I think @Gabe's comment below is pretty spot on. Presumably there wouldn't be a problem if they weren't bidding on your brand name. If they were bidding for "software to do XYZ", and they were competing with you, that's one thing - although that could also be counter to your best interests.
Having AppSumo bidding on your brand name is like hiring a salesman to do door-to-door sales, and then him just standing in front of your store and selling there instead. Those people would have been purchasing from you anyways, no? Why lose a ridiculous percentage to that salesman then?
Don't want to nitpick the analogy, but Google isn't your storefront. Still, the issue is with Google, not with Appsumo, who has paid for the right to do this both in (I'd assume) the contact and in the fact that they've invest millions to build their audience and created an arbitrage for folks the the OP.
They invested millions to build their audience, sure. But in this case, they're paying Google for traffic that is already looking for the brand they're promoting? That's not the same as utilizing their own audience.
But thats the point. No one is searching for this brand. If it weren't for the AppSumo deal, you wouldn't find them until page 2. AppSumo, if anything, is doing them a solid.
That is not correct. The tweet shows AppSumo advertising on a branded search. I searched for the brand name myself and the actual website is the second result.
There's nothing wrong with AppSumo running ad campaigns for related terms. The problem is targeting ads to people searching for your brand name and siphoning off people that would have visited your site anyway. There's a reason most affiliate arrangement prohibit this. As someone who just added their product to AppSumo, this makes me nervous.
Also, I think it's uncool that Google Ads lets others (e.g. competitors) bid on your company's name which then pushes your organic search result down the page.
oh man, don't get the basecamp guys started on that. But google makes sooo much money letting competitors advertise against brand names. Never change without legislation.
Yeah, I think I remember the basecamp incident about that.
Interestingly, I just googled "basecamp" as well as a bunch of other brand names like asana, trello, jira, slack and I don't see any ads. I wonder if google changed their policy around this?
Anyway, I'm glad @DavisBaer brought this up. I was on the fence about using AppSumo in the future, but now I definitely will not.
But what if the company isn't even on the first page for it's brand name? Odeum.io ranks anywhere from 5th to 14th for that term (at least from all the SEO research I can see).
Appsumo is giving them their only placement (for free, and likely Odeum makes some $$ on the sales) on the first page of Google.
At all the businesses I've worked for in the past (including two indiehacker businesses), we've always been the #1 seo term for our brand. But maybe that's less common for indiehacker businesses that are just starting out.
I suppose if you're ok with AppSumo's practice, then go for it. But I personally am not.
Perhaps AppSumo should provide the option of whether you want them to bid on your branded keywords.
There is only one moment in the life of a project/ saas where a Lifetime deal makes sense,
when you start and have no existing customers , it brings in a nice group of beta testers willing to pay for it , it can validate your project fast. decent existing MRR ? don't think about it
Is your brand name trademarked? If so, you can at least stop them using your brand name in the ad.
My biggest worry here would not be that they might be taking prospective new customers, but they might also be taking existing MRR away from you as existing customers spot the cheaper lifetime deal.
No you can't stop them from using your brand. Your service or trademark usage and ownership needs to be addressed, yes, but there usage of your brand through their channel is contractually licensed to them as part off the agreement.
Really fricken' ugly man. Really ugly, and I'm not talking about AppSumo either...
I dunno if you're aware @DavisBaer , but when I receive an email from Indiehackers and want to join and contribute to a discussion here, I consider it Trollbait to be redirected to a wormhole that deposits me in the TwatterSphere!
So I don't know if I need to complain to @csallen or you or whatev, but an Indiehackers email with a link to an Indiehackers topic should bring the user and their beer here - NOT Twitter, or InstaSPAM, or Faceplant, or anywhere else!
Now, having given my two cents on receiving SPAM from Indiehackers, because sending me that link was just that, and having to search to find this actual topic thread here manually, I can finally drop the thought I had:
Microsoft learned predatory marketing tactics from IBM, and it appears that AppSumo is learinng their predatory business skills from Amazon - if you have a customer and you like their business product and want to steal it, then suck them in like they're family, then throttle them like a spousal abuser would, and then toss their dead carcass into the river after you've studied and mastered their business model, undercut their price points, stolen their customers, and finally... bankrupted them...
Exactly how Amazon does it, and exactly what you're describing that AppSumo has learned to do, by example, from Amazon.
AppSumo isn't a slimy company because of doing this, it's but one of myriad reasons why they're a bunch of slimeballs.
