

Ask HN: Spent two thousand dollars on adwords and got zero sign ups, now what? - eduardordm

Hi!<p>I spent two thousand dollars on adwords and got zero sign ups. I did this pretty much to A/B test two landing pages, obviously I couldn't get any useful data of it because no one signed up. Also, it was my intention to get a couple of users help us improve the app.<p>Even though I founded a startup before, it wasn't a web app and we physically reached potential  customers. That said, how does a web startup can get someone to signup without reaching to them individually?
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kerryfalk
_obviously I couldn't get any useful data_

I think you did get useful data:

 _Spent two thousand dollars on adwords and got zero sign ups_

With that, now you have to figure out why. There are two paths to explore:

1) Your product doesn't meet the needs of the market. It's not
useful/valuable. 2) Your messaging doesn't properly communicate the value of
your product to the market. So they couldn't understand why they'd need/want
it and left.

Figure out which one of those is the case (could be both!) and keep marching.

~~~
ScottWhigham
I would disagree. You left off (3) Your marketing was so far off as to not
reach your target audience. To me that seems the most likely answer.

~~~
xvolter
Also, it could simply that both (or all) pages were poor and you need create a
new one. Or simply that the hits you may have gotten were fake, useless or
otherwise clickjacked to go to your website by other people advertising their
websites trying to simply increase their "ad clicks" to make money.

For A/B testing, organic results work best, AdWords truly is just to get your
number of hits up and maybe get ranked on search engines - but it's unlikely
anything useful comes from it.

~~~
OafTobark
_AdWords truly is just to get your number of hits up and maybe get ranked on
search engines - but it's unlikely anything useful comes from it._

Sounds like a person who never really did anything on Adwords.

~~~
xvolter
The majority of services I create are designed for heavy Internet consumers -
not for the average consumer. Therefore, most the people I am targeting use
AdBlocks - so I have never found use in AdWords except to rank up hits.

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kapitalx
The building managers, hired by the condo owners, are the ones that would
decide to use a product like this.

\- The building managers have to justify the cost and run it past the board.
They often have some leeway in costs, so this might fall under the amount that
needs approval. You need to find that price.

\- The building managers also have to show that they are improving the
community, and resolving owner issues. You want to demonstrate to the building
managers that by adding condoly, they can show the owners that they are
improving things.

\- And finally, most condo communities might not know that this is a problem.
You have to go and convince them. My condo building for example uses Yahoo
Groups, which is terrible.

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manuscreationis
If I had to take a stab in the dark, I'm picturing your target audience being
someone who owns and manages their condo (not the individual tenants) or a
number of condos.

If I had to further guess, these probably aren't the kinds of people who are
very technologically savvy, and thus are very unlikely to find your service
(even through google awords), let alone realize the potential and why they'd
need it.

You say you had a startup before where you physically got in touch with
potential customers... this may be the case for another approach like that.

You might consider setting up a demo where you show them an example of a
"Condo" already running in your system, the benefits, etc etc, then show them
how to get set up on their own. In other words, show them why they'd want to
sign up, then show them how easy to get going it is.

But you might still be a step before that process, if you feel you need to
improve the app a bit (which is something you'll always need to focus on,
anyways). Maybe try reaching out to some people who own / manage condos in
your area, explain the service, and offer them a free trial. Draw up some
promotional material to give to their tenants, explaining how this will help
them get things done, meet neighbors, etc etc, to help those people get going
with the system, and then keep a constant and frequent feedback loop with all
of them.

Best of luck!

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throwaway1979
Your site looks decent. Can you share details on your click through rates? How
many people visited your page?

