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Burning money on paid ads for a dev tool – what we've learned

posthog.com

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Re: Burning money on paid ads for a dev tool – what we've learned

#131

Post by waynesonfire »

mft_ wrote: post #100
iamben wrote: post #35

The Twitter 'thick skin' part made me laugh. A past startup had the same experience with Reddit ads. The initial replies were so negative ("I could do this 3x cheaper myself" etc), and often negative for the sake of negativity. It took a little time, but we replied to most of them with gentle words along the lines of "thank you for your thoughts and comments; we're a small business trying to do things ethically; gett…

Not dissimilar to HN then :) ‘Show HN’ posts often have a mix of different comparatively negative comments: from the (classic) I could do this quicker/cheaper/easily, alternatives being posted, genuine criticisms (+/- misunderstandings) of the offering, criticism of the underlying website due to choices made around design/fonts/contrast/processor utilisation/JS use… It’s such a nice surprise when there’s a ‘Show HN’…

I like the mixed reviews. A lot of times there is truth in the non-positive feedback. It's the authors ego that gets hurt and to that I say, deal with it.

Re: Burning money on paid ads for a dev tool – what we've learned

#132

Post by lolinder »

corobo wrote: post #70
pydry wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel more bad about using this than a regular ad blocker. With a regular ad blocker it's blocking ads for which the lion's share is probably going to $facelessabusivecorporation, whereas sponsorships go 100% into the pockets of content creators who typically aren't exactly rich. It feels less like downloading pirated music and more like sneaking into an indie concert without paying.

> whereas sponsorships go 100% into the pockets of content creators They get paid ad revenue based on ads served, they already got paid for the sponsorship. Personally I feel that this is the wrong way round (however I'm totally morally ok with blocking ads of all kinds, I'd be a hypocrite otherwise, ads suck)

They get paid for the sponsorship based in part on how many people watch the sponsorship sections of past videos. That can be and is measured, and has a material effect on the amount companies will pay.

Re: Burning money on paid ads for a dev tool – what we've learned

#133

Post by duxup »

romafirst3 wrote: post #124
22289d wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it depends at what point you buy. A lot of people on Reddit got generational fuck you money betting on GME, Bitcoin and a lot of other stuff. But if you're getting your Reddit tips from CNN then ya you're probably too late.

Have you seen the receipts or are you just parroting what they are saying on social media?

I'm suspecting this other user has some naive / ideological-ish belief in the reddit community or something.

Re: Burning money on paid ads for a dev tool – what we've learned

#134

Post by romphl »

22289d wrote: post #80
iamben wrote: post #35

The Twitter 'thick skin' part made me laugh. A past startup had the same experience with Reddit ads. The initial replies were so negative ("I could do this 3x cheaper myself" etc), and often negative for the sake of negativity. It took a little time, but we replied to most of them with gentle words along the lines of "thank you for your thoughts and comments; we're a small business trying to do things ethically; gett…

One could say you're doing the exact same thing to Redditors that you say they do. Being negative for the sake of being negative. Just love to hate when there is no human face - or even someone to reply. But oops, here one is ;) Redditors are entitled and they are demanding and they are quick to jump all over you. And they can be wrong. But it's not for the sake of negativity and it's not because there is no human th…

One example that came to mind was Apollo app where their users came to bat for them during that whole third-party apps fiasco.

Re: Burning money on paid ads for a dev tool – what we've learned

#135

Post by birdyrooster »

aeonik wrote: post #127
devmor wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m fairly sure the Twitter portion is because they named their product synonymous to a common social media expression for “share a picture of your (male) genitalia”. It’s an unfortunate scenario for anyone who had to look at those tweets, I’m sure.

I'm confused, do you mean "PostHog"? I've never heard of this being used that way.

I assume they are converted Muslims who observe the Quran.

Re: Burning money on paid ads for a dev tool – what we've learned

#136

Post by navane »

Lutger wrote: post #44
dale_glass wrote: post #18

> This is why we ask all users where they heard about PostHog whenever they sign up or book a demo – it's a simple (optional) free text field. Enough of our users say 'ad on Google' or similar that we know paid ads do actually reach a large chunk of them. You have to be careful with how you word questions. If you ask how I first noticed that something exists, then yes, an ad may well be it because ads are so in your…

I believe ads work by making a brand name familiar, which helps you recognize it in the sea of information. And that makes it automatically somewhat more attractive and reputably. You can be entirely unaware of this and it still works. Maybe the ad is not what convinced you, not at all, but it did prompt you to wonder if this LaunchDarkly thing is any good. Youtube kept spamming it in your face and you kept ignoring…

Indeed, you remember the brand, but forget how you got to know it. So even though you learned about something through ads, and you hate ads, eventually you'll forget that it was ads that put it in your brain, but you'll still remember the brand.

That's why I call ads psychological violence. They force themselves in your brain and there's nothing you can do against it

Re: Burning money on paid ads for a dev tool – what we've learned

#138

Post by cm2012 »

I've spent about $100m on B2B ads in the last 12 years, including to developers. Overall the article is not bad but it's missing some things:

1) "LinkedIn Good for awareness, bad for conversion." LI can smash it on conversion. Its expensive so you need a high customer lifetime value. Make a compelling offer and try conversation ads.

2) Facebook/IG also does work for targeting developers, better than anything else but LI and Search. It's funny because there's such loud anti-facebook developers out there, but plenty use it anyway.

Re: Burning money on paid ads for a dev tool – what we've learned

#139

Post by dale_glass »

cj wrote: post #102
dale_glass wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. High Fidelity, sort of. Failed commercial project to develop a sort of VR world from the same guy that made Second Life. Their advertising honestly cheesed me off and seemed to reek of desperation. Their adoption of cryptocurrency didn't help either. What did was that despite that they had promising technology people I knew talked about, so I did check it out despite all my initial misgivings, and it was good e…

In other words, "Word of mouth" for all services. This is one of the most difficult marketing channels for marketers to promote. It basically requires astroturfing (e.g. planting biased questions on social platforms and encourage organic engagement). I hate to admit this but this is how I got the first 10-20 paid users for my B2B SaaS. Our product is a dev tool that integrates with a bunch of other tools, so we found…

> In other words, "Word of mouth" for all services.

Yup. I avoid every single ad I can on principle. Only exception I used to make was for youtube sponsors, mostly out of laziness, until I finally installed sponsorblock.

I've gotten so good at it that at this time I haven't the faintest idea of what movies are there to see at the cinema. Not a single one.

I'm probably a very extreme case in actually having succeeded in disconnecting myself from popular culture to a very large extent.

Re: Burning money on paid ads for a dev tool – what we've learned

#140

Post by flir »

mft_ wrote: post #100
iamben wrote: post #35

The Twitter 'thick skin' part made me laugh. A past startup had the same experience with Reddit ads. The initial replies were so negative ("I could do this 3x cheaper myself" etc), and often negative for the sake of negativity. It took a little time, but we replied to most of them with gentle words along the lines of "thank you for your thoughts and comments; we're a small business trying to do things ethically; gett…

Not dissimilar to HN then :) ‘Show HN’ posts often have a mix of different comparatively negative comments: from the (classic) I could do this quicker/cheaper/easily, alternatives being posted, genuine criticisms (+/- misunderstandings) of the offering, criticism of the underlying website due to choices made around design/fonts/contrast/processor utilisation/JS use… It’s such a nice surprise when there’s a ‘Show HN’…

I value the alternatives - it gets all the tools of the same class on the same page. If I was putting up a "Show HN" post, I'd definitely add all the similar tools I'd found in a follow-up comment.
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