But for those who weren't already painfully aware that they engage in these "amazonian" tactics, thanks Davis, for highlighting their nefarious practice 👍
Now, to the powers that be here or to whomever we need to complain to about Trollbait spam originating here at Indiehackers, can we dispense with the invisible redirects to third third party corporate silos?
Alternatively, if that isn't going to happen, then can someone explain how I can create this same sort of Trollbait here so that it redirects my followers to posts I've published on my Fediverse servers?
There's a ton of them, but AppSumo's reach is hard to beat. On the other hand, smaller lifetime deals can be better for indie hackers. Gaining hundreds of users right at the start sure is great, but most of the time they're not even your target audience which makes it harder to support them.
I mean, yes, the deal was to bring you more customers via AppSumo, how is this slimy? It's like you sell licenses to them, and they can recoup their investment however they wish.
This is a digital version of guerilla marketing and I was wondering when it would make it's way to the world wide web. This unethical practice has been across a lot of shady ' black hat ' marketplaces for a while. Definitely get in contact with them in regards to this and even send a report to Google Ads.
On the other hand, it's great that people come across the brand. This one would seem better if they work out commission and make it a fair share.
p.s I don't plan or want to list with them, trying to be in both the shoes.
edit: just read Gabe's comment (which is quite down). This seems really bad that they're bidding on the product owner's search term and actually driving some organic traffic away.
A: Hundreds of new customers in a short window of time. Those customers can then give feedback and help prioritize the feature roadmap for your product. This is something that a PH launch can't mimic; PH launches might bring eyeballs (a small fraction of which might convert into customers), but AppSumo deals bring 100% paid customers who actively want to use your product.
B: An infusion of cash that may help fuel the growth of the company. Even despite the large cut of the profit AppSumo takes, it's still a large payday for the app involved, and often larger than they would normally have received in such a short span of time. Almost like taking on an angel investor, but you haven't given up any equity.
Of course, there are obvious downsides to these kinds of lifetime deals.
You contact them to let them sell you product, and when they sell your product, your are writing such tweet. That's a non-sens.
Also, if I'm not wrong, they will promote (and create some ads) only during the promotion time, so it's a matter of days...
Come on, where do you think they can bring you customers ? from the trees ?!
I think what you're misunderstanding is that AppSumo is bidding on his brand search term. That's not bringing him customers because the people searching for his brand already intend to visit his website. Most affiliate arrangements explicitly forbid this.
This ☝️is exactly the right take. If they wanted to go and run ads for keywords related to the product category, awesome... but it absolutely eats his own organic work to throw a deal, which undercuts his own saas pricing right over his brand. If they say they'll do this in the contract then yes, it's icky, but nothing they didn't explicitly state.
One way companies mitigate some of this is to change the terms of service for the licences later for the customers who purchase directly from the publisher themselves - added support levels and extra features or upgrades that people licensing from third parties like AppSumo aren't eligible for - both cPanel and WHMCS do this (i.e., removing branding from the product), and eventually, those customers who thought they were getting a great bargain basement deal end up ordering a brand new license from the publisher themselves anyway.
If someone accepted and signed an agreement allowing AppSumo to run Ads with their brand name within a stipulated duration, nothing slimy here.
Besides AppSumo though, 10,000+ other competitors could also be bidding for your brand search query at the same time. Google makes its money by selling Ad placements on targeted search queries; most times, to the highest bidders.
The question is, do you have the expertise to make Google Search Ads profitable?
I would caution against declaring this tactic as 'slimy' until you've read the contract and know the length of time they run these ads.
You can't have your cake and eat it too.
The purpose of the AppSumo promo is to... sell product through AppSumo. Right?
If you'd rather sell primarily through your own channels, then... don't sign a deal with AppSumo.
I think @Gabe's comment below is pretty spot on. Presumably there wouldn't be a problem if they weren't bidding on your brand name. If they were bidding for "software to do XYZ", and they were competing with you, that's one thing - although that could also be counter to your best interests.
Having AppSumo bidding on your brand name is like hiring a salesman to do door-to-door sales, and then him just standing in front of your store and selling there instead. Those people would have been purchasing from you anyways, no? Why lose a ridiculous percentage to that salesman then?
Yes, this is precisely it.
If they weren't bidding on your brand name, it would be fine.
But they are, which is not cool.
The nasty part is that the page descriptions look almost identical. I've seen competitors squat on other brand terms, but usually not so aggressively.
Don't want to nitpick the analogy, but Google isn't your storefront. Still, the issue is with Google, not with Appsumo, who has paid for the right to do this both in (I'd assume) the contact and in the fact that they've invest millions to build their audience and created an arbitrage for folks the the OP.
