(Case 06 / 07)A print on demand seller

Ad money going out with nothing coming back

ClientA print on demand seller

WatchingAd spend against royalty, every morning

Built byMe, alone

ReadJump to what went wrong ↓Jump to what went wrong ↓

(01) The problem

He sells printed designs, and runs ads to put them in front of people. Each sale pays him a royalty, a small cut of the price. The weekly numbers showed what the ads cost. They did not show which designs were earning it back.

(02) What I built

I built software that goes through the whole catalogue every morning. It puts each design's ad spend next to the royalty it earned, and against the point where the two break even. He asked for rules, not a model, so he could open any one of them and see the number it turns on. A person makes the change.

Each design on the list showsThe ad spendThe royalty it earnedWhy it was flagged

One design over a week, drawn as two lines: the ad money spent each day, and the royalty it earned, with the days its page was shut off shaded across both. — What it reads

A morning list of three designs, each with its ad spend, the royalty it earned and why it was flagged, and one set aside with the reason its page was shut off. — What a person receives

Both pictures are drawings, not screens from his account. The shape is what runs; the designs and the numbers in them are made up.

(03) What went wrong

A design nobody could buy looked like weak demand.

How I found out

For weeks it had called that design weak demand. So I opened the page the number was about. It was shut off. Nobody could have bought it.

What I changed

It now writes down why a design has no orders, not only that it has none. A zero with a cause beside it says something. A zero on its own does not.

(04) What happened

The morning list still flags the spend. Every zero now carries its reason.

All cases01 Rules nobody had time to read01 Rules nobody had time to read 02 Customers asking in the wrong places02 Customers asking in the wrong places 03 Two lists that did not agree03 Two lists that did not agree 04 Students translating the lecture in their heads04 Students translating the lecture in their heads 05 Messages that only make sense together05 Messages that only make sense together 06 Ad money going out with nothing coming back06 Ad money going out with nothing coming back 07 A progress bar that proves nothing07 A progress bar that proves nothing

(Next case 07)Anyone who wants to learn from a videoA progress bar that proves nothing →A progress bar that proves nothing →