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"I wonder who is signing a 20mm contract that started from a YouTube ad??" This is just a super common misconception among engineers that advertising is a very

by jsonne 7y ago

"I wonder who is signing a 20mm contract that started from a YouTube ad??" This is just a super common misconception among engineers that advertising is a very linear thing. Most ads are not direct response. Most of the time they're just trying to keep at the top of mind for specific groups of folks. So yeah you aren't going to just run out and buy a 20 million dollar piece of software because of a Youtube ad, but when it comes time to buy a solution in that space I bet you'll consider that product. When you think about the scale that this works at (It costs maybe a penny a view or $10 per thousand people reached) you really only need to hit 1 person at the right time across many millions upon millions of impressions to make it worth while. That's all. Many people just don't appreciate the scale of advertising and think it's more sniper rifle rather than carpet bombing especially for large B2B purchases.

pizzaparty2 7y ago
Does a sniper rifle ever work? It sounds like ads aren't a good choice for an upstart with a new product (which is what I hope to be). Are there advertising channels better suited to people like myself?
- jsonne 7y ago
  It can work it's just harder. If you're looking to advertise and you have a limited budget I would suggest Google search ads. Honestly though with limited budget you're likely better suited to doing some combination of PR + SEO + Content marketing and using the cash you would have spent on ads to enhance those efforts. Once you've got your funnel figured out then you can expand into paid advertising.
- michaelbuckbee 7y ago
  Reddit advertising is pretty close to a "sniper rifle" (you target based on subreddits). It's cheap to get going and very respectful of the privacy and tracking of users. I think it's not used more by big-co's because it's relatively a small audience.
  - jsonne 7y ago
    I actually have one of the top of all time posts on r/redditads (their advertiser support subreddit) and have done a number of how to guides for Reddit ads. I'm a big fan, but honestly most larger companies don't use it yet because 1. They don't have a very sophisticated platform. It's a ton of work to do simple tasks and the analytics etc aren't particularly insightful.Media buyers and PPC specialists time is at a premium already so it's hard to justify adding in yet another platform that doesn't scale super well. 2. Reddit users are pretty hostile to ads still. 3. The traffic quality is a bit all over. Very high bounce, very high instance of ublock etc. so tracking is hard. That said the CPC is super cheap so it works out overall but some people get freaked out about the traffic. Like I said I really like it but they have a ways to go to attract more mainstream users.

by jsonne 7y ago

pizzaparty2 7y ago

Does a sniper rifle ever work? It sounds like ads aren't a good choice for an upstart with a new product (which is what I hope to be). Are there advertising channels better suited to people like myself?

jsonne 7y ago
It can work it's just harder. If you're looking to advertise and you have a limited budget I would suggest Google search ads. Honestly though with limited budget you're likely better suited to doing some combination of PR + SEO + Content marketing and using the cash you would have spent on ads to enhance those efforts. Once you've got your funnel figured out then you can expand into paid advertising.
michaelbuckbee 7y ago
Reddit advertising is pretty close to a "sniper rifle" (you target based on subreddits). It's cheap to get going and very respectful of the privacy and tracking of users. I think it's not used more by big-co's because it's relatively a small audience.
- jsonne 7y ago
  I actually have one of the top of all time posts on r/redditads (their advertiser support subreddit) and have done a number of how to guides for Reddit ads. I'm a big fan, but honestly most larger companies don't use it yet because 1. They don't have a very sophisticated platform. It's a ton of work to do simple tasks and the analytics etc aren't particularly insightful.Media buyers and PPC specialists time is at a premium already so it's hard to justify adding in yet another platform that doesn't scale super well. 2. Reddit users are pretty hostile to ads still. 3. The traffic quality is a bit all over. Very high bounce, very high instance of ublock etc. so tracking is hard. That said the CPC is super cheap so it works out overall but some people get freaked out about the traffic. Like I said I really like it but they have a ways to go to attract more mainstream users.