Do Facebook or Instagram ads work for selling art?

Traditional paid advertising (Facebook ads, Instagram ads, Google ads) generally doesn’t work well for artists. It’s extremely rare to see an artist start running ads and keep going—most try it, see poor results, and stop within a month. That doesn’t mean advertising doesn’t work; it means you need to think about advertising differently. Your merchandise is advertising. A magazine feature is advertising. Your social media posts are advertising. These methods reach people in contexts where they’re open to discovery, and they go places paid ads can’t (like someone’s kitchen, a friend’s house, a coffee shop). Focus your energy and budget on those indirect advertising methods rather than pouring money into ad platforms that don’t deliver for visual artists.

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Asked by artists considering paid ads · Answered by Patrick Shanahan · art-marketing-podcast · 2024-06-28