Why do some ppl have great clips with a poor ratio of ClIPS/Downloads?

I'm talking about portfolios with good quality footage and well tagged, descriptors, etc. And they have perhaps 1000 files and 40 downloads.

Whereas other people have equally good footage, also well tagged, but have perhaps 300 clips with 180 downloads.

Is there a secret to this, or a way to help have a better ratio of clips to downloads? Do you market your stock footage outside of Pond5? What is the best way to get seen or downloaded and not have a library full of clips that no one ever sees or uses?

A few factors there.
What type of clips? are there already thousands of that subject.

model/property released or editorial only? while editorial sells, there are much fewer buyers for editorial when compared to released video that can be used anywhere.

I have same problems... No matter the quality, I just can't get any steady sales.

I placed a lot of clips on Pond5. They were good workmanlike clips and I had a fair number of sales but I have had more sales in the last few months after I picked my subject matter very carefully and went out of my way to tailor what I was doing to what I knew was popular and tried to do stuff which would be useful in the context of the subject matter. I opted for producing fewer shots but higher quality and I have had more sales.

Put another way, if I spent $20 000 producing a shot about fairies I might be wasting my time if nobody is making movies about fairies. On the other hand, knowing it was the 100 year Titanic anniversary I put a Titanic shot up and it sold. Well, of course it sold. There were hardly any other Titanic shots at that time.

I see that my portfolio has two types of shot now, Bulk stuff which is perfectly decent but I am now finding that certain niche shots are outselling the others.

Hope this helps.