That said, I think there is a weird problem going on. If I am a tenet, this
site is useless to me ... unless my apartment community is registered already.
If I were you, the first step would be to focus primarily on apartment
management. The website is geared towards apartment tenets (on a quick look).
For example, instead of boasting that tenants can file complaints (not fun for
management), try to stress how management would benefit (instant way to
communicate with your residents). My current apartment has a site that lets us
pay our rent. Previous apartment had a site for getting notifications about
packages. We never used that feature and both websites are pretty dull. I
think your site looks much prettier than those! Best of luck!

~~~
eduardordm
0,21% CTR , max of U$ 2.56 per click, 2953 clicks

~~~
ScottWhigham
Those are terrible, terrible metrics. The first question I'd be asking myself
if, "With these numbers, why did we let the test keep going so long (3000
clicks)?" It seems like it would've been clear about 1000 impressions that
your CTR was awful. That's a huge indicator that something is amiss.

These are the kind of numbers that imply that "the keywords that your ad was
actually shown for" were not in line with "the keywords you thought your ad
would get shown for".

Have you looked at the keywords that actually triggered your ad?

~~~
throwaway1979
I'm learning about AdWords myself (I just started reading Brad Geddes' book
Advanced Google Adwords). Is part of the problem that his max bid per click
too high? If you can suggest a site/resources to learn more on what constitute
good/bad Adword metrics, that would be most helpful to me (and hopefully the
parent poster as well).

~~~
ScottWhigham
"Is part of the problem that his max bid per click too high?"

That's not my guess. My thinking is that he's using broad match keywords and
they are getting auto-expanded by google into search terms that he doesn't
realize he's bidding on.

Let's say, for example, that you bid $5 per click on "condos new york" as a
broad match. Google might show your ad for "apartments manhattan" because they
are, in Google's algorithm, "close enough". That will lead to two things:

1) A super low CTR (of course people who are searching for apartments in
Manhattan aren't clicking ads for New York Condos)

2) The yahoos that do actually click the ad are just more of the "Hmmm... let
me tire kick" variety.

------
codegeek
"without reaching to them individually?"

Thank about this. How many people are really searching for "social networking
for condo". Why is that so important for someone to google etc? People usually
search for fun items or pain points. Social network for condo does not seem to
be either one of them (to me at least).

I think you are undermining the importance of reaching out to prospective
customers directly/individually. Web app or not, if you can talk to sample
customers (may be start with your own condo community), you will get a decent
idea.

Adwords _might_ get you a few sign-ups if you are lucky especially in the
beginning of your startup but honestly, just talk directly to your potential
customers if you can.

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OafTobark
I have lived in several condos in the past and albeit this is just me and I'm
not representative of the larger demographic out there, I can honestly say the
idea is completely useless to me. I don't care for this kind of stuff. That's
probably why no leads converted.

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mkr-hn
Try targeting a specific city (or neighborhood, if possible) where your target
demographic (wealthy, tech-savvy) lives.

For example, Silicon Valley. Though you might be better off targeting a place
with high population density (more condos), like NYC or Tokyo. Restrict the
language to English if you don't plan to translate everything. And you'll get
a trickle of traffic that will rarely convert, because this is a very tiny
niche of people who are used to connecting with others in their condo face-to-
face and won't see the point.

That $2000 could have been spent recruiting business owners in wealthy
sections of large cities to put brochures on their counters.

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materialhero
What does the site actually do? That's my biggest question! Nobody likes
signing up for a service without knowing what they will get and how much it
will cost. I would add two more pages: 1 that shows screenshots and describes
the benefits to potential users, and another with pricing charts. I would also
replace the video with some descriptors. I, personally can't watch video at
work and if this is the main source of information, your cutting anyone
without sound out of your potential user base.

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nickff
I think this would be extremely useful for managers of apartment buildings, as
well as strata managers in the case of condos. These two groups are the real
target market, because they would be the primary beneficiaries of the product,
they enforce use, and they pay for it. I would guess that none of them saw the
site.

I like the idea, but I don't see how it is a "social network", it seems more
like a planning tool or combination forum and scheduling tool. A combination
of outlook and reddit.

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helen842000
I think the keywords you used needed to be cut down. You don't want to get
just any clicks. Every click you pay for needs to be from people searching for
exactly what you're offering.

