The Pet Photographers' Journal

Meta Ads for Pet Photographers: What Actually Converts, with Monica KoudsyIn February, Ina spent $688.80 on a Meta ads competition for National Love Your Pet Day. It brought in 191 leads and 13 bookings. That's a 6.8% conversion rate, which sounds low until you see the sales: a total of $35,326. Before that, she tried Google Ads for about three months, spent two to three thousand dollars, and got zero bookings.In this episode, Ina sits down with Monica Koudsy, founder of Kurious Group, an agency that runs Meta ads for photography studios. Before the agency, Monica helped open a pet photography studio on Sydney's northern beaches and ran its booking calls and sales herself. They were buying about 750 leads a week, doing five sessions a day, with a $3,000 average sale and fully booked two months in advance. Together they go through Ina's live International Dog Day ad account: the offer, the settings, the lead form, and what happens after the lead comes in.Key takeaways:Your offer has to beat the next studio's ad. Monica says once someone clicks on an ad, the next seven to twelve ads they see are your competitors'. Studios copy each other from the Ads Library, so if a competitor's offer is better, they're likely to win that client. For the studios she works with, that usually means gifted artwork or a credit off.Turn off Advantage+ Audience, or your ads can end up interstate. Monica builds a campaign live to show where Meta hides the settings. With Advantage+ on, a Sydney campaign showed up to 20 million people, because the ads could run in Queensland and Perth. She turns off "reach more people likely to respond", clicks "further limit the reach of your ads" even though Meta promises a 9.7% lower cost if you leave it, sets her own age range, and excludes Audience Network, which she calls a complete waste of money.Put your budget where the bookings are coming from. Monica recommends setting the budget at the ad set level, not the campaign level. In Ina's account the lookalike audience was bringing in leads at $1.48, so she'd give it more budget and drop the spend on the other two. And if you need to pause, turn the ad off rather than dropping the budget, because dropping the budget alters its learning.Speed to lead is where bookings are won or lost. Monica contacts new leads within the first 24 hours, because the longer you leave it, the colder the lead gets. Her studios text during commute hours, when people start replying before 9am, aim for at least 10% to respond, and then ask when they can call. Her other tip: ask for a photo of their dog. "The moment you ask someone to send you a photo of their dog, they're your best friend."A cheaper session fee brings in more rubbish, not more leads. For Australian studios, Monica says $149 to $150 is enough skin in the game that people show up. She has seen good come out of $90, but she has also seen studios struggle to get good clients in at that price.Use video and statics, and don't over-edit. Monica says face-to-camera video is the most authentic thing you can make, so pick up the phone and record. She recommends the Edits app by Instagram, which has a teleprompter built in, and a good variety of static images alongside.Want to see the screen share? The video of this episode, with Monica walking through the Meta ad settings on screen, is inside the Consistent Bookings Mastermind.Join here → https://go.inajeducation.com/consistent-bookings-mastermindConnect with Monica:Website: https://www.kuriousgroup.comInstagram: @kuriousgroupResources mentioned:Edits by Instagram (free video app with a teleprompter)Meta Ads Library: https://www.facebook.com/ads/libraryWork with me in The Consistent Bookings MastermindThe Consistent Bookings Mastermind is currently open for enrolment. It's a group coaching container focused on implementation support to help you build your repeatable marketing system, with full support across pricing, sales and mindset.Apply here → The Consistent Bookings MastermindConsistent Bookings AuditIf you're getting inconsistent bookings and you don't know what's causing it, do the free consistent booking audit quiz to find out which gaps is costing you.Complete the audit here.Connect with InaInstagram: @inaj.thepetphotoceoEmail: [email protected] & Coaching for Pet Photographers: https://www.inajeducation.com/coaching💬 Join the Pet Photographers' Collective (free community)A free community for pet photographers who want to build a profitable, sustainable business with less overwhelm. Inside, Ina shares practical marketing tips, business lessons and mindset shifts, and free resources.Join here → https://www.skool.com/pet-photographers-collective-3125/about?ref=9c7b56d2963f48a791297a43a29109e1

