Is it too late to submit Christmas items?

Hi,

Do you think it is too late to submit Christmas items?

(I should’ve planned for this sooner, but was not able… or more precisely: too lazy!).

Considering that these items would not be up before the middle of the month, is it still worth a try?

Thank you :slight_smile:

It isn’t too late. For example: If you upload Christmas item too early it’s possible not to have much sales. That means your product will going to previous pages and if it’s not rated or trending will be difficult to be found.
So you have two options:

  • To upload item early, but it must be awesome, unique and to be 100% sure that it will become rated.
  • To upload item creative Christmas item now with good ad.
    In my case i’m going to update my single, rated and unique item with Christmas mood :slight_smile:
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Thank you for your thoughts (and good luck with your Christmas item too). :slight_smile:

I think it’s too late, you’re better off working on something else

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Not too late.

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I’m going to do another Christmas track, I think it’s not too late. Three weeks before the new year, and reviewing time is only 4-5 days now.

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No it’s never to late for this. Go ahead.

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I’d say it’s too late, but it’s perfect timing for next year. Whatever sales you do get before Christmas, will help if you get buyers searching by sales next year. You’ll probably get a few sales, but most places are planning and organising their Christmas media content months in advance. Although, the smaller an operation is, the later they’ll probably leave it… so you never know!

I think Envato recommend uploading a minimum of six weeks before any special events or dates in the calendar.

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Not necessarily (on AJ at least). Remember there will be another huge influx of new Christmas tracks next year, which will swamp anything uploaded this year. The only case I can think of where a track uploaded this year could be easily found by buyers next year, would be if it goes on to sell hundreds in that tiny period, therefore securing a respectable position in the search engine until next year. I’ve only ever seen top selling items (those that have sold 500+) from previous years re-enter the charts the following year.

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But if a buyer is searching Christmas items by sales, then an item that has any sales will show up higher than an item that has no sales! So if he sells ten or even one licenses this year, he’s automatically got a head start over anything that has just been approved next year.

Not the way the search engine works (again we’re talking just AJ here - I imagine it’s different for VH). It’s quite complicated stuff, but the word “Christmas” along with other two or three-worded titles work on the old algorithm, which viciously prioritises item upload date over sales. As soon as an item like this would be uploaded, it would already be on the front page of search results for the corresponding keyword search. All it takes is a couple of early sales to push it to the very top, above all the other tracks, including those that have sold thousands. Even AudioPizza, who made a whopping 500 sales, is no longer on the front page for a search of “Christmas”. Luckily though, he would have made enough sales to give him exposure through the “sort by sales filter”, as he is now back on the charts this year.

My point is anything uploaded this year, using a title that would be working on the old search algorithm would be long forgotten by the time all the new Christmas tracks come around the next year. That doesn’t make it a fair system by any means; but those are the facts. I personally think the search algorithm should be taking into account both sales, AND item new-ness, but that’s one of the reasons why we got the new algorithm update in January 2016 - it’s just not yet been applied to all facets of AJ - only certain keywords thus far.

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But searches by sales are always ranked by sales. I just tested it with ‘Christmas’ and it was in sale order, and tried ‘Christmas Bells’ and that was as well. I’ve never seen a search by sales that has any lower selling items ranked over higher selling items… maybe I don’t search enough though, I mainly use the categories rather than freehand text entry. But as there’s no Christmas category, I kind of had to!

That’s correct.

I’m talking about the default, best match feature. I only brought up the sort by sales feature briefly to show how last year’s top sellers like AudioPizza would get a chance to re-enter the charts.

Take a look here: https://audiojungle.net/search?utf8=✓&term=christmas

Yes, there are items at the top with several sales, but these are tracks from this year. By next year after all the new tracks come in they would have fallen down to at least the bottom of the front page. Mid November next year we’ll see the same pattern as the Xmas craze begins; there will be tracks with a only a handful of sales at the top, and into December as the Xmas craze is in full play, only the best of the best from next year’s batch will sell enough to maintain the top positions.

Only the massive hits from this year will hold semi-respectable positions by this time (Mid December) next year. You can hold me on this :wink: unless of course they change the algorithm before next year!

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Bottom line: to answer the OP’s question, I would say hold off on any new Christmas items this year until next year. Sure there’s still a small window of opportunity for sales, but by waiting until the November sweet spot next year you’d be doing yourself a favour. I would be using this time to prepare some awesome new non-Christmas items ready for the start of the New Year! :slight_smile:

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I only brought up searching by sales as that’s all I was talking about! :wink:

Oops I missed these bits :stuck_out_tongue: my bad. That’ll teach me to respond without fully reading what’s been said!

To answer that point though, given that the sort by sales list looks like this: https://audiojungle.net/search?utf8=✓&term=christmas&referrer=search&view=list&sort=sales&include_pro_affiliated=true

How on earth would a few sales generated this year on a new Christmas track translate to more of a chance at being found there next year? To make it even to the bottom of page 1, you’d need 440 sales, and that’s just this year. And going back to what I was saying before, even if you had made hundreds of sales in the small gap between now and the New Year, it would never put you high enough to be found, regardless of what filter you apply.

I understand it will help, but just how much will it really help? My guess is not that much at all, especially since most buyers use the default ‘best match’ search filter.

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@Nonzerobot
if you can create song within 1-2 day, why not, it is not too late. I have Christmas AE template in queue (uploaded 3 days ago)

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OK, good point! I still think anybody on any market is better uploading now, rather than tomorrow or next month or next year. You can’t sell what’s not available to buy. Although, I wouldn’t advise anyone to start making Christmas stuff now, just if they’re already in the process. You wanna get cracking on the Easter action! Or valentines day!

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Yep, agreed!

Actually… Burn’s Night. Not a single video addressing the haggis on VH (or any haggis at all), no results on AJ, not even a single flyer on GR. Thats an untapped niche right there! January 25th, get cracking people… for the sake of auld lang syne!

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