We Wasted $50K on Google Ads So You Don't Have To (2019) • Hacker News Board

Re: We Wasted $50K on Google Ads So You Don't Have To (2019)

#171

Post by RHSeeger » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 5:35 AM UTC

robot wrote: post #153

shripadk wrote: post #43

Left a comment on the IndieHackers page. Keeping a copy here for those who aren't reading the comments section. I have noticed this a lot in various websites I have helped in ad campaigns. Their biggest problem is their landing page. Just like this article uses lots of jargons to explain simple concepts, their landing page reflects the same. For those of you wanting to know more about landing page optimization just w…

How does this landing page read, we provide a similar service: https://imagefix.io

> It reduces size of PNG/JPEG images as they get uploaded.

My first thought was that someone is going to upload a 43 meg animated GIF and then complain that it's loading slow. Not a comment on your product, just past experience tells me it will happen.

Re: We Wasted $50K on Google Ads So You Don't Have To (2019)

#172

Post by dchichkov » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 5:59 AM UTC

DenisM wrote: post #164

TeMPOraL wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to know where they learn that. In my university years, I used to invent such ridiculously overblown phrases for simple things I did, as a form of mockery of corporate culture and my general pastime. But at some point I did realize that these phrases are hashing functions - like the ones you use in a hash table to put objects into buckets. So for a particular thing I do, say "adding colors to terminal applica…

I think it's pretty much spot-on. People try to summarize their thoughts, but if they are not good at it the summary ends up being "We're pretty cool, not like those other non-cool people, and we stand for good things". And then, having arrived at that thought, they express it using the words they have heard before in similar circumstances. And boom - pretentious mediocracy seasoned with hollow platitudes!

They might have arrived to this state of the page with meticulous A/B testing, optimizing for some function.

Re: We Wasted $50K on Google Ads So You Don't Have To (2019)

#173

Post by shripadk » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 6:46 AM UTC

mlonkibjuyhv wrote: post #152

shripadk wrote: post #43

Left a comment on the IndieHackers page. Keeping a copy here for those who aren't reading the comments section. I have noticed this a lot in various websites I have helped in ad campaigns. Their biggest problem is their landing page. Just like this article uses lots of jargons to explain simple concepts, their landing page reflects the same. For those of you wanting to know more about landing page optimization just w…

Please, this whole "Ship products faster with better ..." has got to stop. Just the other day I went looking for some Shopify apps. Every single one described themselves as "Increase conversion, more money, better faster etc" on the bloody search page. Not a single word about what problem they where actually solving until far under the fold on the product page. I've been at this for days, and I still don't know if my…

I am not his ad campaign manager or landing page optimizer. I just gave a quick tip. If I were to do it I would have done it differently. The idea is not to say that this is the best way to go about it. The idea is to steer him in the direction of keeping it simple. If you have a better tagline you can suggest it.

And yes, the tagline I mentioned may not be the best but it will definitely get him more conversions compared to the one he currently has. At the end of the day conversions matter the most. No sales, no business. Doesn't matter how much analysis you do.

Re: We Wasted $50K on Google Ads So You Don't Have To (2019)

#174

Post by brailsafe » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 6:53 AM UTC

Like others have mentioned, I don't know what the product is from the website. Wth is an acceleration node and why should I care if there's 240k of them?

While I'm being cynical, Indiehackers could stand to not load their css in js, at least for the global stylesheet. Surprisingly the content actually renders, but the header svg and so on breaks quite badly.

Re: We Wasted $50K on Google Ads So You Don't Have To (2019)

#175

Post by pillefitz » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 7:09 AM UTC

dchichkov wrote: post #172

DenisM wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's pretty much spot-on. People try to summarize their thoughts, but if they are not good at it the summary ends up being "We're pretty cool, not like those other non-cool people, and we stand for good things". And then, having arrived at that thought, they express it using the words they have heard before in similar circumstances. And boom - pretentious mediocracy seasoned with hollow platitudes!

They might have arrived to this state of the page with meticulous A/B testing, optimizing for some function.

Maybe the initial guess was far off, so A/B testing led them to a pretty bad local optimum?