How to Sell Pet Photography Without Feeling Salesy, with Shelley JanesSelling feels salesy. Emailing your list feels spammy. Posting your offer twice feels like bothering people. That's what Ina hears from pet photographers over and over, so she asked a sales psychologist about it. Shelley Janes says if you're scared of turning into the pushy person who gave you the ick, that fear is evidence you never will.In this episode, Ina sits down with Shelley Janes, a sales psychologist with a master's in psychology and 20 years in sales. Shelley was the first sales hire for a Techstars company and then a Y Combinator company in San Francisco, burned out, and now lives outside Amsterdam teaching people how to sell without pressure or manipulation. They talk through pet photography sales from the consult to the ordering appointment: story selling, the money conversation, what to say when a client says it's too expensive, and why your emails only feel spammy when you only email to ask.Key takeaways:Sell what a normal day looks like with it. Shelley once sold salad-making robots to food service distributors at conferences. She was told to talk about the specs. Instead she described employees at a company like Google getting a fresh, customised salad that no one had touched, at any hour. For pet photographers, she says, what you're selling is art on their wall forever.Use a past client's story to take the pressure off. Shelley's favourite way to sell is to talk about another client, like the one who thought she only wanted a few prints and ended up choosing a big piece above her fireplace, and what that cost. It shows you're capable and that people love what you do, and because you're talking about a third person, the listener's defences stay down.Have the money conversation long before the ordering appointment. Ina's clients see her pricing before they book a consult, and get a video to watch after they book. At the consult she asks where they'd like to display their photos, then tells them most of her clients spend between $1,000 and $3,000. Some clients now pre-purchase before their session. When Ina's first meeting with a client was at the park on the day of the session, her average sale was around $600 to $700. Once she made an in-person consult the only way to book, it went up to $2,800.Saying your price is reps, not personality. Shelley's advice is to say your price out loud in the mirror 30 or 40 times, until you know your packages the way a barista knows the coffee menu. When a client says it's more than they expected, try "Totally fair. Tell me what you were expecting." Then adjust the scope or offer a payment plan rather than jumping to a discount, because a quick discount tells them you weren't sure about the price either.Your emails feel spammy when you only email to ask. If you only email when there's a promo, every email is a sales pitch. Email regularly, especially past clients, who Shelley says are the ones who will pay you the most. A pet photographer has their dog's details, so even a birthday email keeps you top of mind, and staying top of mind is what leads to referrals.Put your call to action where understanding peaks. Shelley says the moment someone understands something is the moment their trust in you peaks, so that's when to invite them to take the next step. That can be early or in the middle of a reel or caption, where people are still watching. And a vague "if you're interested..." reads as a lack of conviction. A clear next step shows them the door exists.Connect with Shelley:Instagram: @shelley.janes Classes and resources: https://stan.store/shelleyajanesResources mentioned:Shelley's Story Selling Masterclass (see her Stan store for the next one): https://stan.store/shelleyajanesManyChat: https://manychat.comWork with me in The Consistent Bookings MastermindThe Consistent Bookings Mastermind is currently open for enrolment. It's a group coaching container focused on implementation support to help you build your repeatable marketing system, with full support across pricing, sales and mindset.Apply here → The Consistent Bookings MastermindConsistent Bookings AuditIf you're getting inconsistent bookings and you don't know what's causing it, do the free consistent booking audit quiz to find out which gaps is costing you.Complete the audit here.Connect with InaInstagram: @inaj.thepetphotoceoEmail: [email protected] & Coaching for Pet Photographers: https://www.inajeducation.com/coaching💬 Join the Pet Photographers' Collective (free community)A free community for pet photographers who want to build a profitable, sustainable business with less overwhelm. Inside, Ina shares practical marketing tips, business lessons and mindset shifts, and free resources.Join here → https://www.skool.com/pet-photographers-collective-3125/about?ref=9c7b56d2963f48a791297a43a29109e1

