Had a quick idea to validate in 48 hours... here's results
Had an idea on a long drive I decided to validate when I got home. Obviously surges of Coronavirus impacts are still happening and I've seen first hand the impact on brick & mortar business owners and schools. I believe this solution could be viable as things start opening up but need a quick, safe approach to getting back to normal.
Took about 4 hours total to design the app, logo, and site.
(I spent plenty of time picturing it in my head on the drive.)
I launched Facebook ads pretty quickly, two campaigns:
- Targeting small business owners
- Targeting administrators and principals at small schools
In about 24 hours, I had 14k+ impressions and 72 clicks but zero signups.
So I decided to try out Google Ads. Did one campaign using keyword targeting for about 12 hours so far; 112 impressions with 2 clicks, no signups.
I'll keep both sets of ads running through the weekend to see if anything promising!
So far, not much to be excited about from these results. I do think there's an opportunity here but with other projects, not sure ready to put in the real legwork required here since I don't have any direct access to potential customers to validate.
Change it to a coming soon page, get into a bit more detail how it works and collect emails for when you launch. You'd get much more conversion that way
This is just my gut, but I'd say "Request a demo" is one of the harder forms to quickly convert from an ad. Request a demo is usually for some more involved software that required some pre-sales education.
Is there actually an app? There is a user quote on the website but I can't see an app.
Also for me, request a demo has always meant “it’s expensive”.
Agreed, thank you! No, there's no app yet, just the concept I wanted to test before building. I went ahead and updated the CTAs but no takers. I imagine the long form also adds a bit of friction as well.
Yeh, I guess if you're not dealing with a ton of submissions you could cut it down to email and company name. You can get their website, phone and business type from Googling the company.
I think the bigger issue is finding people with genuine intent, people who know they might need something like this. It's the top management of medium to larger, or owner of small to medium places - I guess (not an expert for this industry). And probably only a small portion of those are actively looking for, or able to understand the possible solution you're offering.
I know you're trying to just gauge interest, but it does seem like a good idea. Especially what I'm imaging from the pictures - a very very focussed, light touch app, that can easily be trialled and run alongside existing software.
If you were serious, you could whip up a quick Ionic app and reach out to some industry communities/press for a free beta?
Nice! Thanks for posting this. How much did you invest in the FB ads to get the 14K impressions? And did you decide on a how much you'd be willing to invest on ads to validate?
I work the night shift at a small B&B and we don't have any contact tracing in place. This idea seems like it would be very suitable for us.
It was about $50 I think, currently at 23k impressions for $74 with 109 click-throughs. Love the B&B idea -- any thoughts on targeting/validating businesses similar to that?
Your CPM seems remarkably low for facebook at around $3. I have only seen this low of a CPM for brand awareness campaigns. Is that the campaign type that you used. If so, then it is not surprising that no one signed up because FB is just trying to maximize impressions, which is almost always the opposite of maximizing conversions
Getting this feeling as well... I can see FB users liking the post that don't quite match my criteria... hmmm....
Set up some facebook pixel on the site and set up a lead event for submitting the sign up form and optimize for that event. You will see very different results
Thanks for the spend data. I don't have much hospitality industry experience, but I'd think you could target hotels/motels/inns etc. on FB. I'm kind of surprised we aren't required to have contact tracing in place, from both a regulatory and liability perspective.
Interesting idea! Do you know if businesses are using any other tools right now or just keeping track manually?
Only one I'm familiar with is density.io but I have seen a few others that are very-much hardware based, probably much more expensive. This was more of an every day solution for small businesses.
Hey Nick,
I would try adding some details about the product and a shorter contact form to help increase your Conversion rate.
Curious to see the results of your campaigns :)
Best,
Elliot