

LaunchBit Launches Email Ad Network - FluidDjango
http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/14/launchbit-launch/

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kposehn
Testing this out right now. I've been buying email traffic for years and one
of the biggest hurdles has been getting the best targeting possible.

I doubt that they will be able to duly compete with the major bulk mailers
(Reliant, etc.) but they look to be providing a good option for targeted ads
inside current lists and distros.

Suggestions:

1\. Finer category targeting 2\. Conversion tracking (gimme!) 3\. Let me
upload ads with tracking url's before making a campaign 4\. Let me choose down
to the newsletter if possible (I do understand this entails some risk)

Outside that, looks interesting and I'll be testing a chunk of my testing
budget here.

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hippo33
Thanks -- let me know if you have any qs and would love your feedback:
elizabeth [at] launchbit. Re: #1 and #2, what we have right now is just the
beginning. We certainly have a lot more work to do re: these two pts. #3: you
can add tracking urls. Is there something that you see is a blocking pt from
using a tracking url? we also automatically add GA tags if you use Google
Analytics. #4: the newsletter directory that we're rolling out over the next
few days is part of the answer to this. a # of people have asked for this --
stay tuned.

~~~
kposehn
Consider yourself pinged :)

And thanks for the quick reply! Looking forward to making some
cash/money/flow/bank/scrilla

;)

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twakefield
Congrats guys. We've had a few Mailgun customers ask about a service like this
so we'll be sending them your way.

We may want to implement a tighter integration going forward, as well.

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hippo33
thanks @twakefield! yep -- def want to talk :) elizabeth [at] launchbit

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timjahn
Woot! We've been a beta tester of LaunchBit for a while now and their team has
been super communicative. Excited to see them continue to evolve!

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hippo33
thanks so much for all of your ongoing feedback and support, Tim!

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bemmu
Signed up to try it as an advertiser. $300 minimum spend made me reconsider.

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kposehn
You'll find this minimum spend, or minimum deposit, to be typical in
advertising outside of Google.

These minimums are often in place to make sure you spend enough - and get
enough clicks, to have statistically significant data in order to make a
decision. At a $3 CPC that would give you 100 clicks, about the minimum you
would need to know if you even moved the needle.

In general, when testing a platform or medium you need to dedicate $1-3k to
testing. With an email distribution, you often need to push even more. If you
stop running your ads before you have enough data to make a decision, you will
miss out on most opportunities.

For example, I ran a campaign on one of the major RTB platforms about 2 months
ago with a $500 minimum deposit. The campaign got about 650 clicks at a $0.94
CPC costing me $611 in one day. I grossed $434 in total, for a $177 loss.

However, this told me something: this campaign could be a winner eventually.

I kept at it, capping my spend at $1k/day. Within 5 days I was spending ~$900
and grossing ~$2k+. The campaign ran for about 6 more days before the offer I
was running expired (limited time deal with the client).

Basic stats were this:

$19,434 revenue

($10,340) spend

\---------------

$9,094 profit

If I had paused out the gate I wouldn't have found the sites and ad creative
that succeeded. This is typical in online advertising and why very few players
manage to stay in the game: you have to have staying power and the will to
keep at it, not to mention the credit.

Be careful when dismissing that minimum spend - if you aren't willing to test,
you will rarely ever find the success.

_Note: I'm not some big player in this industry, but I have found my methods
and have a better ROI than most, allowing me to compete where others often
can't. Yay :)_

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ryanwaggoner
I would love to chat about this if you could spare me a few minutes. Can you
email me at ryan@dailypath.com?

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AJ007
Why is this a jpeg? <http://www.launchbit.com/marketplace/>

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dsr_
This sort of thing is why I don't read HTML email by default.

There might be people who want advertisements in their email that they didn't
explicitly ask for (explicit: NewEgg's daily sale announcement) but I don't
think I know any of them.

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kposehn
You aren't exactly the target market then ;)

In my experience, tech savvy readers do have html on but only respond to well
designed, catchy and succinct ads or CTAs. CTR is often 1%+ to a well targeted
and scrubbed list, with a very high EPC, so it is definitely worth it for
advertisers like me to have an accessible platform.

The issue is reach - ideally, I want to hit 5-10mm people in a drop to a large
list, but with a narrowly targeted list set I can probably get a better ROI,
thus why I'm testing Launchbit.