Your Pet Photography About Page: How to Find Your Real Story, with Andrea ShahWhen Ina built her first website, her About page said she loved photography and had done darkroom in high school. Copywriter Andrea Shah hears a version of that story from almost every photographer she works with. She wants to hear the one that's actually yours.In this episode, Ina sits down with Andrea Shah, a US copywriter who writes website copy for wedding photographers and other creative businesses. They talk through pet photography website copy from a copywriter's side: where to find your real story, how to talk about pricing without scaring off the right people, how much to write so Google and AI search can find you, and whether AI should be writing your copy at all.Key takeaways: Your reviews already hold your story. Andrea's first move is to reread past reviews and look at why those clients connected with you. In her words, "they will tell you why they love you and why they related to you, and you need to use that to get the next five, ten, or twenty clients like them." No reviews yet? Read the reviews of photographers outside your area, not your direct competitors, and look for the themes.If you wouldn't say it out loud, it doesn't belong on your website. Andrea's test is simple. Read your copy back, and if you think "I would never say that out loud," cut it. Your website should sound like you do on a Zoom call.Give people an idea of price, not the whole menu. Most of Andrea's clients don't list one fixed price. They say what the average client spends, or where pricing starts, and they name any session fee or minimum so people who won't pay it don't enquire. The same goes for how you deliver. If you sell artwork rather than digital files, say so clearly, because "the only way they can weed themselves out is if they know."Write enough for search engines and AI to understand you. Andrea aims for at least 300 to 400 words on every page, and says the first hundred words matter most for tools like Claude and ChatGPT. Keep your business name the same across your website, Google Business Profile and Instagram so AI links them as one business, ask clients to review you on Google, and add new photos to your profile regularly.Fix your homepage and services page first. If you're writing your own copy before you can hire a copywriter, Andrea would start there rather than the About page, because "the homepage and the services page are where you're making those sales."Use AI to research, then write your copy yourself. Andrea uses AI to transcribe client interviews and to look at what competitors are doing, not to write. Her reason: "I want to get a sense of who you are, not who Claude thinks you are."Connect with Andrea:Website: https://www.andreashah.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/andreashahcopyThreads: https://www.threads.com/andreashahcopyWork with me in The Consistent Bookings MastermindThe Consistent Bookings Mastermind is currently open for enrolment. It's a group coaching container focused on implementation support to help you build your repeatable marketing system, with full support across pricing, sales and mindset.Apply here → The Consistent Bookings MastermindConsistent Bookings AuditIf you're getting inconsistent bookings and you don't know what's causing it, do the free consistent booking audit quiz to find out which gaps is costing you.Complete the audit here.Connect with InaInstagram: @inaj.thepetphotoceoEmail: [email protected] & Coaching for Pet Photographers: https://www.inajeducation.com/coaching

Sharon Canovas used to charge $75 for a session with around 40 photos, and it was turning into a very expensive hobby. Today her average sale is around $2,000, and she has booked out spring, summer and autumn in a row. She did it while working full time as a stunt woman, and while recovering from a concussion.In this episode, Ina sits down with Sharon, a pet photographer in Hamilton, Ontario, who has spent twenty years doing stunts for film and TV. Sharon first came on the podcast in February, after her first fully booked spring. They talk about marketing for pet photographers when your time is not your own, why she raised her prices three times, how she sells photo albums, and what changed when she moved from Ina's marketing workshop into the Mastermind.Key takeaways:A planned year keeps your marketing going when you can't. Sharon got a concussion last year, and this year it brought panic attacks, anxiety attacks and having to teach herself Photoshop again. Because she had already planned her marketing for the year, with everything scheduled in HoneyBook and her landing pages done, she could keep going one small step at a time.Three things a night will move your marketing forward. Sharon sets a marketing goal for the month, and each night she writes down three things she has to do the next day to support it. On set she can be gone fifteen hours a day, so she answers emails and blogs in her lunch hour and photographs dogs on the weekend.Posting on social media is not marketing. Before the workshop, Sharon would post, hold her breath and hope for the best. She dropped business cards at pet stores, and the only thing that reliably worked was the Pet Expo. Now she runs a variety of marketing, and she is taking half of November off to plan next year.The clients who value your work won't question your prices. Sharon went from $75 to $250 to $350, and says it got scary. What settled it for her was hiring a pet photographer herself, for close to $1,400. Her average sale is now around $2,000, and she is raising her prices again next year.Put the album in their hands before you talk about it. The photo album is what Sharon sells most. At every consultation the album is in the client's hands while she talks, and she shows videos of albums she has designed for