10
10 Comments

Tip: Use shared ads to grow your business without breaking the bank

If you're interested in paid advertising but the "paid" part feels a bit daunting, a shared ad could be a good option. Get more reach with less money by teaming up and promoting multiple brands with one ad.

Your adspend will go a lot further if others match it. That's why going in on a shared ad with complementary companies can be effective for indie hackers. In one experiment, @Cohoist put out a single Promoted Tweet that advertised four related companies. After stating the general problem that these companies solved, they @ mentioned each one with a few words about their individual offerings, and linked to a shared landing page. Each company spent $80 ($320 total). And in the end, they got 292,411 impressions, 9,710 engagements, 3,783 link clicks, 892 likes, 120 retweets, and each member gained about 40 followers. They also saw increases in their sales, with one member getting a 46% boost. You can do the same manually by teaming up with founders you know, or by checking out services like Cohoist.

More 30-second growth tips?

Every day we share a tiny, bite-sized tip for growing your business. Click here to see more and get Growth Bites in your inbox 👌

  1. 3

    We're blushing😊

    If you want to test out shared advertising, we just opened up 6 new slots for indie hackers to get their first month free.

    Update: All 6 of our IH promo slots have been filled, but you can still join!

    1. 1

      Interesting concept. Do you run the shared ads across all social media platforms or is it limited to Twitter ?

      1. 2

        We run shared ads across all platforms (Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, LinkedIn, Quora, Instagram, Google Display Network, Google Search Network, Microsoft Search Network). We typically stick to one platform per month and rotate through them so we're not diluting our reach on each platform. This helps us identify the platforms that work the best for each ad group so we can focus on those.

        1. 2

          Great to hear, thanks!

    2. 1

      That's awesome! Do you guys have some products in the Prop Tech area we could join? We would like to be targeting realtors/agents and real estate professionals if possible.

      1. 1

        We don't yet have any members in the Prop Tech area, so here's what we do when we can't fill a shared ad in a new niche:

        1. We use your funds to directly promote your website and social media accounts until we get enough members in the niche to fill a shared ad.
        2. We offer referral incentives, like 5% off your subscription for each new business in your niche you recruit onto Cohoist.
        3. We hunt down businesses in that niche ourselves to join Cohoist.

        This combo seems to be working really well so far. The early businesses in an unfilled niche can recruit people to join if they want and, in return, they get some free advertising.

        UPDATE: We just added a feature where members in a niche by themselves also get displayed in the "Other Businesses" section at the bottom of other shared landing pages. That way, these pioneer members are getting more of a brand awareness boost than they would by just running solo (unshared) ads by themselves. A little something to tide them over while they wait for more people in their niche to join

        1. 1

          Thanks for the reply. However, in this case while "waiting for other niche members" I wouldn't be sharing the ad costs, right? So it would be pretty much the same as if I would run the campaigns normally. It would be great if you would have some waiting list which I could join and you would notify me, when there would be more members in my niche to start the campaigns.

          1. 1

            That's a great idea! In the meantime, if you want, you can join using the free indiehackers promo code and we'll immediately pause your subscription so you'll never get charged until you're ready. This would give you access to the members site so you can still set up your business profile. Zilculator is your product, right? We'll start looking for more Prop Tech sites to pair with your business!

            1. 1

              My product is in the proptech space too but I'm not quite ready to start marketing yet. Might come back to this when I am.

              BTW, even though I'm not ready to sign up I clicked on the "get started" button after browsing to https://members.cohoist.com/checkout?sku=co-md&coupon=indiehackers100

              All I got was a "Preparing checkout" modal window. I waited a couple of minutes and then gave up.

              1. 1

                Thanks for letting me know! That direct link should redirect to a Stripe checkout page for $0. What OS and browser were you using? We'll take a look at it right away. Is there a way I can contact you to make sure we get you all squared away? I'd love to pair SinglePropertyPages with Zilculator and others once you're ready to do some marketing! It's a fantastic combo

Trending on Indie Hackers
How I grew a side project to 100k Unique Visitors in 7 days with 0 audience 49 comments Competing with Product Hunt: a month later 33 comments Why do you hate marketing? 28 comments My Top 20 Free Tools That I Use Everyday as an Indie Hacker 14 comments $15k revenues in <4 months as a solopreneur 14 comments Use Your Product 13 comments