“For us, most sales come from digital marketing as well ... 80% for sure is paid...”
This is an interview with a founder of a company that raised 1M USD + on crowdfunding. Their product is a smart wearable that retail at around 200 USD.
Q: How much of the campaign contribution is from customers that you’ve already confirmed (from your own email list, previous members, customers, personal contacts)
A: The first 24 hours we've hit $200,000 USD in pre-orders, so you could say approximately that many were already existing. Probably some of the existing bought a bit later, and some of the $200k are new ones that found out immediately but overall $200k is a good reference. The most important tool to secure pre-orders next to the obvious email list was an internal Facebook group. We had around 5,000 members in there that were very engaged and really looked forward to the launch. I highly recommend doing such a group, it’s the best thing we did for the campaign to get it to a rocket start.What are the key traction channels? And approximately what %share each traction channel will take up?
A: For us, most sales come from digital marketing as well. According to Indiegogos website, about 8% of the sales are organic from their traffic and 92% is external. I would guess maybe 12% comes from our mobile app, press, etc. but 80% for sure is paidOn Kickstarter you cannot install pixel…. How did you go about solving the tracking issue? On Facebook:
what kind of targeting did you use?
How did you set the ad objectives? (can’t be conversion without pixel integration…
Without pixel… how did you do remarketing? Did you do any remarketing? Based on video views?
A: Use working conversion pixel optimized for purchase - ideally this will bring in top quality customers, even if you can't track, - though we were lucky to have a trained pixel for purchase. Use tools like pixelme to pixel the users and retarget. Another hack is sending a survey with a type form with a purchase pixel embedded, and facebook learns and optimizes for purchase. Retargeting everything, use pixel me and GA, and use a typeform with a pixel if possible
How important was press coverage? Did you manage to measure the ROI on this traction channel?
A: Press was not very important. We secured a lot of press. It adds credibility etc. but to be honest it does not add a lot of sales. I have seen it working great for a few companies, e.g. I saw a campaign where an Engadget article made $30k USD but for us, it's been always just $1k USD or so per article. I would not recommend a huge PR budget and rather focus on unit economics, FOMO, great page & video, engaged community before the launch in a Facebook group, great understanding of digital ads... that stuff is most important