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Our Reddit Ad By The Numbers - Whiteyboard

59 points by jasonwilk 16y ago

patio11 16y ago
With TechCrunch, LifeHacker, New York Times, etc (and any other blog), we usual generate about $1 per unique visitor Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's conversion rates... but darn.
- AlexBlom 16y ago
  Darn is right. I'd love to see an article comparing your stats across each channel.
minalecs 16y ago
good writeup. Concerning Facebook, you just have to be a frequent user of reddit to know about the general dislike of Facebook. In general I find that redditors are more than willing to open their wallets, examples: recently they asked for donations, reddit soap, divvy, and a game developer ( can't think of it now)... just your product wasn't a right fit for the reddit crowd.
- Vindexus 16y ago
  There was a lot of grumbling about the $40 shipping charge to Canada too. I probably would've bought one if the shipping charge didn't more than double my total.
  - mgw 16y ago
    Same here. $40 shipping charge on a $30 purchase really puts me off. Especially on something that is as light as your product. What shipper are you using? Maybe you should give people an option of choosing a slower delivery time for less cost.
aresant 16y ago
I personally had no idea what Whiteyboard was . . . So from fresh eyes - the landing page doesn't do a good job explaining what it is and why it's awesome before hitting me up for $$$. I bet your bounce traffic left in a hurry (sub 2 seconds) yah? I'm sure the reddit ad explained partially, but on that landing page I'd have suggested a really bold headline, summary, picture of use then buy buttons below. . .
- jasonwilk 16y ago
  Actually, our bounce rate is awesome. I agree though, we don't do a stellar job of explaining the product and we are working on a way better commercial. Should we keep the same girl?
  - ars 16y ago
    If you do, please have her practice applying it without bubbles. And get rid of the nails. It looked quite amateurish, and her not really being able to hold it didn't help.
    - BRadmin 16y ago
      Re: the bubbles, that was my first thought too. But actually I liked the way she just threw it on there WITH the bubbles, and how they were easily patted away. Shows how easy perfect installation is - but this should be highlighted as a feature instead of potentially giving viewers a bad perception.
      - mikeyur 16y ago
        "Got some air bubbles? Not a problem, just quickly wipe your hand over the whiteyboard and push the bubbles out. Easy as that." It should definitely be shown off as a feature - everyone has had that frustration when trying to put a screen protector on some device. Also, they say it can be re-applied. So maybe demo putting it on one way and then moving it to another wall or flipping it the other way. And demo on a non-white surface. It looks kinda transparent in the video because it's being stuck on a white background.
adamhowell 16y ago
Jason, mind if I ask what's going on with the footer of http://whiteyboard.com http://whiteyboard.com? It looks, uh, a little sloppy.
- jasonwilk 16y ago
  Ask Alexis Ohanian, he designed it. I like the MS Paint look
  - kn0thing 16y ago
    It's true, I mocked up basically the site you see there in a few minutes in Photoshop, sent the png to Jason and he asked for the PSD... I didn't know he'd actually use the draft as the final version - hehe. It's got a certain charm to it, I suppose...
    - redorb 16y ago
      even though there is a charm; perhaps it's time to up the ante; looks like part of it is scribbles covering something else up :/
      - kn0thing 16y ago
        But you're intrigued enough to see what it is... was that my plan all along?! (it wasn't).
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
alextgordon 16y ago
You should remove the option of a 2x3 foot board completely while it's out of stock, instead of disabling it and writing "Out of Stock". Better yet, A/B test it. My bet is that people are seeing the option they want, saying they'll wait until it's in stock, and then promptly forgetting you ever existed. If there's no better option to wait for, more people will buy one of the other options.
- jasonwilk 16y ago
  I agree. I'm going to test this. Thanks for the tip Alex
- joshu 16y ago
  Better yet, an "Alert me" button instead, collect an email address and notify them later when it's back.
pierrefar 16y ago
What about conversions that take some time to happen? The post didn't explain their typical/average time between first contact and sale. Assuming it's more than the 48 hours they ran this for, this experiment might still get better ROI numbers. Are they tracking this metric? It's an important one!