They invested millions to build their audience, sure. But in this case, they're paying Google for traffic that is already looking for the brand they're promoting? That's not the same as utilizing their own audience.
But thats the point. No one is searching for this brand. If it weren't for the AppSumo deal, you wouldn't find them until page 2. AppSumo, if anything, is doing them a solid.
That is not correct. The tweet shows AppSumo advertising on a branded search. I searched for the brand name myself and the actual website is the second result.
There's nothing wrong with AppSumo running ad campaigns for related terms. The problem is targeting ads to people searching for your brand name and siphoning off people that would have visited your site anyway. There's a reason most affiliate arrangement prohibit this. As someone who just added their product to AppSumo, this makes me nervous.
This comment has been voted down. Click to show.
This is not good.
Also, I think it's uncool that Google Ads lets others (e.g. competitors) bid on your company's name which then pushes your organic search result down the page.
oh man, don't get the basecamp guys started on that. But google makes sooo much money letting competitors advertise against brand names. Never change without legislation.
Yeah, I think I remember the basecamp incident about that.
Interestingly, I just googled "basecamp" as well as a bunch of other brand names like asana, trello, jira, slack and I don't see any ads. I wonder if google changed their policy around this?
Anyway, I'm glad @DavisBaer brought this up. I was on the fence about using AppSumo in the future, but now I definitely will not.
But what if the company isn't even on the first page for it's brand name? Odeum.io ranks anywhere from 5th to 14th for that term (at least from all the SEO research I can see).
Appsumo is giving them their only placement (for free, and likely Odeum makes some $$ on the sales) on the first page of Google.
At all the businesses I've worked for in the past (including two indiehacker businesses), we've always been the #1 seo term for our brand. But maybe that's less common for indiehacker businesses that are just starting out.
I suppose if you're ok with AppSumo's practice, then go for it. But I personally am not.
Perhaps AppSumo should provide the option of whether you want them to bid on your branded keywords.
I think it's part of the contract, if you sign into Appsumo without reading the contract, you shouldn't really be signing up with them.
There is only one moment in the life of a project/ saas where a Lifetime deal makes sense,
when you start and have no existing customers , it brings in a nice group of beta testers willing to pay for it , it can validate your project fast. decent existing MRR ? don't think about it
What if Lifetime Deal price > LTV of existing customers?
Might actually work out in your favor.
I find it hard to calculate the LTV of my existing customers given I launched it less than one year ago. When does that metric start to make sense?
You can find it in your Stripe/Baremetrics dashboard, if you want to go by that data.
Is your brand name trademarked? If so, you can at least stop them using your brand name in the ad.
My biggest worry here would not be that they might be taking prospective new customers, but they might also be taking existing MRR away from you as existing customers spot the cheaper lifetime deal.
This is the bigger risk, actually.
You can play hard ball and insist it's only for new customers and see what happens.
Sales/marketing brinksmaship
No you can't stop them from using your brand. Your service or trademark usage and ownership needs to be addressed, yes, but there usage of your brand through their channel is contractually licensed to them as part off the agreement.
You're right, my mistake, resellers and authorised advertisers can indeed use trademarks in Google Ads.
My experience, and therefore incorrect input, has been limited to competitors, where a quick complaint to Google always gets them taken down.
Thanks for clarifying.
I think there’s more to be upset with for Google, here.
It's unfair to say that. Sure they can't monitor brand terms, the number is in millions, the company has to use data responsibly.
Really fricken' ugly man. Really ugly, and I'm not talking about AppSumo either...
I dunno if you're aware @DavisBaer , but when I receive an email from Indiehackers and want to join and contribute to a discussion here, I consider it Trollbait to be redirected to a wormhole that deposits me in the TwatterSphere!
So I don't know if I need to complain to @csallen or you or whatev, but an Indiehackers email with a link to an Indiehackers topic should bring the user and their beer here - NOT Twitter, or InstaSPAM, or Faceplant, or anywhere else!
Now, having given my two cents on receiving SPAM from Indiehackers, because sending me that link was just that, and having to search to find this actual topic thread here manually, I can finally drop the thought I had:
Microsoft learned predatory marketing tactics from IBM, and it appears that AppSumo is learinng their predatory business skills from Amazon - if you have a customer and you like their business product and want to steal it, then suck them in like they're family, then throttle them like a spousal abuser would, and then toss their dead carcass into the river after you've studied and mastered their business model, undercut their price points, stolen their customers, and finally... bankrupted them...
Exactly how Amazon does it, and exactly what you're describing that AppSumo has learned to do, by example, from Amazon.
