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

Post by xur17 » Fri, Dec 06, 2013, 9:54 PM UTC

gk1 wrote: post #45

xur17 wrote: post #13

I'm currently (attempting to) use reddit advertising, and I'm quite confused by how it works. I purchased all of the available impressions for a given subreddit over the next 4 days, but I've yet to actually see my ad (or any other ad for that matter) displayed despite reddit indicating 800 impressions.

They may not be showing to you if you're signed in, because they don't want to charge you for an impression to yourself. Also, depending on how many days have passed and the subreddit you've chosen, 800 impressions may be a very small number of overall pageviews, in which case only a small percentage of people will see the ad.

Post by markdown » Sat, Dec 07, 2013, 12:06 AM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #22

minimaxir wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't do this. pg has said that this is a ban worthy offense. And I still see people doing it.

I've never done it, but considering how random it is to get or not get just a first upvote from someone else (let alone the 5+ needed for front-page), I can't blame people. HN still needs a vastly better way of separating the wheat from the chaff for new submissions, that involves the whole community, not just the few who occasionally look at "new".

Post by namecast » Sat, Dec 07, 2013, 12:34 AM UTC

gk1 wrote: post #46

As a marketing person I had to do a double-take when I read this: > The conclusion I’ve drawn from this is that paid advertising, even highly targeted paid advertising, is no match for actual user outreach. What you did was not "highly targeted." Nor does it make sense to draw a conclusion about an entire form of advertising from a single attempt. Paid advertising works very well for some companies (I've run them doz…

Post by nl » Sat, Dec 07, 2013, 12:45 AM UTC

jcampbell1 wrote: post #38

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 pri…

Post by ivanplenty » Sat, Dec 07, 2013, 5:42 AM UTC

namecast wrote: post #36

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.