We’re all on RedBubble for one reason; to make money. Some might be out there to widen a brand, and some are on there for fun, but I would imagine the majority of us want to see a sizeable income for our efforts. I certainly do. While I really do enjoy posting up work and chatting to people who buy my designs, I am more interested in increasing my profits. Hey ho capitalism.
Redbubble can be a great little earner, and with a few quick tips, you can double your income or more. I certainly did, and I think it’s easy for others to as well. It’s very likely you already do some of the tips posted here, but read on just in case there’s a key thing you have neglected!
Optimise for Organic discovery
Redbubble does a lot of behind the scenes work for you, so all you need to do is enter the correct data to get catalogued correctly. The organic discovery on Redbubble is where I make all of my sales (which really just means I don’t buy adverts or post on social media)
Do not neglect any field that Redbubble gives you to put something in. Optional it may be, but if you leave it, it will only hurt your sales. Uploading products to Redbubble can be a pain, but you need to do it right or it isn’t worth doing at all.
The Title should be clear and concise as to what it is. Put the ‘type’ of design in; ‘Logo’ in this case; ‘Oil Painting’, ‘Vector art’, etc. It will help you rank better and I think people are more inclined to have a look. All they see on the search page is the title of the product and the image.
Tags are the most important part of discovery on the Redbubble search. Some people say to use few, some say many.
In my experience, more tags are better.
I did some split testing for some of my designs and the ones with more tags were being found, favourited and bought more than those with fewer. I will write up the stats later on, but I have a lot to get through before then!
There is a ‘rumour’ that you have some sort of ‘tag Strength’, and for each tag you put down, you take Strength from other tags.
For example, say I have 100 ‘strength’ per product. I tag the product as ‘Jeez’ ‘Logo’ ‘Design’ ‘Typography’. As there are 4 tags, they each have 25 Strength. It is rumoured that if someone just tagged their product as ‘Logo’, then their ‘Logo’ tag would have 100 ‘Strength’, and would outrank me.
I believe the entire idea of tag Strength is incorrect, I haven’t noticed a difference with more tags. You show up in more searches, which means more visibility, which means more sales. Use as many tags as you think are appropriate!
I use a tool from Merch Titans to generate tags for some of my products. Find it here. It’s a free tool, and it will show you popular tags; use as many as you think fit to your product.
The description is important for SEO, and may have an effect on how Redbubble puts you in their adverts, as well as how you are shown on Google. Redbubble is great for Google discovery. So many people neglect their product description. Please don’t! Anything here is better than nothing!
Upload for as many product types as possible
Depending on the file size you uploaded, some products will be automatically disabled. You’ll want to enable them manually, or just increase the file size. I usually upload a 12000×12000 PNG, which is suitable for most products, depending on the design.
The thing is, some people will come and search for something like ‘Dinosaur bath mat’. Redbubble then automatically appends ‘bath mat’ to the search filter. So, no bath mat enabled? No view.
Uploading to more products increases the potential expose of your existing portfolio. Do it.
It’s well worth going over your existing designs and making sure they are available on suitable products. If it’s uploaded for one T-Shirt type and not another, why? So long as you can make it look good, then make it enabled.
Even if you’re sure nobody will buy it, you really never know. The dinosaur bath mat isn’t that far off. Somebody once bought a quote I put on a bath mat that just didn’t suit it at all. I had no idea how or why. People are strange, and it works to our advantage.
Tinker with your margins
This is something I don’t think I have seen anybody else do, but I find it useful to find optimum pricing. It isn’t at all ‘passive’ at the start, but it will pay off.
When you sell a product, increase the margin by 1%
Simple. While you might lose sales if you increase it too high, you’d hopefully stop by then. If you aren’t feeling too keen to make the 1% jump, go by 0.5%. This is something you have to measure over a longer time, but I make sure that when I make a sale for a product, to change the pricing after.
If you notice that you aren’t making any sales, just bring the pricing down. Price changes on Redbubble are almost immediate.
I tend to group product types, so when a sticker sells, I increase each sticker margin by 1%. You might be surprised what people will pay for some things, and jointly annoyed by all the money you missed out on.
Upload more designs!
The best way to increase revenue on Redbubble is just to add more products. Nothing more can be said for it. If you read the previous post with the chicken analogy, more chickens just means the chance for more eggs.
Uploading more products keeps your account fresh, it’ll keep you in the ‘recently updated’ sections, and others will discover you easier.
The only downside is that it isn’t passive, but throwing one product a day on Redbubble is a small price to pay.
Summary
- Enter better product details
- Tag like crazy
- Upload to every product that looks good
- Don’t settle for the default product margins
- Upload more!
- Check out the uploaded design! I don’t think anybody would buy it, but I’ve made a JeezPod account on Redbubble to illustrate processes!
In this epilogue I’d like to give mention to Passive Owl, without whom I wouldn’t be making as much as I am now. I started Redbubble before he did, but I just started and forgot about it. Finding his Youtube Channel by accident really pushed me back into Redbubble after seeing it’s potential.
Passive Owl isn’t around anymore, but his blog has some good info and he gave it all away for free. I suppose I’m trying to continue what he started by helping out others. It’s nice to give back!
Thanks for this. Although you have a small blog, I am glad I found it. Nice little gem.