Paid Advertising For User Acquisition

I did this recently when we were pre-product and trying to get people to sign up for a newsletter. Main goal was to use it to validate the product concept. Followed roughly some of the steps in this post: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1IrUh1i3JkZdoHe-Yi9TMiWkK14v7jybRpDCW9JbTGSM/edit#slide=id.g7d9079614d_0_14

We tested ads against two different landing pages, and were able to refine messaging, test which keyword targets worked/didn't work for our product, along with acquire initial users. We kept a strict budget ($100 a day for 7 days on all platforms) since the goal was validation as much as user acquistion.

I agree with others that you should focus on organic growth early, but a small ad spend can be a good way to do some validation, and kickstart some initial users.

1. [At Pre-Product-Market-Fit stage to accelerate learning] If you want to accelerate your Build-Measure-Learn cycle to get to Product-Market-Fit faster (google it https://www.google.com/search?q=build+measure+learn&oq=build+measure+learn)

2. [When you have a Product-Market-Fit to accelerate growth] If your k-factor is >1 (what's k-factor? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-factor_(marketing)).

It depends on your product, market, business model, target market, etc but the above two points should be useful when you make your decision.

You can start with it too.