AppSumo isn't a slimy company because of doing this, it's but one of myriad reasons why they're a bunch of slimeballs.
But for those who weren't already painfully aware that they engage in these "amazonian" tactics, thanks Davis, for highlighting their nefarious practice 👍
Now, to the powers that be here or to whomever we need to complain to about Trollbait spam originating here at Indiehackers, can we dispense with the invisible redirects to third third party corporate silos?
Alternatively, if that isn't going to happen, then can someone explain how I can create this same sort of Trollbait here so that it redirects my followers to posts I've published on my Fediverse servers?
All the best!
Bradley
⛵
.
Pretty sure this is something written down in the contract? If so, you cant Blame when Taking the deal?
I guess if there’s any silver lining in this: someone should hack together an AppSumo alternative.
There's a ton of them, but AppSumo's reach is hard to beat. On the other hand, smaller lifetime deals can be better for indie hackers. Gaining hundreds of users right at the start sure is great, but most of the time they're not even your target audience which makes it harder to support them.
There's a LOT to unpack, I wrote about my experience with an LTD here, if anybody's interested: https://www.lunadio.com/blog/the-double-edged-sword-of-a-lifetime-deal/
I mean, yes, the deal was to bring you more customers via AppSumo, how is this slimy? It's like you sell licenses to them, and they can recoup their investment however they wish.
This is a digital version of guerilla marketing and I was wondering when it would make it's way to the world wide web. This unethical practice has been across a lot of shady ' black hat ' marketplaces for a while. Definitely get in contact with them in regards to this and even send a report to Google Ads.
On the other hand, it's great that people come across the brand. This one would seem better if they work out commission and make it a fair share.
p.s I don't plan or want to list with them, trying to be in both the shoes.
edit: just read Gabe's comment (which is quite down). This seems really bad that they're bidding on the product owner's search term and actually driving some organic traffic away.
This comment has been voted down. Click to show.
Yeah, pretty sleazy
So they basically make the sale instead you? Why even enter a partnership with them?
Here are two benefits:
A: Hundreds of new customers in a short window of time. Those customers can then give feedback and help prioritize the feature roadmap for your product. This is something that a PH launch can't mimic; PH launches might bring eyeballs (a small fraction of which might convert into customers), but AppSumo deals bring 100% paid customers who actively want to use your product.
B: An infusion of cash that may help fuel the growth of the company. Even despite the large cut of the profit AppSumo takes, it's still a large payday for the app involved, and often larger than they would normally have received in such a short span of time. Almost like taking on an angel investor, but you haven't given up any equity.
Of course, there are obvious downsides to these kinds of lifetime deals.
That is super slimy
Agreed!
That's probably why they take such a big cut too, to fund the ads.
You contact them to let them sell you product, and when they sell your product, your are writing such tweet. That's a non-sens.
Also, if I'm not wrong, they will promote (and create some ads) only during the promotion time, so it's a matter of days...
Come on, where do you think they can bring you customers ? from the trees ?!
I think what you're misunderstanding is that AppSumo is bidding on his brand search term. That's not bringing him customers because the people searching for his brand already intend to visit his website. Most affiliate arrangements explicitly forbid this.
This ☝️is exactly the right take. If they wanted to go and run ads for keywords related to the product category, awesome... but it absolutely eats his own organic work to throw a deal, which undercuts his own saas pricing right over his brand. If they say they'll do this in the contract then yes, it's icky, but nothing they didn't explicitly state.
One way companies mitigate some of this is to change the terms of service for the licences later for the customers who purchase directly from the publisher themselves - added support levels and extra features or upgrades that people licensing from third parties like AppSumo aren't eligible for - both cPanel and WHMCS do this (i.e., removing branding from the product), and eventually, those customers who thought they were getting a great bargain basement deal end up ordering a brand new license from the publisher themselves anyway.
You can do it right, or you can do it twice 🤘😎🤘
If someone accepted and signed an agreement allowing AppSumo to run Ads with their brand name within a stipulated duration, nothing slimy here.
Besides AppSumo though, 10,000+ other competitors could also be bidding for your brand search query at the same time. Google makes its money by selling Ad placements on targeted search queries; most times, to the highest bidders.
The question is, do you have the expertise to make Google Search Ads profitable?
AppSumo is suposed o be a partner, not a competitor. There is a big difference.
What if you consented to that prior to seeing those Ads?
That's really not okay! Have you talked to them yet and asked them to stop. Curious to hear what they say.
This comment was deleted a year ago.
This comment was deleted 3 years ago.