- jasonwilk 16y ago
  I'm not actually. How do I track this?
  - pierrefar 16y ago
    A really long-life cookie, say a 6 months or more. The concept: on the first visit, give the user a long-life cookie that stores the timestamp of the visit. When a sale happens, check the value of this cookie and store in a database. You can make it more elaborate by storing and analysing referral information, geolocation of the IP address, exact time of day and other things you think might be relevant. Also, if you're doing an A/B test on new visitors, this cookie should also store which version they were shown. This is a more complicated situation as to how you tie it into the A/B testing framework, but it's not hard with a bit of thought based on how you implement it and how you test.
ianbishop 16y ago
I think that the length of the campaign had a lot to do with the substantial difference in numbers. Even though the actual amount of money spent may be the same, I saw the DuckDuckGo advertisements countless number of times. In addition, it also had strong upvotes and positive feedback in the actual comments of the ads. On the other hand, despite browsing reddit for likely a few hours over those dates, I never saw the Whiteyboard ad once.
- jasonwilk 16y ago
  Yes, I was hoping that with a high bid like that, it would have received awesome priority placement. Alternatively, I found out that Reddit accepts whatever bid above $20 per day that you commit and however well the ad does, is up to the readers. At the end of the day, I agree I should have prolonged the campaign, but I wanted to see if a limited deal would have appealed to the readers.
izak30 16y ago
Whiteyboard looks cool. I might have even bought one if it was very apparent that it could stick and re-stick easily. By the time I found that, I was off of the purchase page, and I had decided I didn't actually _need_ it.
dotBen 16y ago
On your blog post you mention that you are keeping the free shipping option up for another day. Given that you will be getting a lot of traffic traffic from HN, I'm wondering what your conversion is from HN traffic alone?
togasystems 16y ago
Did you see an upswing in your invoice requests? I have a e-commerce site and currently do not offer this service. What luck have you found with this?
ekanes 16y ago
Thanks for posting the numbers. Online commerce is interesting in part because it's so darn fickle. I saw your product awhile ago on HN and shrugged. Then just saw it again today, and bought the largest size. I couldn't really tell you a good reason why. If I had to guess, I'd say that "Free shipping" is probably part of it, along with "limited time" but just a couple weeks after seeing your original ad, I have different ideas for office layout, and suddenly your product fit that void nicely. Good luck with it!
artichokeheart 16y ago
Wait. What? You thought that based on the ROI on an ad to get traffic to a website you'd get the same for an ad trying to sell a physical product?
bennysaurus 16y ago
Hi Jason, quite a few of the comments here are pretty constructive. What struck me about the landing page though is the first things I see on the screen are the logo, then an ordering form. What would probably work better for me at least is some more information and some pictures of different examples where it could be really cool (I can imagine using this on my fridge for example). The video is OK, however youtube is banned at many workplaces as well, just a thought - some images wouldn't go astray!
robryan 16y ago
I would put the video above the buy, as well as a static section with an little explanation. As well as something like step 1 - stick, step 2 - write, step 3 remove/restick type thing. Emphasising that it can be easily removed front and centre is a must, that would be my first question once I got what it was. Also being able to get the product at a glance without a video would help. With the right images and writing I could get what the product does and decide if I would be interested in probably 10 seconds as opposed to having to watch a much longer video.
rudasn 16y ago
(unrelated to this discussion) I think if you added some sort of (painted) border around the sticker/whiteboard it would be a better product - people wouldn't have to worry of writing on their walls by accident. You could also have different kind of "borders", resembling a web browser, a computer screen, a notepad or something like that so that its not just a "large overpriced white sticker on the wall".
viggity 16y ago
I've had an overall positive experience with reddit ads. I'd really recommend trying a campaign that is longer than 2 days - say a week or longer but you don't need to spend as much each day and you'll get a lot more unique visitors.

