Is a Growth Hacker necessary to run social ads?
Hi all,
The title is quite broad, but in essence: I'm looking to scale my ecommerce (sustainable apparel) startup by spending a few hundred dollars a week on FB/IG and Google Shopping ads.
Do I need to retain the services of a growth hacker, marketer, or agency to do this; or, is it something I am better handling myself?
For context: I have a sound knowledge of Analytics and the framework of campaigns, and have the technical ability to design, write copy, etc. It's more a question of whether a growth marketer's experience is invaluable at this early stage?
I hope this makes sense, and look forward to a discussion.
- a long time lurker
I think a specialised performance marketer with knowledge about the specific ads platform could create better performing ads. They would also free you up to do other things. But its definitely going to be more expensive.
I'd say if you have the time and your ads are converting well, then do it yourself.
If you don't have time but enough money then go with a specialist.
I think you're looking for a growth marketer, not a growth hacker (these last ones are the guys who build stuff that Uber, Dropbox, AirBNB used to scale). Growth marketers are just marketers who are focused on getting high ROIs on campaigns.
Do you need someone to do it for you? Well, not necessarily. You can do most of this yourself but it does take some work to set everything up. A growth marketer can help you take a lot of shortcuts since they already have experience with setting things up (which means you'll save a lot of cash because you can skip making some mistakes).
To be honest, it's invaluable. With most ad networks, it takes a lot of time to learn how it works and how to do things quickly. Instead of hiring a growth marketer to set up everything, you could chose to instead get 2-3 hours of consulting to get some good feedback, get some insights on what to focus on/what to not do, and go from there.
In reality, all these ad networks are designed to be as easy as possible for anyone to launch ads. But, they're not designed for everybody to run profitable campaigns. In the end, these ad networks are built to make money for the provider, not for the advertiser.
So combining your own experience with learning a lot of things quickly from someone who is experienced setting up ads, will ultimately help you go much faster and run more profitable campaigns.
No, one isn't necessary to run social ads; but one is necessary to free you up to do what you do. We all only have 24 hours in each day, so, oftentimes, a division of labor is the most effective method for (literally) growing.