Expert Advice Needed: Why Are My Adobe Stock Downloads Only 30–50/Week and Dropping

Question

Hello Adobe Stock community,I’m a contributor with over 6,000 assets (photos, vectors, some video) live on Adobe Stock, but I’m only getting about 30–50 downloads per week, and that number has been steadily dropping this year. I upload regularly and believe my metadata is well-optimized, but I’m clearly missing something. I’ve noticed many of my files are now being rejected for “similar content” or vague “quality issues” after months of smooth selling. My content covers a wide variety of subjects and styles (nature, food, business, abstract, etc.), and I haven’t focused on a specific niche.What I’ve tried so far: Uploading consistently, A/B adjusting keywords, and following Adobe’s general guidelines. I keep titles and keywords relevant and have started blending evergreen themes with seasonal content. However, downloads continue to slump.Questions for the experts:Is a “jack-of-all-trades” strategy (variety of topics) hurting my search ranking? Would narrowing to 2–3 niches be better, and if so, how do I identify the right niches?How should I structure new content as series or collections to improve “systematic sales” instead of random hits?Have others found that AI-generated vs manually shot assets perform differently? I do use some AI images/vectors (all labeled), and I wonder if that affects buyer trust or search prioritization.How do I balance producing photos vs vectors vs short videos? My portfolio is heavy on photos. Do people really still buy vectors and video at reasonable rates?What common keywording or metadata mistakes should I double-check? I’m careful, but maybe I’m still missing best practices (ordering, synonyms, etc.).Any workflow tips to reduce “quality issue” and “similar content” rejections? Should I audit my portfolio and cull old low-performers or near-duplicates?I’d really appreciate any critique or suggestions. I can share more data if needed (my Insights charts, examples of top-selling and zero-selling files, rejection screenshots, etc.). Thank you in advance for your help – I’m eager to learn and improve!

Jill_C · Accepted Answer

Way too many questions for any of the volunteers here to answer! Just a couple of comments - organizing your assets into collections will have no impact on sales. Buyers don't search within collections. They search by keyword. Make sure your assets have thorough and accurate keywords, with the most important keywords in the first 10 positions. If you're submitting AI, your assets are not "photos". Don't label them as such unless that are truly photo-realistic. There is no benefit to deleting old, unsold assets; however, if they're of relatively poor quality compared to the work you're doing now, get rid of them.

Your main problem is no doubt competition. Adobe adds thousands of new images to the database every day. AI now represents nearly 50% of the total database, and it becomes more and more difficult to find topics that are not already saturated. Test your own images by searching on stock.adobe.com. If your assets don't appear in the first few pages of results, they will never be seen by Buyers or sold.

barbara_a7746676 · Answer

I believe that AI is affexting stock photography sales. It is easier now for people to generate their own images.

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