59 points by jasonwilk 16y ago

With TechCrunch, LifeHacker, New York Times, etc (and any other blog), we usual generate about $1 per unique visitor Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's conversion rates... but darn.

AlexBlom 16y ago
Darn is right. I'd love to see an article comparing your stats across each channel.

minalecs 16y ago

good writeup. Concerning Facebook, you just have to be a frequent user of reddit to know about the general dislike of Facebook. In general I find that redditors are more than willing to open their wallets, examples: recently they asked for donations, reddit soap, divvy, and a game developer ( can't think of it now)... just your product wasn't a right fit for the reddit crowd.

Vindexus 16y ago
There was a lot of grumbling about the $40 shipping charge to Canada too. I probably would've bought one if the shipping charge didn't more than double my total.
- mgw 16y ago
  Same here. $40 shipping charge on a $30 purchase really puts me off. Especially on something that is as light as your product. What shipper are you using? Maybe you should give people an option of choosing a slower delivery time for less cost.

aresant 16y ago

I personally had no idea what Whiteyboard was . . . So from fresh eyes - the landing page doesn't do a good job explaining what it is and why it's awesome before hitting me up for $$$. I bet your bounce traffic left in a hurry (sub 2 seconds) yah? I'm sure the reddit ad explained partially, but on that landing page I'd have suggested a really bold headline, summary, picture of use then buy buttons below. . .

jasonwilk 16y ago
Actually, our bounce rate is awesome. I agree though, we don't do a stellar job of explaining the product and we are working on a way better commercial. Should we keep the same girl?
- ars 16y ago
  If you do, please have her practice applying it without bubbles. And get rid of the nails. It looked quite amateurish, and her not really being able to hold it didn't help.
  - BRadmin 16y ago
    Re: the bubbles, that was my first thought too. But actually I liked the way she just threw it on there WITH the bubbles, and how they were easily patted away. Shows how easy perfect installation is - but this should be highlighted as a feature instead of potentially giving viewers a bad perception.
    - mikeyur 16y ago
      "Got some air bubbles? Not a problem, just quickly wipe your hand over the whiteyboard and push the bubbles out. Easy as that." It should definitely be shown off as a feature - everyone has had that frustration when trying to put a screen protector on some device. Also, they say it can be re-applied. So maybe demo putting it on one way and then moving it to another wall or flipping it the other way. And demo on a non-white surface. It looks kinda transparent in the video because it's being stuck on a white background.

adamhowell 16y ago

Jason, mind if I ask what's going on with the footer of http://whiteyboard.com http://whiteyboard.com? It looks, uh, a little sloppy.

jasonwilk 16y ago
Ask Alexis Ohanian, he designed it. I like the MS Paint look
- kn0thing 16y ago
  It's true, I mocked up basically the site you see there in a few minutes in Photoshop, sent the png to Jason and he asked for the PSD... I didn't know he'd actually use the draft as the final version - hehe. It's got a certain charm to it, I suppose...
  - redorb 16y ago
    even though there is a charm; perhaps it's time to up the ante; looks like part of it is scribbles covering something else up :/
    - kn0thing 16y ago
      But you're intrigued enough to see what it is... was that my plan all along?! (it wasn't).
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

alextgordon 16y ago

You should remove the option of a 2x3 foot board completely while it's out of stock, instead of disabling it and writing "Out of Stock". Better yet, A/B test it. My bet is that people are seeing the option they want, saying they'll wait until it's in stock, and then promptly forgetting you ever existed. If there's no better option to wait for, more people will buy one of the other options.

jasonwilk 16y ago
I agree. I'm going to test this. Thanks for the tip Alex
joshu 16y ago
Better yet, an "Alert me" button instead, collect an email address and notify them later when it's back.

pierrefar 16y ago

What about conversions that take some time to happen? The post didn't explain their typical/average time between first contact and sale. Assuming it's more than the 48 hours they ran this for, this experiment might still get better ROI numbers. Are they tracking this metric? It's an important one!

