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

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

#161

Post by antisthenes »

duxup wrote: post #126
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…

>"I could do this 3x cheaper myself" Such an easy thing to say. Then when I say it and think "I really just need a little bit of what this does, and this API is kinda complicated for that." and I go and start creating the thing it evolves and changes and "Hey this looks a lot like that complicated API ... ooooooohhhhh I see why that is what it is... this is going to take a long while." It's just so easy to boil down…

"I could do this 3x cheaper myself if I set my hourly rate at 0$/hour" is a more accurate description of reality.

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

#162

Post by TeMPOraL »

hzzhdev wrote: post #105
mft_ wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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’…

A buddy of mine actually shared his product on Show HN and I was worried he would more or less get dumped on because I know how the HN crowd can be so negative towards stuff. To my surprise the feedback was actually very supportive and any criticism he received was constructive and not hateful.

Truth is, you're more likely to get positive feedback if you're posting something genuine or at least useful. Negativity is often a (justified) response to ads, marketing fluff, and lazy attempts at "growth hacking".

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

#163

Post by ncallaway »

jollofricepeas wrote: post #152
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…

The first rule in enterprise sales is that the first human reaction will always be “No.” The former CEO of Routeware before he sold it to Vista Equity Partners said that he required his sales team to secure three clear “No’s” for each buyer within an organization before fully disqualifying a lead. So if you’re selling to a “software architect” and the CTO has to provide the final sign off. - three no’s from the archi…

Wow, that would piss me the fuck off.

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

#164

Post by j45 »

hzzhdev wrote: post #105
mft_ wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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’…

A buddy of mine actually shared his product on Show HN and I was worried he would more or less get dumped on because I know how the HN crowd can be so negative towards stuff. To my surprise the feedback was actually very supportive and any criticism he received was constructive and not hateful.

Unless the HN crowd is the customer base the feedback can be relative anyways.

Lots of people don’t end up shipping and sometimes the allergic reaction to someone else shipping says more about the commenter than what’s being shared.

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

#165

Post by cm2012 »

nico wrote: post #148
cm2012 wrote: post #138

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…

What’s your secret for LinkedIn? Everyone I know who’s ever tried Ads there has gotten little or no conversions at all, while spending a ton of money (LI advertising is expensive!)

Have a great offer (get a demo is not enough), try conversation and newsfeed ads, work with a contractor who knows it. Expect to spend 10 to 20k testing though. Not for low budgets.

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

#166

Post by TeMPOraL »

kortilla wrote: post #86
22289d wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> That culture is damned effective at filtering out bullshit and bad actors and getting to the facts. Lol, that’s not at all what the culture is good at. It’s an internet mob with famous examples of false accusations, doxxing and harassment. Any subreddit that isn’t severely moderated is gamed by people who know how to appeal to the local crowd. Being cynical and anti-business is not about “getting to the facts”. It…

> Lol, that’s not at all what the culture is good at. It’s an internet mob with famous examples of false accusations, doxxing and harassment.

You're both wrong :). There is no "Reddit culture"; on Reddit, culture is scoped to a subreddit. You and GP are likely hanging out on different kinds of subreddits - but if your experience is that of "an internet mob with famous examples of false accusations, doxxing and harassment", I strongly suggest you rethink which subreddits you follow. Yes, they probably need a different type of marketing, but they're probably also not worth it for technical products.

> Being cynical and anti-business is not about “getting to the facts”.

It's hard to tell, because cynicism and healthy realism overlap nearly 100% when it comes to modern business.

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

#167

Post by TeMPOraL »

ncallaway wrote: post #163
jollofricepeas wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first rule in enterprise sales is that the first human reaction will always be “No.” The former CEO of Routeware before he sold it to Vista Equity Partners said that he required his sales team to secure three clear “No’s” for each buyer within an organization before fully disqualifying a lead. So if you’re selling to a “software architect” and the CTO has to provide the final sign off. - three no’s from the archi…

Wow, that would piss me the fuck off.

I hope they're counting each individual instance of a "no", so that if I say "no" three times during the same cold call, they'll GTFO and never call again.

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

#169

Post by collyw »

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…

Redditors are a cancer on society. Terrible people.

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

#170

Post by adra »

dale_glass wrote: post #64
Lutger wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yes, but it can work in the opposite direction as well. Eg, all the Youtube ads of NordVPN only did was to convince me that if I'm ever in the market, I'll use someone else. Part because all that advertising has to cost a lot of money, which of course the subscription has to pay for. Part because some of their advertising is less than completely honest about what they provide.

Apparently VPNs are stupidly high margins so the more lemmings to convert, the more pockets lined.
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