Freeway Hit Machine
October 16th, 2006What’s the secret to making money on the web? If you ask some arbitrary business-type, chances are they’ll start frothing at the mouth, do a little bobble-head dance while their eyes roll back into their head and they squeal: “Traffic, traffic, traffic!”
It’s easy to get caught up in this mentality. Of course! If people see my product there is a 10-40% chance that they’ll download it. If they download it, there is a 1-4% chance that they’ll buy it. This all adds up to … between 1 and 16 sales per 1000 visitors. Obviously, the only thing to do is increase visitors.
But that’s only looking at one side of the equation. There seems to be an obsession on increasing the quantity of visitors instead of improving the quality. I’m guilty of it, too. Maybe it’s because we have better tools at our disposal for measuring sheer numbers.
Of course I get excited when a mention on some popular blog or in a news publication sends a bunch of visitors my way. They show up on Mint, and it makes me feel popular. So I pat myself on the back and keep working. I have also enjoyed watching my Technorati rank slowly increase. It’s something. A metric that tells me I’m doing something useful and should continue. But when hundreds of 5-second readers surge in from Digg or some other general-tech news source, is it really doing anything for my blog or my business? At least the Technorati ranking has the secondary effect of improving my appearance in niche categories. So getting a lot of traffic from whatever source can help inflate my numbers and increase the odds that somebody actually looking for what I’m writing about will see it and be encouraged to come visit. But what does Digg do for me?
I suppose it’s easy to argue that more eyeballs is always a good thing. After all, some goofball who couldn’t care less about Macs or software development might nonetheless recognize my name when sitting in a meeting where a committee is trying to decide whether to give me thousands of dollars. What? It could happen!
But in general, the dialogue of my blog and the sales of my software are directly related to the quality of my visitors. So it’s a lot better if Merlin Mann notices and points to my app than if it gets mentioned in some Windows-user forum as something they’d “like to see” on the PC. What am I going to say to bunch of PC users? I’d rather open a coffee-shop or write music than develop for your platform? Lo siento. No hablo PC, Señor.
Digg is like an international tech freeway. Lots of people are traveling on it, passing through thousands of sites per day. Maybe they snap a few pictures as they speed by at 85 MPH, but they rarely stop to truly take in the surroundings.
There’s a reason the freeways always pass through poor sections of town. Nobody really wants to be on or near them. They’re a means to an end. We use them when we need a change of scenery – whether we’re wandering or speeding through the night towards a known destination. In any case, we’re not in the mood to buy anything meaningful on the freeway. Nobody is. We might pay for a Coke from the rest area snack machine, or be seduced by a Taco Bell billboard, where we’ll stop for 15 minutes to part with at most $5 of our hard-earned cash. The freeway is a trashy marketplace.
When a freeway plan intrudes on a thriving city marketplace, the shopkeepers get furious. They know the freeway spells the death of their neighborhood, and therefore the death of their business. But on the Internet most of are convinced that a freeway running through our neighborhood is a good thing, and I think we’re wrong about that. Dead wrong.
And yes, I see the irony of this post having just below it a “Digg This” icon. What can I say? I still like to be dugg. But it feeds my ego much more than my blog or business.
October 16th, 2006 at 5:02 pm
I recently had what I’d call a “secondary digg”. My site wasn’t dugg. But a page at AppleGazette was, and it in turn linked to me. The AppleGazette page made the front page at digg for a while.
Following the freeway analogy, I had hoped that people who clicked through from AppleGazette to my site wouldn’t be the people speeding by with their camera out, or those pulling into the rest stop, but rather those who saw the “attractions at this exit” sign and decided that one of them looked interesting enough to bother pulling off the freeway and driving down one of the local roads a bit for a closer look.
I did get a huge traffic spike out of it. My overall traffic for that day was something like 4x of normal, and Mint told me that most of it coming from the AppleGazette article.
I did not get any difference at all in daily sales for my software. From a business perspective the increased traffic had zero effect. I don’t know what that says about the freeway analogy but I’m not paying a whole lot of attention to this kind of traffic anymore.
There may be some residual effect that’ll be harder to quantify. From Mint I know that my site was saved by a bunch of new people at del.icio.us. I’ve also been getting a lot more referrals from places like mail.yahoo.com, suggesting people discussing my site (for better or worse) in email.
