Position on my contributor dashboard

[madeled22234794]

Please inform what does position mean. It states a number in the thousands I see it on my dashboard.

Thanks

[Abambo · Accepted solution]

it's your ranking based on the sales.

[Clickontheway]

thanks, i just saw my position number and same Q was on my mind 

[pixeleyz]

The position number tells us very little in my opinion, because it only tells us how many contributors make more money than we do. But it doesn't provide an overall context because we don't know the total number of contributors. It would be very helpful if we were either given our percentile rating, or given both the number of contributors doing better then us, and the number of contributors doing worse than us.

[Abambo]

We are not here in a competition, so as long a we can't buy something for it, it is very uninteresting for me. Only if I would be in the top ten, it would tell me how much money I could theoretically do... As I'm far away from that, I'm not interested in seeing that number.

[anitamarie]

i would have to agree with you James.  the number itself means nothing unless there is something to compare it with in the overall standing. but WHY others may be doing better or worse would be of value as well. the number/statistic by itself is not of any learning value, if we hope to get better at what we do here on Adobe.

[EzyRider_II]

so anybody would venture to guess how many contributors there might be in total? my gut puts it in about 200k-ish. my "rating" comes down (or up, depends on your perspective) about 300 a week in a steady pace. o.k., nothing really to relate it to, but still nice to see a slight, but continuous progress. between my lifetime and weekly ranking there is about 30,000 difference. Others here?

[Jill_C]

My lifetime rank has steadily improved over the several years I've been contributing. However, knowing the rank isn't particularly motivating because I'm not interested in spending much more time to capture and upload any more images than I already do. There are currently more than 342 million assets in the Adobe Stock database. If you assume 1,000 assets on average, that's 342,000 contributors. If you assume 500 per contributor, that's 644k contributors. I suspect that something like the 80/20 rule applies here - 80% of the sales from 20% of the contributors. There are probably many inactive Contributor accounts from those who uploaded stuff, and got discouraged with the rate of rejection and lack of sales. 

[EzyRider_II]

Thanks for the reply. I also guessed about a 1000 photos per contributor.
It may be overly ambitious guess, or it could be low-balling it. Who knows.
But my gut tells me I am not far off. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if many
contributors bailed out after about a 100 or even 50 uploads and not
getting the sales they dreamed of. It's a tough "business". You have a
happy Easter : )!

[Jill_C]

Happy Easter to you too! 

Yes, indeed many seem to think Stock is an easy way to bring in easy income, and they get a rude awakening after uploading a bunch of their cellphone snapshots of flowers and puppies... 

[EzyRider_II]

Well. Luckily that there is the screening to qualify before posting. I
didn't have flowers before, lately posted a handful. They never sell : ). I
may have sold maybe 3 or 4 over the years. No puppies here : ). I have one
subject that makes about 75% of all my sales. Very limited. And I have a
fair spread of subjects. But no use. I might as well delete 70% of my port
and would make no difference.

[Abambo]

I might as well delete 70% of my portand would make no difference.
By @EzyRider_II

Sporadically, I sell an old upload for the first time. In most cases, there is a second and a third sale following. I wouldn't delete any asset, except if I detect a major problem with it.

[EzyRider_II]

that's good to hear Abambo. yes, sometimes an odd sale pops up out of blue
that I uploaded 3-4 years ago. I don't really delete old stuff, just used
it as a fissure of speech to illustrate that my core sales come from a
narrow 15% of my pics. lately I wondered about this though, and curious
about your thought: if I tinker with the keywords of an old photo, would
that possibly lift the photo in the search hierarchy, bringing it up from
the bottom? one can always improve on the keywords. do you post at other
stock sites too? if so, where does Adobe stand in your sales? for me it
sells more than the other 4 sites combined with just a 1/3 of uploads.

[Abambo]

lately I wondered about this though, and curiousabout your thought: if I tinker with the keywords of an old photo, wouldthat possibly lift the photo in the search hierarchy, bringing it up fromthe bottom?
By @EzyRider_II

Yes, as you grow in experience, and you understand key-wording better, you can revisit the assets you think that have potential and raise their position in the search. You can read the Adobe recommendations on this topic and, I think, there was also a webinar for this. You should also remember that many people simply use Google for finding stock assets. Getting there also more visibility with good titles and key-wording does help. I recommend asking other people what search terms they would use to find a specific asset. And be precise, if your picture is of the Eiffel Tower, don't add other towns as keywords, in the hope to attract more people. People won't buy your picture, if they are looking for a typical Berlin or New York monument.

 if so, where does Adobe stand in your sales? for me itsells more than the other 4 sites combined with just a 1/3 of uploads.
By @EzyRider_II

Adobe is my number one in volume and revenue. Especially recently (maybe with the introduction of Adobe Express, which includes limited free access to stock), I saw a light boost in sales. But I also did what you suggested: for some assets (also those selling), I cured the title and the keywords. And on other stock sites I sell different items prominently, so there is no watering down of my assets. People being on a competitor site won't buy Adobe stock assets and vice versa.

