Does Pro Designer Get Me In The Search

[tunescool]

I've been putting a lot of time, as you all, into Zazzle since August, 6 months. I'm coming up to Pro, do my products get any favoritism in the search, did I hear that somewhere

Anyone wanna share how things went for them at the start, how long did things take

[PacifierCity]

FYI: https://help.zazzle.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002536588-How-the-Pro-Program-Works

I came to Z in late 2015 and had a few designs that I thought were great.  I spent a lot of time and effort trying to promote them to the tiny niche audience that they were designed for and after a few months gave up.  After about 2 years I got an email telling me I was a pro designer!  It took me about a year to come back and really try and do this.  After another year I made bronze.  I'll be in bronze limbo for awhile unless I can figure out how to get past daily sales.  I'm in the boat where I am trying to figure out how to get 5 - 10 sales a day.  Every now and then it happens. between sales and referrals, but most days it is 1 or 2 and every now and again I still put up 0's. 

I have seen people advance much faster than I, but they tend to design different products than I do.  I am slowly getting into paper products.  As that is Zazzles forte, it seems that I should play in that playground.  Though it is hard for me as I don't always enjoy what I create, so I don't publish.  It is much easier for me to design on other stuff...

In any event, 6 months to pro is a good start.  You've got your feet wet and are figuring out the in's and out's of Z and promoting.  It is time to figure out how to take your knowledge to the next level.  It is a journey for all of us.  I do hope yours goes well.

As far as favoritism, I included the link above so you know the "perks" of reaching different levels.  One has to reach a relatively high level before the perks are super helpful, IMO at least.  For you, what is selling is climbing in the MP search results and that is important.  Keep driving traffic, promoting and designing while carefully observing what is working and what is not, and the Bronze level will come before you know it!

Cheers

PC

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[Artsiren]

@tunescool that's awesome news that you're reaching Pro so quickly. No idea how long it took me to get there, but years probably. Still haven't reached Bronze, 14 years later!

(But I used to use the Quick Create feature to design tons of products at the same time, and most of the time it crashed. So I'd spend an hour or more tinkering with getting the design perfect on each product - and then it would crash and I'd lose everything. Invariably, I'd end up in a huff, and go work on other online business ideas for a year or two, before coming back to try Zazzle again! So it's not a HARD 14 years, you understand. Ha ha!)

Didn't really help having two people I trusted for social media marketing, particularly on Pinterest, who both had almost polar opposite views on how to succeed. One recommended pinning solely the Zazzle (or other affiliate) products and nothing else. The other person recommended never having more than 5% of your pins as affiliate products, or your account gets "shadow banned" and nobody will be able to see your pins in the feeds. So, dunno. Lol. I'm kind of running the split-test experiment at the moment, but Pinterest pinning is super-boring, so it's not going to be a very good scientific test, sadly. (I've neglected the 5% affiliate pins account all year, so far.)

Anyway, none of that helps you with your marketplace search results conundrum, but I was just really impressed with your hustle - and making the right kind of designs to get those sales in 6 months. Onwards and upwards! 📈

[PenguinPower]

The exact conditions that get you higher up in the searches are, I'd say, can be a bit obscure.... but no, I don't think pro status has anything to do with it. Sales firstly will get individual products boosted for sure, views next. Those are the two sure things.

Other than that there's the "Z-rank" of your individual store(s)... the exact meaning and effects of which are not entirely clear, other than you need to keep them to at very least a 4 to be included in the market place and reaching higher sales levels... I suspect that those who reach the higher echelons do get some favorable placement in the marketplace, but do not think it starts at simple pro, or even bronze or silver for that matter... 

[A_New_View]

I've only been with Zazzle since March of 2020 and I reached pro in October of 2021. That was really exciting! Aside from the $100 paycheck, I haven't really noticed a difference, but then again, I'm still learning a lot. I'd check out the link that PacifierCity posted. Btw, thanks Pacifier City!

[Barbara]

Make sure you're adding up only your U.S. sales. Sales to other countries don't count for any of the pro levels.

More than anything, it's sales that boost your visibility. After all, that's what a retail business is all about, but it's a Catch-22 because you have to make sales to be visible but have to be visible to make sales.

What pushed me into Basic Pro and then into Bronze was a specific affiliate who ran a busy web site proving that attracting affiliates is a definite goal.

Another thing that helps is finding at least one niche, preferably one customers might search for. I hit on a few of those by watching what of mine sold and what didn't. If a design sold decently, I worked with that design or with similar ones. Sometimes this paid off, sometimes not. You simply never know.

Do your own thing instead of imitating the styles of those who've obviously risen to the top. They've cornered their little market; you can corner your own.

Like others, I don't know how much favoritism there might be other than for, perhaps, the Diamond sellers.

Whatever you do, don't allow low sales to discourage you. We all experience them. Summer seems to be the worst here, maybe because customers are busy doing things other than shopping, so when next summer hits, use it to build up your inventory for the fall and winter seasons when there are more holidays and events to design for. Take a look at https://community.zazzle.com/t5/creator-news/moments-planning-guide/ba-p/4243 to see when you should be designing for specific holidays/events.

Wishing you lots of good luck!

Colorwash's Home

[Happyzazzler]

I think it does.  It took me 3 years to become pro and then 1 year later I became Bronze.  

[Barbara]

But it was likely the favoritism wasn't that at all but rather your sales triggering the algorithm to move you up the line. Of course, this is opinion, not fact, so who really knows?

[shellifitz]

@tunescool it may have a little influence but the biggest thing that will help you be found in searches is good SEO ie: tags, titles and descriptions and also a zrank of at least 4.  Zrank is a mysterious thing but you can usually get a 4 pretty easily by making sure your store is 100% complete. 

edit to add: in my experience sales to product ratio helps boost zrank and higher zrank seems to boost sales.  

[tunescool]

thanks for everyone's replies. i had fun reading them. don't stop

[tunescool]

i got 2 stores with a Z rank 5 already