October 16th, 2006 at 5:36 pm
I think you’re exactly right. I haven’t gotten into Digg, or del.icio.us, or any of that sort of popularity sites. Big numbers are popular with marketing types but they very rarely provide the whole story. The overpowered 350 horse engine in car A doesn’t give you any idea of handling and most likely has a negative effect on what should be the most important stat for cars: fuel efficiency. Intel got caught by the ever increasing number game with their processors. There are finite limits for everything and it seems to me that people have trouble remembering that. Personally I’d rather hold out for higher quality over sheer quantity. Of course when it comes to software sales sometimes you just want to see the numbers so you can pay the bills :)
October 16th, 2006 at 5:41 pm
What’s the secret to making money on the web?
Starts with a ‘p’ ends with an ‘n’. I kid, I kid.
Seriously, even if the diggers don’t buy your app on day one, they might post a link to your site, which helps your Technorati and Google rankings, which helps when somebody searches for something in the future. Or maybe one visitor is a popular blogger who finds your app and causes other people to buy it. None of it will hurt your chances of selling software. Or maybe it will help you in some other way.
In any case, you and I both know that your main reason for writing on this blog should be (and likely is) that it’s fun and interesting. If it’s not, you should stop and go do something else.
As far as the ego thing, I don’t think it’s any different than playing guitar on the street and having people gather around you. It’s nice to know what you’re doing connects with someone.
October 16th, 2006 at 5:43 pm
My software was also mentioned in the same AppleGazette article and my experiences match Tom’s (a traffic spike that did not seem to affect sales).
While the digg attention was ineffectual to the bottom-line, at least immediately, I do feel it helps to get more exposure (especially for me since I’m new to the market). It could be the thing that catches the attention of a reviewer or editor at a major Mac site or magazine plus the more people that know about your product, even if they don’t use it themselves, the more people who may suggest it to others, in person, in forums or via email.
Yes, targeted marketing is more effective. I received more traffic and sales from an article on TUAW.com than digg. That said, neither cost me anything so it wasn’t a case of either/or. Given that most of us ISVs engage in spreading word on our products via channels that don’t charge us, I don’t think it’s a decision we have to face for some time.
October 16th, 2006 at 5:52 pm
Tom & Paul: thanks for sharing your experiences publicly. It was, perhaps obviously to you guys, partly due to talking about your experience with the latest digging that I decided to write this entry.
Stephan: if the sheer numbers *did* pay the bills, I’d certainly strive for them. But Tom and Paul’s experience (and mine, on separate occasions) seems to suggest that sheer numbers don’t sell software.
Scott (and Paul): I think you’re right that the number might just be the thing that helps you catch the right attention of “people who matter.” So … bring on the diggs! But I guess my point is that we shouldn’t be fixated on traffic for traffic’s sake, which it sounds like we’re agreed on. And yes, I write this blog mostly for the sense of having connected with people, and in particularly for feeling like I’m helping people. But I certainly don’t mind that it puts my business closer to the radar of some influential people.
October 16th, 2006 at 6:19 pm
I meant more that you want to see the number of sales and don’t really care how they found you :) That wouldn’t be an effective strategy at growing your install base though. Ultimately selling more does depend on being seen more. The important thing is being seen by the right people. I think a lot of indie software is supported primarily by Mac enthusiasts like other indie developers, geeks, etc. Many of us don’t even get in front of the majority of Mac users. Over the years as more and more developers produce stuff it has become more difficult to get the attention of the Mac news sites and anyone who has ever thought about selling directly in an Apple Store knows how difficult that is. So it often seems difficult to get in front of even a percentage of your target audience let alone attract actual buyers. Mac-related blogs and (dare I say?) networking with other Mac enthusiasts are important ways to drive quality traffic to your site but they probably aren’t enough on their own.
October 16th, 2006 at 8:30 pm
Stephan: right – and I think if nothing else building a presence on the web at least makes you that much more likely to pop up on the radar of the magazine reveiwers, etc. (Thought I’m starting to think that a semi-popular blogger link is now more effective than even the most popular Mac magazines).