Design Tests For AudioJungle Category Pages

Over the last few months we’ve been experimenting with design on category pages across different marketplaces. Initial testing has given us a lot of data and feedback to optimize the new category page layout and the next step is to roll out testing across other marketplaces, now on AudioJungle.

Why are we doing this?

Historically we’ve been constrained to displaying a single default order on pages, such as best sellers, which limits the types of items customers are exposed to. Our aim with these experiments is to work towards improving the variety and discoverability of the items that are displayed to customers on these pages.

How will the new category page do this?

As with ThemeForest and VideoHive, the new category page includes a series of blocks giving customers the choice to explore new items, best selling items, best rated items and more. This is our first release on AudioJungle and we plan to iterate on it as we receive data. This means the blocks you see in this test may change, or change position on the page. As this is an A/B test, you may also not see the new design yourself.

See the image below for an idea of how it will look - this is not the whole page, just an indication.

Next steps

The new category page A/B test on AudioJungle will be live later today! We anticipate that this test will run for approximately three weeks.

Over the next few months new category page tests will also roll out across GraphicRiver and CodeCanyon, with further testing on ThemeForest and VideoHive. We’ll announce changes to each marketplace in a separate thread.

We’ll be on hand to answer questions about the AudioJungle category page tests for the next seven days, responding in batches as necessary. Please remember our Community Guidelines as you post.

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Thanks for keeping us up to date!

Again and again we are drawing staff attention to the fact that “Best rated” category is pointless on AudioJungle. For last few years rating system on AJ isn’t workig, buyers rate items extremely rare and almost always they give 5 stars. Why? Because they buy exactly the thing they hear in the preview. So best rated = best sellers, not best items.

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Would be nice to see a top new files category again. Not sure why that was obliterated.

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Thanks for the update, there are definitely some good stuff here like prominent new items, handpicked items, themed items etc. And kudos for removing the trending sorting which is not working properly anyway.

It is though very sad to see that Envato now is intending to boost the price dumping further, as we did not have an awkward enough scenario going on at AJ already. I assume the price dumped tracks works as a perfect “gateway drug” to potential Elements customers. Though as mentioned price dumping is already going perfectly fine so no need to make this even worse IMHO.

So all the prominent “Under $” blocks are sorted by best sellers of the last year, so my question is: Why can’t you just have a prominent “Bestsellers of the last year” block ? Do you really need to “force” us to sell our percussion tracks for maximum $9 to be able to participate in this block? Needless to say these prices gives both exclusive and non exclusive authors a VERY insulting commission.

This is even more extreme:

To potentially be part of the “Under $/Best seller of the last year” block you need to sell a music pack for maximum $24. In which $12 are buyers fees. So after Envato takes 50% of the revenue (not to mention the $2 transaction fees as well) then the generous commission starts to be handed out. If I sell a Music Pack for $24 I get $5.4, in other words $1.8 per track if its a 3 track music pack. This is a joke. And not a funny one.

And lastly please give direct answers to the questions in this topic, don’t just close it down like you did with the VideoHive Design test without answering a single question.

Thank you.

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Cannot agree with you, RedOctopus, and here’s why.
Rating system (even if it’s indeed imperfect) adds another dimension to user/buyer experience and gives an additional choice apart from new, best, trending etc.
I personally (in earlier times) did put a lot of effort to receive those ratings whenever I did a custom item edits (here you go - rating for flexibility or service!) or whenever a buyer contacted me - I always kindly asked to rate my items. If you or someone else never had a chance to understand the additional benefit of rating system, it doesn’t mean that there’s no such. As an affiliate an AJ promoter (who are a little bit more into business side of things than many authors here who usually rely on the consistent item producing only) for years now, I can tell you that the rating system is not a pointless feature. Maybe not efficient, but not pointless.

“Best Rated” also tends to bring up old tracks (since ratings were more widespread during the early years of Audiojungle) as well as self-purchasers (because, seriously, the likelihood of anyone receiving 3*5 star reviews after 20-30-40-50 even 100 sales these days is infinitesimal.)

So what you’re saying is that the track rating system highlights tracks who’s author has reached out to their customers to ask for a five-star rating. This defeats the whole purpose of a rating system, as tracks are not rated on their merit. Maybe a customer service badge for authors would be more appropriate.

Another problem with ratings as @EightBallAudio mentioned, is that it’s another way which Envato rewards cheaters who self-purchase. And in my opinion, it’s the growing multitude of cheating authors who are a bigger threat to genuine author profits, and anything they can do to stop enabling them, I would consider a good step forward.

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Nope.
Somehow you jumped over my example of how the rating could be actually “deserved” to conclusion that you can just ask for it. It’s not as simple. But ok.
Regarding self purchasing on the market - it is indeed an issue, but it doesn’t affect sales as the overall (humongous) over-saturation and steady client migration to another type of market (elements).
Some authors are uploading 1-2 tracks daily, and THAT is insane. It began a long time before Elements or search issues arrived.

I have a question, why there is a category “under $12” and there is no category of “$39 +”???
Or is search now set up for charity?

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Can’t agree. I believe that it might have some value for you but there are very few authors who find rating usefull. In reality it will boost only few years old tracks and new best sellers, no matter what quality presents each track. This is a new dimension of best sellers not related to quality. That’s why AJ marketing campaigns do not use obligatory rating factor anymore.

