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Failed HN Launch vs. Reddit Paid Advertising: Which Converts Better

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Re: Failed HN Launch vs. Reddit Paid Advertising: Which Converts Better

#31

Post by bsimpson63 »

djb_hackernews wrote: post #21

I've done a bit of advertising on reddit (though it was a few years ago), and my one take away is don't target specific subreddits. I think a general pattern is people subscribe to subreddits and just let reddit do it's thing to populate their front page, never actually visiting the specific subreddit. I do this myself for a lot of subreddits I subscribe to. I wonder if reddit has any plans to modify the ad display l…

That's actually how it works. If you target an ad to /r/programming it will show up on the frontpage for users subscribed to /r/programming.

Re: Failed HN Launch vs. Reddit Paid Advertising: Which Converts Better

#32

Post by Dakos »

My gut tells me that part of the reason why Reddit was a flop is AdBlock. I would not be surprises is much of r/programming ran it. These guys are tech savy without necessarily being in the start-up scene.

Numbers that low could be attributed to miss-clicks, users who thought it was an r/programming post.

All speculation mind.

Re: Failed HN Launch vs. Reddit Paid Advertising: Which Converts Better

#33

Post by Dakos »

djb_hackernews wrote: post #21

I've done a bit of advertising on reddit (though it was a few years ago), and my one take away is don't target specific subreddits. I think a general pattern is people subscribe to subreddits and just let reddit do it's thing to populate their front page, never actually visiting the specific subreddit. I do this myself for a lot of subreddits I subscribe to. I wonder if reddit has any plans to modify the ad display l…

Funny I never use the front-page and visit sub individually. I had never considered that I may be abnormal in this regard. Damn now I want to see metrics on this...

Re: Failed HN Launch vs. Reddit Paid Advertising: Which Converts Better

#35

Post by arbuge »

djb_hackernews wrote: post #21

I've done a bit of advertising on reddit (though it was a few years ago), and my one take away is don't target specific subreddits. I think a general pattern is people subscribe to subreddits and just let reddit do it's thing to populate their front page, never actually visiting the specific subreddit. I do this myself for a lot of subreddits I subscribe to. I wonder if reddit has any plans to modify the ad display l…

I think they're already doing this. I have ads I placed in a subreddit displaying on my front page right now.

Re: Failed HN Launch vs. Reddit Paid Advertising: Which Converts Better

#36

Post by namecast »

DLarsen wrote: post #19

With such a small sample size, I generally tend to shy away from speaking of results in percentages. Stating the results as "5 conversions from 26 visits" keeps things in perspective. I appreciate the insight into your experience, but the sample size is way too low to draw meaningful general conclusions.

The individual sample sizes are small, yes. The variance between the paid vs organic conversions was still stark to me, e.g. 54 paid visitors had a 0% conversion rate to trial vs ~20% with 5 of 26 organic users converting to trial.

FWIW, the reddit ad campaign is at nearly a hundred views now, and still no trials.

Re: Failed HN Launch vs. Reddit Paid Advertising: Which Converts Better

#37

Post by namecast »

bsimpson63 wrote: post #31
djb_hackernews wrote: post #21

I've done a bit of advertising on reddit (though it was a few years ago), and my one take away is don't target specific subreddits. I think a general pattern is people subscribe to subreddits and just let reddit do it's thing to populate their front page, never actually visiting the specific subreddit. I do this myself for a lot of subreddits I subscribe to. I wonder if reddit has any plans to modify the ad display l…

That's actually how it works. If you target an ad to /r/programming it will show up on the frontpage for users subscribed to /r/programming.

Confirmed by my referral logs. This is how it works.

Re: Failed HN Launch vs. Reddit Paid Advertising: Which Converts Better

#38

Post by jcampbell1 »

One possible reason for the failed HN launch is the landing pages makes the basic mistake of listing features rather than benefits or use cases. It is a description of what the code does, rather than why it was written.

I am still lost to the benefits of managing DNS with github. I can't see the documentation, and the free trial button leads to the scariest signup page in history. It wants read/write access to my private repos.

Re: Failed HN Launch vs. Reddit Paid Advertising: Which Converts Better

#40

Post by Alex_Jiang »

/r/programming doesn't get that specific into programming. I think it's mostly an aggregator of resources for beginners learning how to program. (a large percentage of the posts are questions like 'which language')

I think its possible that your product could have gone over many peoples heads, at least in that particular sub.

Have you looked into subreddits like r/webdevelopment or r/html5( or javascript,CSS)? They have less readers but maybe they're more your target?

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