Damage Inc.'s Teespring Trials & Facebook Foray

[theag]

In other words, so far my cost of acquiring a customer (or 0 customers) is higher than a customer's value. So that's not good.

Dude you spent $5....

Try PPE objective with auto-bidding instead of website clicks. Seems like most teespring guys use that successfully.

And if you havent already, stop everything youre doing and read everything on http://affengineer.com

Also seems like affplaybook.com has a pretty active teespring community.

 

[theag]

Heres something you can probably bank with over the next few weeks using teespring:

https://www.facebook.com/business/news/The-Biggest-Cricket-Stadium-in-the-World-APAC

http://fbrep.com/guides/Facebook_Cricket_Targeting_Overview.pdf

Would jump on this myself, but my business is my only priority

 

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[AgainstAllOdds]

Here's my opinion why this shirt didn't work out:
1. Top font doesn't match bottom font.
2. Barcode looks weird. Maybe make it colorful.
3. Your target demographic is kids of the 90's, not people that lived in the 90's. Your oldest possible customer is 25 years old. Almost no one in that age group has money to spend on a t-shirt. Also, the value for them is next to nothing. Their friends already know they're from the 90's. This shirt isn't "cool", which is what they're going for. If you want to target that demographic, then check out karmaloop.com, and get a feel for t-shirts that work really well with younger demographics.

Your campaigns will work, but you need to improve the product (amount of value you're creating) first.

Best of luck, and sorry if anything above was too blunt - just trying to give you honest feedback that will help you make a lot of $ faster.

 

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[Damage Inc.]

2-22-15

My first two sales/reservations came in this morning. Both for the same shirt. I'm less than $4.00 into advertising it, so it's a positive return so far (if they go to print). If I can get 3 more buyers it will print and I'll have my first successful campaign on my hands.

 

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[JasonR]

Here's my question.

The average CPA on Facebook is $20-30

How are you going to make money selling t-shirts?

One more piece of advice. If you KNOW you're going to spend $100 (or $50) on a campaign/ad set, I'd rather have that data in ONE day then a little bit of spend spread across a week. Gotta fail fast.

 

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[Damage Inc.]

2-23-15

Quick morning update. The design that had 2 sales yesterday now has 5, and is officially going to print. I'm not in the the profit yet though because it seems that the first few shirts eat up the initial profit and I'm almost $30 in to ads. That's why they don't print unless you sell at least 5, and why your profit/unit goes up the more you sell. My CPA for this shirt design is $5.60. If anyone is curious, the advertisement on facebook has over 100 likes, about 20 comments, and almost 30 shares. Data below.

Facebook ad data

Sales

 

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[theag]

Question for the more experienced FB marketers:

What are my options for deleting or hiding bad comments? A few people have posted things like "cool, but I'm not paying $xx for a shirt". Am I able to delete that, and should I? If I click hide does that hide it from everyone or just from myself? Thanks.

EDIT: I clicked hide and it's only see-able to the person who posted and their friends. That should work.

I got this tip from @AlterJoule

You can add a list of the top 1000 or so words in the english language in your page's settings under "page moderation". then almost no comment will come through. then I go to my ad permalink in the morning and evening, sort by last comments, and only unhide the positive ones.



Made my life SO much easier.

 

[Damage Inc.]

Day One 2-17-15

I decided to do this today, about 5-6 hours ago. Here’s what I’ve done so far.


1) Picked a company name.


2) Made an email address with yahoo.


3) Created a T Shirt and campaign. I made it for 14 days. That seemed like a good balance for enough time to get views without being so long that I discourage buyers by the wait. I’ll see how this pans out and adjust in the future if needed. I plan to outsource some cool designs to Fiverr in the future, but I had a couple of ideas that are pretty basic and that I can execute on myself. This first shirt utilizes a piece of Teespring’s generic clip art and their text add tool. Pretty easy, and although it’s basic it doesn’t look too bad. It’s a take on a saying targeted at a hobby niche.


