle-jerk way to fight over the same rewards that are already here. For example, the other day the top promoted post was a thinly-veiled advertisement for a financial advisor. They wanted to buy visibility here and access to our eyeballs. The post itself had little valuable content and should not have been upvoted or rewards (and it mostly wasn't). I'm happy to see all this.
Not everyone looks at promotion in this way. @dollarvigilante almost always trends, has the most followers on steemit (2809), and still promotes his content, pricing everyone else out of the top spot. I can only assume he wants maximum coverage on each post to maximise its profit. He certainly doesn't need more eye-balls.
Minnows that don't have a lot to invest also might need to make a profit on the post. They struggle to get any kind of recognition for their work, which is why movements like the @robinhoodwhale and #curie exist.
If promoted content is all about eye-balls, we need a feature to show clicks on posts so we can determine if it's profitable. At the moment, there are few ways to check and then it comes down to feeling and guess-work, which is murky. I promoted this post after one hour and I've gained two followers; maybe I would have gained them anyway. If I could see the clicks, I could see the effect of promotion.
I actually agree that promotion isn't just about profitability of the post being promoted. This post was just to correct the conclusion in @furion's post, which everyone was happy to upvote. My feeling is his post was upvoted because it was positive about post promotion. Mine is negative, so now I face the wrath of the whale. It's this kind of behaviour that leads to circle-jerk. I could have easily faked the data and made it appear the promoted posts are the best thing since sliced bread. I bet that would have been upvoted to the moon.
I would suggest his solid rewards are not due to the promotion they are independent of it. He consistently got high rewards before the promotion feature was introduced. He still gets them. Not much has changed.
I suspect he just wants maximum exposure for himself, his personal brand, and the products that he sells, so in addition to rewards and trending, he pays to put his name on the top of promoted too. Good for him, I thank him and I hope for the sake of Steem's advertising revenue numbers that he continues.
From what I've heard @dollarvigilante brought a lot of users to steemit, which is great. If it sounded like I was judging him, I'm sorry, that wasn't my intention. My point was that it doesn't appear he needs to promote his brand further, but you disagree and that's fine. What's difficult is we can only make assumptions. All of this is hard to prove either way.
For sure he doesn't need to, but he wants to. Even if it is nothing more than vanity (and I see him as a smarter businessman than that), he's still our customer as long as he's paying for promotion, and I thank him for it.
Interesting and important questions can certainly be asked if this is still a novelty that hasn't worn off yet and if therefore the future means less promotion revenue for the platform. (Of course more users -- in other words, more eyeballs -- could increase the value of promotion.) I really don't know, but it will be interesting to see what happens
In normal ad world it deals to some extend also to eyeballs. How many people have seen the post and upvoted. Maybe you can compare amount of votes too?
This is a really good point. Beyond the reward the author may gain a follower, for example. In that case, the number of upvotes is important. It's hard to put a monetary value on that though :s
Yeah, it's not a guarantee to increase profits. You might get a few more clicks and followers, but you won't be likely getting an increase in payout. I have done it 3 times and that's what I see.
Peace.
.
I'm one of the fortunate 36%. Keep in mind that you may still benefit in other ways (followers, recognition, exposure) but it's difficult to know if this happens.
I don't think a promoted post should stay on there all day. I think it should be an hourly boost instead.
This way, different posts get promoted, the cost would be less, and most people wouldn't promote their post non-stop for 12 hours.
I think it might be a little more interesting to give an hour-promo boost.
This is an interesting idea. Is it bad that a post is promoted for the entire day (technically until first payout)? I'm not sure. Perhaps the length could be reflect in the amount? I'm just spitting out ideas now. Still not sure if it's a problem that needs solving, but great that you brought it up.
I'm glad you dug deeper into the subject and pulled out the actual winner-vs-looser ratio.
If you look at the "Top Promoted Posts, by spending" chart, every bar where red portion is higher than the blue portion indicates a losing post - where author had spent more on promotion that yielded in rewards.
You're welcome. Thanks for starting on a topic that needs some analysis to help Steemians get better results.
Aha...I see it now! I was more focused on the second chart, and then just looked around for negatives. The confirmation bias in action! Oops.
I would have called you on that! but you were faster lol :)
thank both of you for data analysis. but my opinion is at this stage where payouts are mostly determined by small group of whales. it is very difficult to find stable casual relationship behind this. hence, a minor factor like promotion fee, is even less unlikely to succeed. but statistical results are important for stimulating insights.
The relationship you're referring to is whether promoting the post had any affect on the reward, right? If that's the case I agree, there are a lot of other factors at play (e.g. bot lists, whale curation lists, being a friend of a whale).
Doesn't the conclusion still stand, however: users are paying too much for promoting their content?
maybe things will change after Tuesday
I've lost on every single one I've done. The only one that looks good that I've done I promoted after it had success.
I'm sorry to hear that. I hope for you it wasn't too much.
Another thing to take in consideration is of those who "won" are people who maybe would have gone huge either way. see jest promoted, fyrstikken and a lot of "names" [ timsaid ].
People that have whale support are skewing the stats and even they can't skew enough for the truth to be seen by all.
It won't work, EVER, at 50$/promo.
Why?
Simple, when you promote for 3$ you are promoting to me, to you, to ppl that have this kind of upvote power --3-10cents. you need 20 of us ot be profitable.
When you promoto 30$+ [ not to mention 100$ ] You are promoting to WHALES, period.
So promotion at the current price is a GameOfWhales, when it was supposed to be a gameofDolphins.
Sad but expected as everything with Steemit, it all goes back to the whales.
I still think it could change. Those who would probably "win" anyway might stop or at least pay less as the novelty wears off.
I think the biggest effect will come from dolphins and minnows promoting for less, which will drive down the upper-value required by the "big-shots".
There is of course the chance that the "big-shots" won't adjust and the upper value remains, effectively pricing out dolphins and especially minnows. I think this was your point, and I'm worried too.
Your argument fails if whales look at the promoted page and decide to upvote stuff there, which does happen.
I do not think my argument fails, i'm sure you and other whales do look at that and sometimes upvote, but it's still a price that you pay for the eyeballs of 5-10 people who can upvote 100$+. It just doesn't look ok to me that way.
But agree to disagree :D