If you want me to take a look through your keyword list drop me an e-mail. You
should be able to get 1-5 sign ups in your first 100 clicks. If you don't -
it's time to pause the campaign, re-work your landing page & try again until
conversions get better & better.

------
sharemywin
Why not reach them individually. You need feedback from them anyway. You
probably shouldn't write a line of code without 5-10 users. Interview them
offer them $25 gift cards whatever it takes to get inside there mind. What's
there biggest pain? what software do they use now? what's wrong with it? what
do they wish was automated? how do they spend most of their day?

------
lucisferre
You say you get people physically before, why are you not taking that approach
for your first customers now? I highly recommend checking some of Steve
Blank's online courses as well as the Startup Owner's manual. These discus the
need to do customer development and to literally "get out of the building" and
talk to you first potential customers.

------
masnick
Can you post a URL? It's hard speculate without some background on what you're
doing and how you're doing it.

~~~
eduardordm
<https://condoly.com>

~~~
robmclarty
Brand credibility can be hurt by simple things like grammar: "With Condoly
it's easy to manager your condominium..."

~~~
eduardordm
I hired wordly.com to do all the copy. I made the mistake of not checking
their work afterwards.

Thanks a lot

~~~
OafTobark
I think you're spending too much money (just base on this and the adwords
campaign) and less on being scrappy and getting as much done yourself as
possible.

------
codegeek
What does "useful social network for your condo" mean ? I honestly do not
understand. Are you saying that this tool helps you to connect and share
_things_ with people in your condo community ? something like that?

~~~
eduardordm
Thanks! That should imply that is a private social network that offers useful
functionality needed by most condos. I also think that sentence is awkward.

~~~
codegeek
"useful functionality needed by most condos"

Try to make your tagline more specific by talking about this useful
functionality. I understand that there could be many functionalities but the
tagline should get _me_ the visitor on your page interested if I own/rent/live
in a condo. So what could do say to get my interest ?

~~~
robmclarty
I agree. Define "useful functionality needed by most condos". From what I
could glean from the site I don't see an added value over and above a condo-
specific Facebook or G+ page. I assume there must be some great condo-specific
functionality, but what is it? Otherwise, as a visitor, I'd rather just use
what I already have and not create yet another username/password to keep track
of.

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nkurz
On what sites did the Google Ads appear? In my limited testing, I found that
unless you explicitly limit exposure to selected venues, the majority of the
click throughs will be accidental or fraudulent. Given the very small niche
you are aiming for, it wouldn't surprise me if none of those who clicked were
legitimate leads.

As others have said, you got lots of useful data: paying per click for ads on
the internet is probably not a good way to spend your advertising dollars.
Don't repeat the test at this scale until you have a theory on how you have
fixed this.

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karolisd
Do you live in a condo? Have you tried getting your neighbors to sign up?
Isn't this something you can try to build up by going condo to condo locally
and get feedback to improve the product?

~~~
eduardordm
I do live in a condo, we cannot launch in my country before we get the LLC
fully operational. (Still waiting a permit)

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simantel
Once you were a few hundred dollars in without getting any sign ups, why did
you keep going?

Have you gone out and talked to building owners/managers? Do you know who your
customer is?

~~~
mkr-hn
I can imagine a campaign that's too broad and pays too much for clicks hitting
$2000 before AdWords gets around to updating the numbers.

~~~
pdenya
Seems unlikely unless the $2000 was spent in minutes.

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eduardordm
Also, this was kind of a impulse buy. My initial idea was to use facebook for
ads but the ad is still 'pending review' (for 2 days) so I just went to
adwords.

I bet there are a lot of cases like mine, where people just give up waiting on
facebook to review their ads.

With stocks at 22 dollars I don't think FB can afford loosing any customer at
all.

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sharemywin
Also, maybe you need to target your adwords keywords. remove the password.
Offer something just to get their email.

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thiagodotfm
Kill the project, people hate any social network that isn't a major one like
facebook or twitter.