4) Created a facebook page for my company. It’s super basic and I’m not worried about page interaction or likes yet – just needed a home base for the advertising. I’ll add to the page if it seems worthwhile, but I have a feeling people will either ignore the ad or click through to Teespring and buy a shirt. My shirt ideas are fairly random and I think I’ll be dealing with semi-impulsive buyers, so I’d be surprised if I have any repeat customers or “fans”. At least for now.


5) Created a facebook ad campaign for the first shirt. This was my first facebook ad. I watched a few tutorials and read a couple of how to articles and dived in. It was easy enough – but being my first ad I don’t know if I chose the settings wisely yet. I made the ad for 14 days – same as the shirt campaign. My “targeted audience” meter was right in the middle and I set a limit of $3.00 per day.


6) Created a second shirt, same process as shirt one except I used a free stock photo that doesn’t require sourcing. The photo is combined with text which I used their text design tool for again. This one is more of a pop culture type theme.


7) Created a facebook ad for this shirt as well, same basic settings.

 

[CrocodileX]

Ive noticed that current trending topics make profitable designs. That whole Je Suis Charlie thing made some guy a nice payday.

 

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[openminded790]

And if you havent already, stop everything youre doing and read everything on http://affengineer.com

Thanks for the shout-out man,

I got a link back notification on my google analytic so thought I'd come check the thread out!

@Damage Inc, man I'm impressed at you taking so much action. You're doing things right in terms of just trying it out and seeing what happens and then refining your approach.

Also make sure you're NOT doing column ads, (un-check it), select PPE & Optimize by impressions as bidding method.

Teespring is a numbers game, don't get too attached to your designs, if it doesn't work, (no sales), after $30, scrap it and start again. There's a lot of key elements to teespring. The design sweet spot and targeting right are probably the two main factors. Go through my blog articles/ tutes on these two topics if you feel you need to.

Also, if you're comfortable with it show us your design(s). It's really good when you're a beginner to be transparent with targeting and the design itself, (teespring link), so we can give you the best feedback. Plus most people at the start have really bad designs, (me included - in fact I still do lol). If you want you can pm me.

All the best man, I'll check back on this thread from time to time, good luck!!!

~ Mateen AKA Affengineer

 

[theag]

Doesn't seem like a very good resource when the case study he did only sold 2 t-shirts (http://teespring.com/beardlosophy)
Case study: "http://affengineer.com/2015/01/22/launching-teespring-campaign-start-finish/"

I dont think he really promoted that.

Would be pretty stupid to share his actual money-making designs/campaigns on the blog.

 

[Damage Inc.]

2-22-25

I've canceled the advertising for all of my first five shirts, and ended their teespring campaigns early.

After doing some more research I ended up downloading Gimp (photo editing software). I was a little bit frustrated at having to wait for my Fiverr contact to reply, and having to explain every detail, and not being able to just execute on an idea. I watched some tutorials, played with the software a bit, and got down the basics. I will just use Fiverr for custom from scratch illustrations - some of which I may be able to re-use on different shirt designs. With Gimp I can take one illustration that I pay for and apply it to 10 different shirts to test. Obviously this is much more cost effective than paying someone to design 10 different shirts. And for simpler designs, or ones where I can use a photo and modify the effects, I can execute by myself.

So I've created 2 new designs with Gimp, launched shirts, and started advertising about 5-6 hours ago. These designs came out looking much better than the ones I used the teespring design tool for. They are both related to hobbies, and one is also related to a specific place. Going to try and test a couple of other ideas today as well. I'll post some advertising data later on today.

 

[openminded790]

I read a lot of the above, skimmed through a bit so apologies if I missed anything.

You're targeting for the dog shirt was spot on, those interests are HUGE fans of dogs.

Your 90s shirt appeals to people who are 25 and under. These guys wear things that are cool so your shirt has to look good! If you won't wear it chances are no one will buy it.

For those around 40 and above, you can usually get away with boring text designs.