Re: We Wasted $50K on Google Ads So You Don't Have To (2019)

#176

Post by ben509 » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 7:22 AM UTC

sgc wrote: post #109

shandor wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the feeling that "Full stack adaptive delivery" and its ilk are aimed at VCs or BigCorp sourcing managers instead of anyone that would actually use the product. The sad thing is that they seem to be so mutually exclusive nowadays.

We need an "engineer's hotkey" which would be a widely used hotkey combination which would change the css to show the no bs version of your landing page.

Not quite that, but if you had a shortcut to switch fonts, it could set the font to Sans Bullshit Sans[1].

[1]: http://www.sansbullshitsans.com/

Re: We Wasted $50K on Google Ads So You Don't Have To (2019)

#177

Post by ben509 » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 7:33 AM UTC

ses1984 wrote: post #55

shripadk wrote: post #43

Left a comment on the IndieHackers page. Keeping a copy here for those who aren't reading the comments section. I have noticed this a lot in various websites I have helped in ad campaigns. Their biggest problem is their landing page. Just like this article uses lots of jargons to explain simple concepts, their landing page reflects the same. For those of you wanting to know more about landing page optimization just w…

On the other hand, if I saw "file system as a service" I would also bounce immediately becuase who needs that? I have a file system, it comes included in every/any os that matters. How does filesystem as a service help me?

Generally it's for when you're running workstations in the clerd. E.g. AWS has EFS [1] to support Workspaces [2].

[1]: https://aws.amazon.com/efs/

[2]: https://aws.amazon.com/workspaces/

Re: We Wasted $50K on Google Ads So You Don't Have To (2019)

#178

Post by ben509 » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 7:38 AM UTC

amayne wrote: post #151

ryandrake wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know how E-mail scams are always riddled with typos and grammar mistakes? A theory is that this is a deliberate way to filter out the people too smart/cyncial to fall for the scam. "By sending an initial email that's obvious in its shortcomings, the scammers are isolating the most gullible targets. If you trash their email, that's fine. They don't want you, someone from whom there's virtually no chance of receivi…

I think the more likely scenario is that they’re filled with typos to avoid spam detection filters for keywords and phrases. The gullibility theory doesn’t explain the advantage of using similarly appearing letters (the number one for the lowercase L), etc., which spam uses all the time.

I think the gullibility theory does better at explaining the basic premises of spam emails, which are pretty farfetched.

Re: We Wasted $50K on Google Ads So You Don't Have To (2019)

#179

Post by aleppe7766 » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 9:29 AM UTC

Agree with the first comment. Landing pages should be customized to the specific point in the customer journey. If you’re targeting a clueless user you should keep it simple and educate all the way to conversion.

Re: We Wasted $50K on Google Ads So You Don't Have To (2019)

#180

Post by ChrisInEdmonton » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 11:31 AM UTC

baddox wrote: post #147

sopooneo wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am with you on this. When I look up new companies and can't get a basic idea of their product/service even after spending minutes on their home page, it drives me batty. But I also have a lesson from my former decades on earth: if lots of people are doing something that seems crazy to you, there is probably something you don't know. So could it be that there is some reason all these startups are so maddeningly obtu…

For many companies, the home page is probably simply not used for selling their product or informing new people about the company, and instead serves more as a symbol of the company's aesthetic and a way to welcome and comfort visitors. Think of it more like the well-appointed lobby of an office headquarters. I don't think anyone would expect the lobby of an office building to explain what the company does. It's just…

I disagree on Airtable. Their homepage currently says "Part spreadsheet, part database, and entirely flexible, teams use Airtable to organize their work, their way."

I'm a software developer. I have no idea what they are selling, based on that. Is this some sort of souped up Google Sheets competitor? If so, what does it do better? Is this a team workflow management tool? If so, why bring up spreadsheets and databases? I suppose some teams may try to organise their workflow using spreadsheets, but this far into the 21st century, most people use tools like Jira or Github Issues or Monday.com or one of fifty other tools. Is this a software development tool? If so, errr, what?

I literally haven't the slightest idea, after reading their homepage, what problem this is trying to solve, what solution it is offering, and what the target market is. Am I a potential customer? I haven't the slightest idea. Can this help solve any problem I have? Maybe, but the homepage goes out of its way to refuse to answer this question.

Airtable has even targeted ads at me. It's not like I've only spent two minutes looking at their site. I still haven't the faintest clue what they do, let alone why they are better than competing alternatives.