We Tested Unsplash as a Marketing Tool. Here's What Happened.

Unsplash is a free stock photo platform with millions of images. We wanted to know if it could work as a marketing channel — not just a place to find photos, but a place to get found.

The idea: upload branded photos to Unsplash, optimize the metadata, and see if organic traffic followed.

We uploaded a set of images over 60 days. Each image included keyword-rich descriptions and tags. We tracked referral traffic using UTM parameters on every download link.

Results: traffic from Unsplash was real but small. Our top-performing image drove 47 referral visits in 30 days. The total across 12 images was 183 visits over 60 days.

The conclusion: Unsplash is not a primary marketing channel. It is a long-tail play. For the effort involved, it is not worth prioritizing unless you already produce visual content at scale. That said, if you are uploading photos anyway, optimizing the metadata costs nothing extra.