JasonR is right, you want to fail fast, prioritize data collection. The more you throw out there, the quicker you learn BUT the more you'll spend. I've had days where I test 20 designs, lose $600, (none are profitable), BUT I learn a lot about 20 different niches. At this stage however, you want to refine your process so I would suggest keeping it to 2-3.

great work with downloading Gimp and doing your own designs. Your SPOT ON about having a template and just varying it here and there so you can make different designs quickly. this has been a big thing for my business. One design I varied up about 40-60 times, 5 of them did real well and bought in over 40k collectively in revenue.

You NEED to be able to design yourself or at least a local, in-house designer who can put out designs ASAP. You don't want to be depending on someone to be getting back to you all the time for small design mods, etc.

Anyway, you're doing things right, just keep going.

Also, work on creating a quicker process. ei,

- Have one generic description you can copy paste between teespring camps
- Be posting on the ONE facebook page, only branch out when camps are successful

As you get quicker, the process will become less frustrating so keep going through the hurdles.

~ Mateen

 

[JasonR]

Do you mind if I PM you?

PM away.

"I would rather beg for forgiveness then ask for permission."

 

[Damage Inc.]

3-7-15

Hey guys, it's been a little over a week since I updated this so here's what's happened. Those two designs did go to printing, one with 5 sales and the other with 10 sales. My total take away from Tee Spring for them is $58.58. Since my last update I launched 3 more shirts, one of which will go to printing and the other 2 I've killed ads for. I tried two Earth Day themed shirts but the response wasn't great. The one that's selling right now is another in the same general niche as the other two that printed. In total I've launched 10 shirts, with 3 of them selling enough to get to printing (in my stats you'll see 12 shirts, because twice I caught a mistake on my designs and re-launched with the errors fixed). I'm having a hard time getting this profitable because my cost to acquire a customer on the successful shirts is very close to the customer's value. I've raised my pricing for my most recent designs, so my numbers on the current seller are better than the two that went to printing already (which I lost money on). The current seller is right on the verge of break even to profit. But once you add in the failed campaigns which I spend $10-25 on, it becomes a losing proposition still. I think I'll stick within the niche which I've had success in and continue launching shirts here and there as I have time to see if I can turn this around to profit. The stats are below.

10 Shirts Launched, 3 To Print, ~$108 "Profit"

$347.74 In FB Ad Spend

 

[Damage Inc.]

Yup, another Teespring thread. I actually hadn’t even heard of it before coming to this forum, and needless to say it intrigued me. Enough so that I decided to take it on as a side project and document it here. I’ll be doing this in my “free time” or as a break when I’m not working on my main business. It seems like fun to me.


I’m doing this partially for fun, partially as a challenge, and to learn some new skills and get out of my comfort zone. While I do have experience in ecommerce, it’s mostly through eBay. I’ve seen people on here talking about facebook advertising in particular, which is something I have no experience in. So I want to see what the deal is, how it works, experiment with driving traffic, etc. I think the skills I’ll pick up doing this will translate well to any business and serve as practice for some strategies I may use to grow my main business.


I’ll commit to posting my progress here – good or bad, win or lose. This may not pan out or be worth my time, but I will not quit until I have at least one successful campaign. My hope is to show how easily and affordably somebody can get their feet wet in entrepreneurship, and perhaps push a person or two over the fence into trying something.


Questions, comments, suggestions, and criticisms are all welcome.


But this isn’t fastlane!

Maybe not, or maybe not yet. Yes, I’m relying on Teespring. If they close shop tomorrow this is over. I’m not relying on this possible income, I’m looking at it as a learning experience and a side hustle. If I end up having a knack for these designs this could be fairly passive. Maybe Abercrombie will spot my incredible design talent and buy me out for millions, maybe I’ll make a hundred bucks, or maybe I’ll lose a hundred bucks. I’m not losing sleep over any of these outcomes.


So – what value can I add?

Well all I can possibly do here is provide designs, find customers, and set prices. So, this is pretty easy: I hope to provide customers with fun and original t shirt designs at a fair price, that they wouldn’t have found otherwise.

 

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[GreedyBGoode]

Ive noticed that current trending topics make profitable designs. That whole Je Suis Charlie thing made some guy a nice payday.

