Startups

3 Nearly Free Growth Hacks

Comment

Image Credits: wavebreakmedia (opens in a new window) / Shutterstock (opens in a new window)

Mason Pelt

Contributor

Mason Pelt is a growth hacker and the founder of Push ROI.

“Growth hacking” is a term that people seem to think means “magically market any product or company for free.” I wrote a post called What is growth hacking? to clarify the difference between efficient, effective marketing and mythical marketing pixie dust, yet still people don’t seem to understand.

Before I give you three tips for powerful, nearly free marketing, let me explain why I didn’t title this post “3 Free Marketing Tips.”

Growth hacking isn’t free marketing

A few months ago, I spoke at a startup accelerator that wanted to hear about all the amazing “free marketing” that growth hackers pull off. I was sorry to disappoint, but when I was in the 6th grade, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch” was the first thing I learned about economics. Even if you don’t have to pay for lunch, someone has to pay in the cost of goods, in the services provided or both — meaning there is no such thing as a free lunch. The same is true with marketing.

Normally, when someone says, “free,” they mean things like content marketing, public relations or social media. I understand budgets are limited, but amazing content doesn’t simply create itself. (It takes this dyslexic guy an average of about 4.5 hours per blog post I write.) Public relations takes time and research, and the same is true of social media.

So, while I’m sorry there is no such thing as free marketing, you also don’t need a huge budget to do amazing things. Now that we are all on the same page, let’s talk about how to do effective marking on the cheap.

Three nearly free growth hacks

PPC to test for profitability — before you focus on SEO

Let’s face it, SEO is costly. And with researching search volume, creating content, building backlinks and all the technical elements of search engine optimization, like schema, site speed, JavaScript render blocking, proper use of rel=canonical, etc., SEO is also time-consuming.

Pay-per-click may be just as technical and involved to master, but PPC is built for immediate gratification. I understand it may take you a long time to build a quality score of 9 or 10, but, unlike SEO, once ads are running, they are running.

When you do keyword research for SEO, your main metrics are instinct, search volume and competition. You don’t have any information about profitability. I’m not the only person who has wasted time focusing SEO efforts on keywords that brought in traffic, but didn’t make money.

Effectively using a landing page and a small budget for PPC will help you a lot in identifying the keywords on which to focus. This has become much more important since Google removed keyword referral data from analytics. The budget to test will vary based on your industry, but it’s always better to spend a little money than to waste months of time.

Facebook ads for market research

Facebook ads offer some very powerful targeting options, like workplace targeting, custom audiences from email lists, phone number lists, app IDs and website visitors and lookalike audiences. Lookalike audiences, generated from past-buyer custom audiences, just may be the most powerful tool for any paid channel, but saying, “use great targeting” on what is otherwise a normal social PPC campaign is hardly a “nearly free” tip.

What is a free tip is using the amazing ad-targeting options offered by Facebook to mine data and research your target market. I did a blog post and an interview about this tactic for The Starters Club, but here is a short recap.

From Facebook power editor, we are going to build a new campaign, new ad set and new ad, but we’re not going to run it, this is just for research. Because all targeting in Facebook is handled at the ad-set level, go to the ad set and let’s play with targeting. In this example, I want to find out the overlap of fans of Taylor Swift and Katy Perry and the breakdown by gender.

First, I target Taylor Swift as an interest. I can see that I have a potential reach of 20,000,000 people. Next, I change gender targeting to men. My potential reach drops to 6,800,000 people. I change the gender to women and I have a reach of 13,000,000 people in the U.S. who are over the age of 13.

Growth hacker 2

So, why are we missing 200,000 people? There could be a lot of reasons; people with unspecified gender, or simply that power editor is rounding up. I’m not sure, but I have learned that exponentially more women than men have an interest in Taylor Swift. If I were researching to see which female artist would be the best investment as a celebrity spokesperson for a brand aimed at men, this would be a useful insight.

Now let’s do the same thing with Katy Perry, who has a potential reach of 23,000,000 people. To see the overlap between those interested in Katy Perry and Taylor Swift, I target both interests and see a potential reach of 28,000,000 people. Because 20 million and 23 million would be 43 million people, I know that Perry and Swift have an overlap of 13 million people who have expressed an interest in them both over Facebook or Instagram.

Growth hacker 2


This process can become very time-consuming, and this method is far from perfect market research, but it’s a good gut check and a way to spy. You’re only limited by Facebook’s ad-targeting options and Facebook’s rules that determine what is and what is not available in the ads API.