I believe that you offer a great client support, but it’s your feature. Even though your tracks may have various quality and we are talking about each track quality, not about each track support.

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Yes, and as an individual I will defend this value for sure. Everyone in business (which marketplace actually is) would defend their needs in the first place.

Nope? You are talking about being rated for being a helpful author, not on the merits of your individual tracks. as I mentioned, some kind of accolade for customer service could be your reward for helping out customers with custom edits etc.

I agree although we can only speculate about the numbers. All these issues need to be addressed.

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And I respect that! I should also defend rating, because I’ve got few rated items unlike many other authors, espescially new :slight_smile:

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And you deserved it btw, you have very talented material in my opinion. There’s a difference (sometimes this difference = whole abyss) between talented and (just) well-crafted material. Yours is among the great ones.

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Thanks, I really appreciate your kind words!

Hi @MojoSoundtrack

One of the sections that is missing from your screenshots, but you can see it above in the announcement image, is the large white banner that says ‘Discover Bestselling Items’ and this is for bestselling items in the last 12 months.

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Hi Steve,

Thank you for making that clear, and yes I totally thought this banner was the regular best sellers, the fact that it is best sellers of the last year is great.

My main concern here is the “under $” blocks. I do understand that Envato wants to have a block for the price sensitive customers absolutely. But especially here on AJ these blocks seems super under priced now, how about meeting us “halfway” and sticking to Envatos own recommended prices for a track which is already very low ($15-20). In other words use these recommend prices as a minimum for the "under "?

If you look here at best sellers of the last month: https://audiojungle.net/category/music?date=this-month&sort=sales&utf8=✓&view=list#content 50% of the tracks are price dumped (and by that I mean under $10) I have checked that list from time to time and it seems to be quite stable on 50% dumped tracks.

My point being with higher “under $” prices you will still get a lot of super cheap tracks with the current system but then you will not exclude tracks that are in the mid-low area like $15-$20 tracks. These are the prices you recommend authors using as well.

As for best rated banner, I see this one is best rated in the last year. As mentioned in several posts here already, the best rated feature is super useless here at AJ. Maybe it has some value for the older best rated items that actually had some proper ratings, but the “best rated of the last year” is, without naming anyone, in all majority self raters/self purchasers. Several categories do not even display any tracks with more then 3 ratings the last year. Any tracks with less then 100 sales and more then 2 ratings should ring the alarm bell in terms of fishy activity.

Also if you check best rated in the last year in terms of Music Packs, you will find absolutely no packs with 3 ratings added the last year…! Because authors are for some reason to lazy to self rate there :slight_smile: So please use that best rated spot for something else.

Price dumping and best rated aside, I am very positive to this new design of category pages in general. I assume it might kill some of the fast food new items exposure, but I hope it will in return increase the life span of more “underground hits of the last year” and be a more fulfilling and convenient experience for the customers.

Ok, so here is my quick revision of the “music” category page:

  • First of all I have to say that applying “Last year” filter in many categories is a really great idea!.

  • horizontal category scroll bar: great. Though images look great but they are useless, they do not help in identifying genre.

  • new releases: great

  • under xx#: All categories should be at least under 20$. In my opinion there is no need for further price dumping made by Envato. Buyers seeking for cheapest items have motivation for seeking the cheapest tracks or joining Elements. For average customer proposing less than 20$ is more than enough. “Under 10$” in some categories is bad idea but proposing “under 24$” in packs is ridiculous (it includes 12$ buyer fee!)

  • best rated items: as said before rating in AudioJungle is dead or at least false factor. Absolutely there should be no “best rated items” category. A B S O L U T E L Y.

  • handpicked by Envato: great as long as it changes let’s say every week. Really great thing is that prices of those handpicked items are relatively high.

  • weekly bestsellers: ok

  • top advertising items (and similar): no, no, no! This category is based upon the tags which are usually absolutely inefficient on AudioJungle! Those “specific” categories should be handpicked. Without this buyers might feel confused or even cheated. I know that it would be more work for staff, but hey, it can be profitable and made during the new tracks review process.

  • popular searches buttons: great

  • top royalty free: uh? what does it mean? Whole market calls itself “royalty free”, why this category is more “royalty free” than others?

  • new bestsellers: great, though I would change name to “yearly bestsellers” and put it close to “weekly bestsellers”. Now it’s little messy.

  • rising stars: it would be double great, but only with if there was applied filter “more than 20$”. Now
    rising stars tend to be the cheapest 5$ tracks which means they are cheapest, not the best.

  • there should be “top shelf”/“above 50$” category with expensive tracks which cost more than 50$ We need tools like this which will boost quality of this market. Without this we will be slowly loosing quality.

So generally it’s great that some categories favor newer tracks. Some categories are useless in my opinion. And we need more high quality categories.

That’s all for now, all the best!

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+50!

Simplistic and effective idea.This would be great help for customers who are looking something more unique/extra high quality. Please do a test with this and let the numbers and stats speak for themselves. I can’t think of any downsides of offering something for those customers who are willing to pay good money for their project to shine and many of those probably see potential lower sales numbers as a good thing. Makes the track more “exclusive”.

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