This week has been a crash course in digital advertising and analytics — equal parts "that's interesting" and "wait, what just happened." The honest ledger, platform by platform:
TikTok wins on ease. Theirs is the most beginner-friendly ad setup I've tried; the platform will even assemble and post the content for you. Then the catch: the $75 minimum spend reached over 750 people — every one of them in Singapore. The traffic spike looked wonderful in analytics, right up until I remembered the shop is U.S.-based and doesn't ship overseas. Launching the ad was easy. Burning the money was just as easy. If I go back, it's with the targeting options studied properly first.
Instagram is the slow burn: $200 over six weeks has bought 90 followers — about $2.22 apiece — and no sales yet. Trust, apparently, isn't sold by the impression.
Google Ads is still the labyrinth, but there's a flicker: $50 a day budgeted for the two-week holiday window, $100 spent so far, one sale. Not a breakthrough. Enough to continue.
Then LinkedIn, the surprise of the week. I posted twice; one of the posts produced a sale — from someone I know in real life. Two free posts did what a hundred ad dollars did: one sale. Small sample, real lesson: the connection converts, not the reach.
All of which reframes the standard advice about splitting a startup budget between building the shop and advertising it. Ads are one piece, not the answer. The Art of the Start keeps nudging me toward PR — getting people talking, building credibility rather than buying clicks — and the funnel says the same thing the numbers do: I can purchase awareness by the pound, but converting interest into a sale is a different craft entirely. That gap is mine to close.
The Creative Act argues it from the other side: do the work as well as you can and let the outcome take care of itself. So with Black Friday around the corner, most of this week's energy goes where I actually want it — new artwork, more cats, more options ready for the holiday rush. The ads can keep tinkering along in the background.
If something's been working for you this season, the comments are open. And while you're here: what belongs on a t-shirt next? Capybaras, squirrels, chickens — I'm taking nominations.
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