Targeting ads to specific users on Twitter

Social ads are amazingly effective, but Twitter offers the ability to target specific usernames. Before I explain how to do this, let me try to explain why this isn’t just one more “pay money and get results” kind of tip. You can target any username on Twitter!

If, for example, you had only a $50 budget to run Twitter ads to promote a well-known TV show that is now available for streaming in the U.S. for the first time, you could target people interested in anime or people interested in the show. You would probably get about 30-60 website clicks and a reasonable level of social engagement. But this is growth hacking! — we can do better.

So, do some research and find the 50 most influential Twitter users talking about anime (Klout and other such sites make that fairly easy) and target them. The goal is getting them to share your content with their audiences. If everything is done correctly, at least some of these 50 users being targeted will be interested and excited about the Twitter-length message. If you’re targeting people who don’t care about the content, it’s a waste of time and money. Therefore, you should plan well.

This trick can be used in a lot of ways. You could target every employee at a VC firm you’re seeking a meeting with each time your startup receives positive press. You can target decision makers at companies you want to do business with or everyone who wouldn’t date you in high school. The possibilities are endless.

To create your custom audience, go to ads.twitter.com, click Tools, then select Audience manager.

Once in the Audience manager, click Create new audience and select Upload your own list.

Name your audience, check Twitter user IDs as your data type.

Now that you’ve created your audience, you can build your campaign normally and simply select Add tailored audiences and pick the audience you just created when you set your targeting.

But, only one of those was free?

No, only one of my tips was your labor only. None of those tips are free. Sometimes money is tight, but I’ve had times when a less than $200 PPC test would have saved months of work optimizing a website for terms that just didn’t convert. I understand that my time is not the same as my money, but my spending 30 hours creating content and building backlinks was a waste that cost far more than $200.

Sure, I could have given different tips, like updating your website’s directory listings to be sure they are consistent across the web, or setting up and verifying a Webmaster Central Account at Google and doing the same for Bing Webmaster Tools. I also could have said it’s free to date Taylor Swift, then you would get a hit song written about you after the break up. But I didn’t.

Marketing, even when budgets are limited, should focus on effectiveness. The goal isn’t to spend as little as possible, it’s to have as large of a return as possible.

More TechCrunch

Avendus, the top investment bank for venture deals in India, confirmed on Wednesday it is looking to raise up to $350 million for its new private equity fund.  The new…

Avendus, India’s top venture advisor, confirms it’s looking to raise a $350 million fund

China has closed a third state-backed investment fund to bolster its semiconductor industry and reduce reliance on other nations, both for using and for manufacturing wafers — prioritizing what is…

China’s $47B semiconductor fund puts chip sovereignty front and center

Apple’s annual list of what it considers the best and most innovative software available on its platform is turning its attention to the little guy.

Apple’s Design Awards nominees highlight indies and startups, largely ignore AI (except for Arc)

The spyware maker’s founder, Bryan Fleming, said pcTattletale is “out of business and completely done,” following a data breach.

Spyware maker pcTattletale says it’s ‘out of business’ and shuts down after data breach

AI models are always surprising us, not just in what they can do, but what they can’t, and why. An interesting new behavior is both superficial and revealing about these…

AI models have favorite numbers, because they think they’re people

On Friday, Pal Kovacs was listening to the long-awaited new album from rock and metal giants Bring Me The Horizon when he noticed a strange sound at the end of…

Rock band’s hidden hacking-themed website gets hacked

Jan Leike, a leading AI researcher who earlier this month resigned from OpenAI before publicly criticizing the company’s approach to AI safety, has joined OpenAI rival Anthropic to lead a…

Anthropic hires former OpenAI safety lead to head up new team

Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech! This week, we’re looking at the long-term implications of Synapse’s bankruptcy on the fintech sector, Majority’s impressive ARR milestone, and more!  To get a roundup of…

The demise of BaaS fintech Synapse could derail the funding prospects for other startups in the space

YouTube’s free Playables don’t directly challenge the app store model or break Apple’s rules. However, they do compete with the App Store’s free games.

YouTube’s free games catalog ‘Playables’ rolls out to all users

Featured Article

A comprehensive list of 2024 tech layoffs

The tech layoff wave is still going strong in 2024. Following significant workforce reductions in 2022 and 2023, this year has already seen 60,000 job cuts across 254 companies, according to independent layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi. Companies like Tesla, Amazon, Google, TikTok, Snap and Microsoft have conducted sizable layoffs in the first months of 2024. Smaller-sized…

11 hours ago
A comprehensive list of 2024 tech layoffs

OpenAI has formed a new committee to oversee “critical” safety and security decisions related to the company’s projects and operations. But, in a move that’s sure to raise the ire…

OpenAI’s new safety committee is made up of all insiders

Time is running out for tech enthusiasts and entrepreneurs to secure their early-bird tickets for TechCrunch Disrupt 2024! With only four days left until the May 31 deadline, now is…

Early bird gets the savings — 4 days left for Disrupt sale

AI may not be up to the task of replacing Google Search just yet, but it can be useful in more specific contexts — including handling the drudgery that comes…

Skej’s AI meeting scheduling assistant works like adding an EA to your email

Faircado has built a browser extension that suggests pre-owned alternatives for ecommerce listings.