If I'm not mistaken, they usually donate all profits to related charities for these type of campaigns.

 

[BigBrianC]

Why not focus on one campaign and then go from there? Are you stripping yourself too thin on such a small budget?

 

[Damage Inc.]

2-19-15

Thanks to @theag I looked into the PPE strategy with auto bidding as opposed to the conventional side bar click through ads that I was using. Indeed, it seems like most people agree that that this works better with Tee Spring Facebook campaigns. So, I picked the shirt that I think has the most potential and used the post engagement ad tool to create an add from a post that I made to my own wall. This ad almost instantly started outperforming all of the others. It has the most clicks to Tee Spring, the highest CTR by far, the cheapest CPC, and more "likes" than anything else. See for yourself, the top picture is this new PPE style FB campaign and the one under it is my current second best performer.


PPE Campaign

Website Clicks Campaign

No contest, right?

As a result, I launched another PPE with my second favorite design. This time, I put a request for people to comment their opinion and added some post copy, hoping for more interaction and more shares. I think within the next day or so I'll be killing my old ads and changing all to PPE. I also checked out the affengineer link and there's a ton of good info there, I recommend it for anyone else who is going to try this.

Advertising Budget
Since this question was raised and I really had no good answer, I did some more research. It seems like most of the big boys who do this agree that you should test a design with a budget of $20-$30. If they have no sales at that point, they generally kill it. If they have a couple, they might throw a few more bucks in to see if it gets traction. If it's selling well, they continue to advertise it. This strategy seems reasonable to me, so I'll follow it for the most part.

Sales
Still no sales. I think 2 of my designs are actually decent and may still sell. I think one is a solid idea but needs a real graphic designer to make it look better. And one I think is a total miss. We'll see what happens as I approach my advertising budget cap of ~$20-30 per shirt design.

New Designs
I'm slowly accepting the harsh reality that I'm not much of a graphic designer or artist, and that people don't want shirts that are too simplistic. I am somewhat impressed with the Tee Spring design tool, it works for basic designs and text. The kind of stuff like those "eat sleep beer" type shirts. But that's about it. My next idea will be outsourced to Fiverr. I doubt that there are many people making good money using the on site design tool and stock art, the successful campaigns generally have better looking and more complex shirts (shocker).

 

[100k]

Your targeting; You need to go deeper!

http://www.targetinterests.com/

 

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[Damage Inc.]

Here's my opinion why this shirt didn't work out:
1. Top font doesn't match bottom font.
2. Barcode looks weird. Maybe make it colorful.
3. Your target demographic is kids of the 90's, not people that lived in the 90's. Your oldest possible customer is 25 years old. Almost no one in that age group has money to spend on a t-shirt. Also, the value for them is next to nothing. Their friends already know they're from the 90's. This shirt isn't "cool", which is what they're going for. If you want to target that demographic, then check out karmaloop.com, and get a feel for t-shirts that work really well with younger demographics.

Your campaigns will work, but you need to improve the product (amount of value you're creating) first.

Best of luck, and sorry if anything above was too blunt - just trying to give you honest feedback that will help you make a lot of $ faster.

Not too blunt at all, honest feedback is what I'm looking for. I think you have some good points, and obviously I missed the mark since this was a flop. You're right about creating more value with the shirt. People want something that will spark a conversation about something they are passionate about, or something unique that makes more of a statement. I'm think maybe for now I should stick with the hobby niches that I know more about. I think I have a better feel for what's cool in those circles, what people want and are into, sayings and pictures that resonate, etc. Thanks for the feedback.

Edit: I guess it's worth noting that I'm right at the top of the demographic I was targeting. I was born in 1990, I'm 25, I like 90s stuff. And I wouldn't wear that shirt myself.

 

[AgainstAllOdds]

Edit: I guess it's worth noting that I'm right at the top of the demographic I was targeting. I was born in 1990, I'm 25, I like 90s stuff. And I wouldn't wear that shirt myself.

I'm 23 and also used to sell to this demographic. In my opinion, people our age want something that will increase their perceived value (brand, lifestyle, something really cool, etc.).