[EzyRider_II]

thank you Abambo for the tips. i also considered way back if I should split
my photos and upload some here, others only there. but what I found was,
that one subject may sell well at Adobe, but not a single hit at another
site. and it's true the other way around too. what sold 300 times
elsewhere, not a single time here.with the exact same key-words used! for
that reason I post my pics at 5 macro sites. I will soon phase out 2 of
them for the obvious reason that they sell for 2 or 3 cents sometimes.
which is clearly humiliating and patronizing. and
now, if I find that the photo brings in decent amount here, but sells for
10 cents at the other site, I will remove it from the cheap site and keep
it only here.
one little "trick" I learnt over time, that sometimes you would even have
to consider often used misspelled versions of key-words. because people
misspell in their search.
yes, you are absolutely correct, many times buyers - especially the odd
ones, non subscribers to any stock site - will come through Google search.
you have a great Easter!

[Jill_C]

Like you, I've found that 20% of my portfolio generates the majority of sales; however previously undiscovered images are regularly being "found" and licensed, even though they were uploaded a few years ago. This is why I don't delete older unsold images. I had uploaded several years ago images from the busy Los Angeles shipping port and they hadn't sold until the worldwide supply chain issues that followed the pandemic were in the news. Then they started to sell in significant numbers! I do also tinker with titles and keywords from time to time as I've learned more about how to organize them.

[EzyRider_II]

That's your lucky stroke then! You never know what might sell. My top one
is almost as unusual. I took it about 7 years ago with a tiny Panasonic
pocket camera. Way before I heard about stick photography. I was just
fooling around,shooting off things. When I aimed high up on a tree,
catching a bit of the trunk and the bark texture, but mostly the green and
yellow leaves in the bright afternoon sun. Didn't even consider uploading
it for a long time, cuz it wasn't the highest resolution. But when I did,
boy! did it ever surprise me. In a pleasant way that is.
Yesterday I watched a clip on the popular video site. A pro photographer
revealed his top 3 best selling stock photos. The subjects would surprise
you. He made 6400, 7700 and some 8400 bucks with these tree pics. Of the
most basic subjects matter. No shipping, no ports, no trees : ).

[Ranit1970]

Absolutelly Adobe sells much better than all the rest together.
Shutterstock is spending time, they use to pay ok, now it is third of what they paid before.
Alamy, paid well and went down also they have very little purchases.
Dreamstime, very slow.
Getty images/ Istockphotos is better than Shutterstock, Alamy and Dreamstime.

[Nancy OShea]

The overall number of Stock contributors is meaningless. It has no direct impact on your success/failure.

Your success is what YOU derive from it. 

• Personal gratification + Second-income.

Nothing else matters.

[Jill_C]

Agreed. I enjoy getting beautiful / saleable images off of my hard drive and out into the world. And the steady trickle of passive income is a nice bonus.

[sashk0]

I use my weekly position as an indicator that tells me if my portfolio is getting better. When I see low sale within a week, I start questioning myself: is it just for me, or this week is not good for everyone else too? so I check the rank and it didn't get worse, that meens just a bad week 🙂

[EzyRider_II]

Yes. That's logical Sashk. I do the same. What's not clear to me us if the position is based on number of downloads (even is small $ amount), or total value of downloads. Or some combination of the two. But you are right. Some indication of your overall trend. For me my lifetime position gets better by about 300-400 points week over week. Could be due to the fact that I upload about 30 new pics a week. You have a good day now. Cheers.

[Abambo]

What's not clear to me us if the position is based on number of downloads (even is small $ amount), or total value of downloads.

By @EzyRider_II

Check the top sellers. It's based on the number of sales, not on the value of sales.

[sashk0]

yeah, you are right. it's definitely based on quantity. because defining the popularity of images by their price won't be logical.

[Abambo]

yeah, you are right. it's definitely based on quantity. because defining the popularity of images by their price won't be logical.

By @sashk0

There could be a component on the type of licence, like standard vs extended. But I do not think so.