Faircado raises $3M to nudge people to buy pre-owned goods

Tumblr, the blogging site acquired twice, is launching its “Communities” feature in open beta, the Tumblr Labs division has announced. The feature offers a dedicated space for users to connect…

Tumblr launches its semi-private Communities in open beta

Remittances from workers in the U.S. to their families and friends in Latin America amounted to $155 billion in 2023. With such a huge opportunity, banks, money transfer companies, retailers,…

Félix Pago raises $15.5 million to help Latino workers send money home via WhatsApp

Google said today it’s adding new AI-powered features such as a writing assistant and a wallpaper creator and providing easy access to Gemini chatbot to its Chromebook Plus line of…

Google adds AI-powered features to Chromebook

The dynamic duo behind the Grammy Award–winning music group the Chainsmokers, Alex Pall and Drew Taggart, are set to bring their entrepreneurial expertise to TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. Known for their…

The Chainsmokers light up Disrupt 2024

The deal will give LumApps a big nest egg to make acquisitions and scale its business.

LumApps, the French ‘intranet super app,’ sells majority stake to Bridgepoint in a $650M deal

Featured Article

More neobanks are becoming mobile networks — and Nubank wants a piece of the action

Nubank is taking its first tentative steps into the mobile network realm, as the NYSE-traded Brazilian neobank rolls out an eSIM (embedded SIM) service for travelers. The service will give customers access to 10GB of free roaming internet in more than 40 countries without having to switch out their own existing physical SIM card or…

18 hours ago
More neobanks are becoming mobile networks — and Nubank wants a piece of the action

Infra.Market, an Indian startup that helps construction and real estate firms procure materials, has raised $50M from MARS Unicorn Fund.

MARS doubles down on India’s Infra.Market with new $50M investment

Small operations can lose customers by not offering financing, something the Berlin-based startup wants to change.

Cloover wants to speed solar adoption by helping installers finance new sales

India’s Adani Group is in discussions to venture into digital payments and e-commerce, according to a report.

Adani looks to battle Reliance, Walmart in India’s e-commerce, payments race, report says

Ledger, a French startup mostly known for its secure crypto hardware wallets, has started shipping new wallets nearly 18 months after announcing the latest Ledger Stax devices. The updated wallet…

Ledger starts shipping its high-end hardware crypto wallet

A data protection taskforce that’s spent over a year considering how the European Union’s data protection rulebook applies to OpenAI’s viral chatbot, ChatGPT, reported preliminary conclusions Friday. The top-line takeaway…

EU’s ChatGPT taskforce offers first look at detangling the AI chatbot’s privacy compliance

Here’s a shoutout to LatAm early-stage startup founders! We want YOU to apply for the Startup Battlefield 200 at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. But you’d better hurry — time is running…

LatAm startups: Apply to Startup Battlefield 200

The countdown to early-bird savings for TechCrunch Disrupt, taking place October 28–30 in San Francisco, continues. You have just five days left to save up to $800 on the price…

5 days left to get your early-bird Disrupt passes

Venture investment into Spanish startups also held up quite well, with €2.2 billion raised across some 850 funding rounds.

Spanish startups reached €100 billion in aggregate value last year

Featured Article

Onyx Motorbikes was in trouble — and then its 37-year-old owner died

James Khatiblou, the owner and CEO of Onyx Motorbikes, was watching his e-bike startup fall apart.  Onyx was being evicted from its warehouse in El Segundo, near Los Angeles. The company’s unpaid bills were stacking up. Its chief operating officer had abruptly resigned. A shipment of around 100 CTY2 dirt bikes from Chinese supplier Suzhou…

2 days ago
Onyx Motorbikes was in trouble — and then its 37-year-old owner died

Featured Article

Iyo thinks its GenAI earbuds can succeed where Humane and Rabbit stumbled

Iyo represents a third form factor in the push to deliver standalone generative AI devices: Bluetooth earbuds.

2 days ago
Iyo thinks its GenAI earbuds can succeed where Humane and Rabbit stumbled