Personally, I'd aim at people in an older demographic. Younger people tend to buy not what they like, but what they think other people will like. Older people don't seem to care as much and have more disposable income for a teespring shirt.

 

[Journey2Million$]

....

 

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[William T.]

I know a few guys who live by TeeSpring. Guy 1 - says he did over a million in sales last year and guy 2 says he did 60k last year. I took a swing at it for a couple of weeks, invested about $100 in total. I ran multiple designs and multiple adds on Facebook, and made zero dollars. Keep in mind I own a graphic design business and screen print for a living (among other things such as the occasional website build). When I asked the guys mentioned above how the did it they have two different approaches. "Million Dollar Man" had multiple designs, multiple niches, however he spent $1200 marketing his campaigns....gotta have money to make money...this guy also sells other items online. "60K Guy" said he found one niche that he felt was a winner. Researched groups, forums, etc. to target. Then created what he felt was a winning design and created 10 different ads with the same shirt with various ad design concepts. He spent $5 a day on each ad. After 2 days dropped the ones that weren't producing clicks. Told me he did this a few times with different niches and sold 5,000 shirts last year. It is a good opportunity to make money but it is a numbers game. Just like selling an ebook in order to sell a 1,000 a million people need to see the ad. Thanks for sharing your experience, I look forward to hearing what happens next.

 

[JasonR]

Like, do you think I run a risk of advertising with $30 for a day on Tuesday and failing, whereas if I had run it on a Sunday it may have been successful?

No, for the most part, different days should not matter especially at the volume you're running.

When you start running traffic at $500, $1k + a day you can start to see some difference in between days - but - I've NEVER had a profitable campaign that became unprofitable because of what day I ran it.

I ran a campaign on a Friday, did 100% ROI, did 360% ROI on Saturday, and then just over 100% ROI on Sunday. That was a nice weekend. However that wasn't normal for me, and for the most part sales were mostly consistent day to day.

Usually other factors will cause campaigns to fluctuate. I don't what it was about that particular Saturday, but it was good.

Anyways, I can't help but think, are you tripping over nickels when you she be chasing 100 dollar bills with this t-spring stuff?

 

[BigBrianC]

Congrats on printing, now maybe you can get a few more, become profitable, throw some more into the marketing and have it roll.

 

[Journey2Million$]

Wow you're making it sound easy. You're doing better sooner than I thought.

 

[KCorbinWA]

Any update to your project? There is some good info on here, thanks for sharing!

 

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[Damage Inc.]

2-26-15

I've been busy with some other things so I haven't done a ton with this in the last couple of days aside from manage/cancel advertising and launched 2 more shirts (both of which failed). The advertising for shirts A and B weren't converting enough so I ended up ending the ads. I did sell 2 more units of shirt A, and one was sold after I ended advertising. In total (failed designs included) I'm at about $200 in FB ad spend, and I've got $48 in estimated profit from Tee Spring. Data below.

Also, I wanted to mention that @JasonR was kind enough to take time out of his schedule to talk with me a couple of days ago. He gave me some really good insight as to what direction I should be heading in, and general advice for business and life. We talked a bit about this project, my main business, and other new possibilities. I have a lot going on in my head right now and I'm just trying to figure out where I want to go with everything, prioritize, and stay motivated. Thanks for taking the time for me Jason.

 

[Damage Inc.]

From the research I had done and looking at other campaigns it seemed like around $20-22 on t shirts and $35-40 for a hoodie was what the market would accept. I was shooting for about $6 above cost on the t shirts, and $10-15 above cost on the hoodies (for a run of 10-20 units) while trying to get my FB ads CPA around $4.00. For my last campaign that printed I was selling t shirts at $21.99, hoodies at $39.99, long sleeves at $23.99. These prices were a few bucks higher than my previous campaigns and it didn't seem to affect sales negatively. I've been focusing on other things and haven't done anything new with this since that last update.

PS the shirt that had 8 sales on that last update ended up selling 11 units for a "profit" of $78.10.

 

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