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)

#191

Post by TeMPOraL » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 5:23 PM UTC

bob33212 wrote: post #185

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…

"We find null and empty values in your tables and Excel files and prompt your users to fix them" sounds like a 10 dollar idea. How are you going to get employees and investors to really jump on board with that. "We revolutionize Enterprise Data Quality with next generation AI in the cloud" sounds better to employees, investors, and in some cases buyers

This is how extreme waste is created in this industry.

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

#192

Post by wusatiuk » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 5:38 PM UTC

Thank you very much for sharing your experience with HN. From my own point of view (as the CEO of a performance marketing agency working with Google Ads & clients budgets daily) I have to add, that this are learnings your agency should have protected you from.

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

#193

Post by ggggtez » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 6:47 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #67

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…

> Don't get too fancy with your taglines. People don't have time to understand what you are saying. People don't like fancy terminologies except for what is popular. It's worse than that. And it's my pet peeve about many startup landing pages these days. It's not like people don't have time to understand - there's nothing there to understand ! "Full stack adaptive delivery" is a near-meaningless phrase. It can be con…

I would not have guess that "full stack adaptive delivery" means cloud storage.

Maybe pay that $50k to a consultant to fix your copy.

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

#194

Post by igordebatur » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 8:12 PM UTC

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…

Hi there, just to clarify, the article is from 2018 and what we're looking at right now is a post re-publish with the "2019" addition. Back then, the main page looked something like that http://web.archive.org/web/20180802025742/https://uploadcare...

The "Adaptive Delivery" is the new technology we're currently testing copy for. Actually, we can also discuss the best explainers for "we analyze user context and tailor media content accordingly with our Image Transformations CDN API, serve it from Akamai." The full-stack thing is there to "show" we're leveraging the complete Uploadcare pipeline for just one line of code implementing the "adaptive behavior".

You provide your image URL It gets fetched to Uploadcare via reverse proxy Once it's there, it gets to our storage and is cached on CDN layers Then we analyze the page layout and tell the API which image version we want exactly API produces the version It gets served personalized to your every end-client session

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

#195

Post by anonu » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 8:26 PM UTC

igordebatur wrote: post #194

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…

Hi there, just to clarify, the article is from 2018 and what we're looking at right now is a post re-publish with the "2019" addition. Back then, the main page looked something like that http://web.archive.org/web/20180802025742/https://uploadcare... The "Adaptive Delivery" is the new technology we're currently testing copy for. Actually, we can also discuss the best explainers for "we analyze user context and tailor…

Still feels like you're not taking shripadk's advice. Even complex things should be dumbed down. If a potential customer is interested they will click further.

I'm guilty of this as an engineer in a startup. Engineers thrive on the details. But users don't care too much. They just want the service.

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

#196

Post by WWLink » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 9:28 PM UTC

bob33212 wrote: post #185

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…

"We find null and empty values in your tables and Excel files and prompt your users to fix them" sounds like a 10 dollar idea. How are you going to get employees and investors to really jump on board with that. "We revolutionize Enterprise Data Quality with next generation AI in the cloud" sounds better to employees, investors, and in some cases buyers

So you're saying that there's a lot of con artists out there? No surprise really lol.

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

#197

Post by comment_guy » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 10:31 PM UTC

Am I the only person who remembers this site from like 2 years ago and looks at it today and doesn't see the same site? Seriously, it looks like a parody of a startup now. Also, I notice that basically nobody puts their side project there anymore, and I bet this "new approach" is why. OP, you fucked up, go back to being indiehackers and dump this bullshit you're trying now.

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

#198

Post by A_Parr » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 11:59 PM UTC

antaviana wrote: post #154

cosmodisk wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few weeks ago had a call from a saleswoman,after multiple failed attempts ( she called a few people in the company until finally someone transferred across) she managed to talk to me. I get a fair share of emails,calls and LinkedIn messages because of my title- everybody is trying to sell. So I thought 'screw this, let's see what she's got to say'. After her intro, and me asking a number of questions,I was still no…

That reminds me a Dilbert strip: Salesman: "We provide win-win situations and customer-focused solutions." Dilbert: "But, what is the product or service that you actually sell?" Salesman: "We don't sell, we partner."

The salesman exploits quantum physics by keeping what their company does in superposition until you collapse the waveform by revealing what you're willing to pay for. Instantly a developer at that company gets a bad feeling about something, but doesn't know what, until their manager walks over with a note from sales. They then retroactively do a bunch of work to have a deliverable by the next quarter.

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

#199

Post by smoyer » Sun, Jan 26, 2020, 12:30 AM UTC

davedx wrote: post #3

Interesting... > "...a customer acquisition cost way above one-third of customer lifetime value" Is this really so terrible? As I understand it a lot of mobile games pay more for acquisition than they'll make from the user in e.g. IAP's to scale up their player base and climb the charts. What is a normal CPA vs LTV in the SaaS space? Also, if you pay less to acquire these customers than you will make from them over t…

I saw that and assumed that the $50k wasn't actually wasted ... they just ended up with a cohort of customers that wasn't as profitable (unless of course the cost of maintaining those customers exceeds the other 2/3rds of their LTV).

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

#200

Post by dchichkov » Sun, Jan 26, 2020, 1:13 AM UTC

pillefitz wrote: post #175

dchichkov wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Who knows, could be a global optimum. Plausible theory could be - extreme frustration promotes memory formation ;) Or something ;)