jasonwilk 16y ago
I'm not actually. How do I track this?
- pierrefar 16y ago
  A really long-life cookie, say a 6 months or more. The concept: on the first visit, give the user a long-life cookie that stores the timestamp of the visit. When a sale happens, check the value of this cookie and store in a database. You can make it more elaborate by storing and analysing referral information, geolocation of the IP address, exact time of day and other things you think might be relevant. Also, if you're doing an A/B test on new visitors, this cookie should also store which version they were shown. This is a more complicated situation as to how you tie it into the A/B testing framework, but it's not hard with a bit of thought based on how you implement it and how you test.

ianbishop 16y ago

I think that the length of the campaign had a lot to do with the substantial difference in numbers. Even though the actual amount of money spent may be the same, I saw the DuckDuckGo advertisements countless number of times. In addition, it also had strong upvotes and positive feedback in the actual comments of the ads. On the other hand, despite browsing reddit for likely a few hours over those dates, I never saw the Whiteyboard ad once.

jasonwilk 16y ago
Yes, I was hoping that with a high bid like that, it would have received awesome priority placement. Alternatively, I found out that Reddit accepts whatever bid above $20 per day that you commit and however well the ad does, is up to the readers. At the end of the day, I agree I should have prolonged the campaign, but I wanted to see if a limited deal would have appealed to the readers.

izak30 16y ago

Whiteyboard looks cool. I might have even bought one if it was very apparent that it could stick and re-stick easily. By the time I found that, I was off of the purchase page, and I had decided I didn't actually _need_ it.

dotBen 16y ago

On your blog post you mention that you are keeping the free shipping option up for another day. Given that you will be getting a lot of traffic traffic from HN, I'm wondering what your conversion is from HN traffic alone?

togasystems 16y ago

Did you see an upswing in your invoice requests? I have a e-commerce site and currently do not offer this service. What luck have you found with this?

ekanes 16y ago

Thanks for posting the numbers. Online commerce is interesting in part because it's so darn fickle. I saw your product awhile ago on HN and shrugged. Then just saw it again today, and bought the largest size. I couldn't really tell you a good reason why. If I had to guess, I'd say that "Free shipping" is probably part of it, along with "limited time" but just a couple weeks after seeing your original ad, I have different ideas for office layout, and suddenly your product fit that void nicely. Good luck with it!

artichokeheart 16y ago

Wait. What? You thought that based on the ROI on an ad to get traffic to a website you'd get the same for an ad trying to sell a physical product?

bennysaurus 16y ago

Hi Jason, quite a few of the comments here are pretty constructive. What struck me about the landing page though is the first things I see on the screen are the logo, then an ordering form. What would probably work better for me at least is some more information and some pictures of different examples where it could be really cool (I can imagine using this on my fridge for example). The video is OK, however youtube is banned at many workplaces as well, just a thought - some images wouldn't go astray!

robryan 16y ago

I would put the video above the buy, as well as a static section with an little explanation. As well as something like step 1 - stick, step 2 - write, step 3 remove/restick type thing. Emphasising that it can be easily removed front and centre is a must, that would be my first question once I got what it was. Also being able to get the product at a glance without a video would help. With the right images and writing I could get what the product does and decide if I would be interested in probably 10 seconds as opposed to having to watch a much longer video.

rudasn 16y ago

(unrelated to this discussion) I think if you added some sort of (painted) border around the sticker/whiteboard it would be a better product - people wouldn't have to worry of writing on their walls by accident. You could also have different kind of "borders", resembling a web browser, a computer screen, a notepad or something like that so that its not just a "large overpriced white sticker on the wall".

viggity 16y ago

I've had an overall positive experience with reddit ads. I'd really recommend trying a campaign that is longer than 2 days - say a week or longer but you don't need to spend as much each day and you'll get a lot more unique visitors.