10K+ Portfolio but low sales - Need help with Metadata strategy

Forum|Forum|11 months ago
April 22, 2025
3 replies
1028 views

Hi everyone, I've been contributing AI-generated content to Adobe Stock for a while now with over 10,000 assets in my portfolio. Despite this volume, I'm struggling to get even 1 sale per day. Could you please review my metadata strategy and suggest improvements? Here are examples from different AI-created niches I work with:

Coloring Page Example:
Title: Penguin in winter snow scene, Printable Coloring

Category: Animals

Keywords: coloring book, black-and-white coloring book, outlined coloring book, book coloring, colouring book, holiday, winter scene, craft, outline, holiday card, snowy landscape, simple, snow, cute, festive, children, waddle, penguin, card, easy coloring, winter, book, wonderland, thick lines

Pixel Art Example:

Title: Pixel Art Pixelated gaze, a woman's face in muted squares.

Category: People

Keywords: pixel art, 8-bit, pixelated, cream background, brown, blue filling, brown staircase, background, green square, woman face, cream, eye, minimalist, pink square, square, light green, pixel, blue, face, staircase, pink, covered eye, woman

Cute Sticker Example:

Title: Easter bunny showers in egg-cellent spring rain, what a day!

Category: Lifestyle

Keywords: egg umbrella, cartoon, cheerful, simple shapes, easter sticker, cartoon egg, funny easter, cute easter bunny, cartoon style, kawaii bunny, easter, decorated eggs, minimal design, egg, umbrella, bright colors, happy bunny, holding umbrella, sticker

I'd really appreciate any advice on: Are my categories optimal? Do titles contain the right keywords? Are there obvious gaps in my keyword strategy? Should I adjust my approach for different niches?

Thanks.

Contributors

M

Maxter Creative

Participant

I'm kinda new too, started in November 2023. I have over 3,800 files approved with 1,600 rejected. I almost gave up seeing my lifetime earnings is just $147. But what makes me keep going is when I uploaded something—no matter how many times it got rejected—some of the images get licensed in a matter of days (of course, this is the case of uploading in the right season).

But that's not the key—it's purely titles and keywords that matter. I'm particularly proud when my AI Valentine image got downloaded right away after approval, knowing the millions of competition in the Valentine theme. So pay real close attention to titles and the first 5 single-word keywords. We might be bored with this advice, but that's how customers are being directed by the search machine!

As an extra effort to spread (not spamming) other keywords, I differentiate those first 5 keywords on every single file. Because if a customer finds one of them, they will be presented with the whole series. This way, I got almost 100 unique images downloaded—though the number is mostly 1 download each, of course. But I believe it would elevate my image's searchability among the ocean.

Jill_C

Community Expert

It's true that tiles and keywords are essential to the discovery of your images; however, the first 10 (not just 5) are the most important.

Jill C., Forum Volunteer

daniellei4510

Community Expert

Unless I can really justify doing so, I've gotten away from using colors as keywords. Blond or brunette might matter to someone looking specially for one or the other, but "blue filling" and "light green" are far too general.

Adobe Community Expert | If you can't fix it, hide it; if you can't hide it, delete it.

Jill_C

Community Expert

Categories are irrelevant since they're not used by buyers to search for assets. You're using too many compound keywords. For instance, I don't think anyone is going to search for "egg umbrella". Titles are searchable and your titles should describe the asset. This one doesn't describe the asset: "Easter bunny showers in egg-cellent spring rain, what a day". No one is going to search for "what a day", nor "egg-cellent".

Jill C., Forum Volunteer