other clients so they can picture their own. A payment plan helps too: "A lot of people don't wanna put two thousand dollars on their credit card."The group is where the ideas get better. Sharon brought an idea to the Mastermind: a colour palette to help clients work out what to wear next to their dog's coat. Ina built it in under an hour, and every member now has it. "It's a very lonely business," Sharon says, "and coming up with ideas sometimes it can be very exhausting."Connect with Sharon:Website: https://canovasphotography.comInstagram: @scanovasphotographyResources mentioned:Sharon's first episode on The Pet Photographers' Journal, February 2026:Listen on CaptivateListen on SpotifyWork with me in The Consistent Bookings MastermindThe Consistent Bookings Mastermind is currently open for enrolment. It's a group coaching container focused on implementation support to help you build your repeatable marketing system, with full support across pricing, sales and mindset.Apply here → The Consistent Bookings MastermindConsistent Bookings AuditIf you're getting inconsistent bookings and you don't know what's causing it, do the free consistent booking audit quiz to find out which gaps is costing you.Complete the audit here.Connect with InaInstagram: @inaj.thepetphotoceoEmail: [email protected] & Coaching for Pet Photographers: https://www.inajeducation.com/coaching

In April, Aubri Poon wrote down her dream result: another successful calendar contest, and $10,000 donated to dog rescues. By August, the beer can label contest she ran with a Calgary brewery had raised $87,341 for the Calgary Humane Society. A separate campaign, a birthday giveaway she launched during the Marketing System Workshop, had booked 14 sessions and filled her calendar into October. In this episode, Ina sits down with Aubri, a Calgary dog photographer who went full time in August 2025 after twenty two years as a flight attendant. Before this year, her bookings were few and far between. They walk through both campaigns step by step, and the pet photography marketing structure behind each one, from the entry form to the press release to the email drip campaign. Key takeaways: Start with the ordering appointments you haven't booked. Aubri had clients she had photographed and never brought in to see their photos. Her first win in coaching wasn't a new campaign. It was booking one of those clients in, and they ordered over $2,000 of wall art. A giveaway only works if it is set up for clients who will spend. Aubri says she doesn't believe in giving sessions away, so she put qualifying questions and disclaimers in the entry form to set expectations before anyone entered. Over 25 people entered, she made offers to 17, and 14 booked and confirmed. The sales so far are $2,500, $2,500, $1,500 and $700, with more ordering appointments still to run. You don't need an ad budget to get press. Aubri had never thought of sending a press release. She used Ina's template, sent it to Calgary news stations, and the campaign was covered on Global News. She then worked out which Calgary radio DJs were dog people and messaged them directly, which got her an interview on air. A cause campaign should also bring in bookings. Ina coached her on how to keep her own business visible while the contest ran. Two months after telling Ina she didn't have enough enquiries to need one, Aubri built an email drip campaign with a special offer session, and three people beyond the winners had already contacted her about it, with a week still to go. Your own call recordings show you where you lose sales. Aubri now runs her consultation and ordering appointment recordings through AI to check what she missed, the questions she skipped, and the objections she didn't answer. Connect with Aubri: Website: https://www.aubripoon.com Instagram: @aubri_poon_photography Resources mentioned: The Furever Golden Tale beer label contest: https://www.gogophotocontest.com/fourdogsbrewing Four Dogs Brewing Co.: https://www.fourdogs.ca The story behind the four dogs: https://www.fourdogs.ca/about-us.html Aubri on A Woman a Day with Tyler and Danaye: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/962-tyler-danaye-fuzzy-sound-b-122690064/episode/aubri-poon-on-a-woman-a-342224550/ Calgary Humane Society: https://www.calgaryhumane.ca GoGo Photo ContestWork with me in The Consistent Bookings MastermindThe mastermind is currently open for enrolment. It's a group coaching container focusing on implementation support to help you build your repeatable marketing system along with comprehensive support of your business from pricing, sales, and mindset. My marketing templates library is included, press release templates and all, which is exactly where Aubri got hers.Apply here: The Consistent Bookings MastermindConsistent Bookings AuditIf you're getting inconsistent bookings and you don't know what's causing it, do the free consistent booking audit quiz to find out which gaps is costing you.Complete the audit here.Connect with InaInstagram: @inaj.thepetphotoceoEmail: [email protected] & Coaching for Pet Photographers: https://www.inajphotography.com/for-photographers