🗞 What's New: Are you afraid to use paid ads?

Do you invest in paid ads?

• Spending money on ads sometimes gets a bad rap in the indie hacking community, but is it time to reevaluate that belief? Some founders say it is, and they're breaking down the reasons why.
• Data breaches cost a company over $4,000,000 on average, and they have become increasingly common. Here's how you can unlock new opportunities in the privacy protection space.
• Founder Todd sold his personal finance content website for $65,000 after working on it for 3 years as a side project. Below, he shares how he built to sell, and how he consistently created high-quality content.

Want to share something with over 100,000 indie hackers? Submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter. —Channing

⚖️ Paid Ads: To Spend or Not to Spend?

by Jakob Greenfeld

I recently wrote about how I learned to spend money on ads:

It's time to change the way we look at ad spend!

A framework

Erik Arrabal says that many people falsely believe that there are only two ways to create awareness for their product (free vs. paid traffic), but the truth is more complicated than that:

The reality is that there is no such thing as “free traffic.” The more accurate term is “organic traffic,” which is paid for with time, energy, and sometimes, money (if you've hired an employee, agency, or contractor to do the work for you).

Sadly, time is the only nonrenewable resource. Once it’s spent, it’s gone for good.

So, which option is right for you? Here’s a framework that I use to help my clients decide:

1. How quickly do you want results? If speed is a priority, paid options like search engine ads, social media ads, display network ads, or affiliate programs are the best option for you.
2. How would you like to pay for awareness? If you want to spend more time than money, consider organic options like content marketing, search engine optimization, or community building.
3. How important is control to you? One of the benefits of paid traffic is that it can be turned on, off, up, or down within minutes. Organic traffic, on the other hand, has a much longer turnaround time.
4. How important is gathering and acting upon data to you? Paid traffic platforms offer you much more data than their organic alternatives. For example, with Facebook ads, you have a lot of targeting options (location, demographics, interests, and behaviors) and tight attribution windows. This allows you to test ideas quickly and iterate towards success in real time.

In short, neither option is right or wrong. Keep in mind that you’re always paying for awareness, either with time or money.

Sweet spend

Victor believes that we're in sort of a sweet spot for ads:

Assuming that you're an indie hacker, even in this downturn, you're probably seeing that your ad dollar is going farther since there are so many startups that are cutting advertising and marketing. Ads are getting cheaper.

Here's an interesting idea: How can you leverage inflation for your ad spend?

The only reason people are not doing it is the general negative sentiment towards ads in the indie hacker community. That was definitely what was holding me back.

I'm a purist about certain things, but outside of not breaching your ethics, business is not the time to be dogmatic. $500 is a significant amount of money for me, but would I be willing to spend $500 to avoid wasting a month of my life on an idea that has no legs?

Another thing about the "no ads" mindset: It only works if you value your time at zero. Even if you valued your time at $10 per hour, experimenting with ads could save you way more than 50 hours of development, thinking, marketing, advertising, and sales time, all for an idea that potentially could die.

Audience audit

Ropesneer recommends considering your audience:

I think that, depending on the industry you're targeting, you might need some sort of paid advertising.

People who use Pieter Levels' path as the definitive one might be forgetting that his audience was likely naturally inclined to reject ads.

People interested in success stories about the effectiveness of paid advertising for validation may benefit from listening to Courtland Allen's interview with JT Marino on the Indie Hackers Podcast. Here is an excerpt from the transcript:

Spending on ads can really pay off.

What are your thoughts on ad spend? Share in the comments!

Discuss this story.

📰 In the News

from the Volv newsletter by Priyanka Vazirani

🤩 The prescriptive power of brands, and how to leverage it.

🗡 The double-edged sword of having confidence as a founder.

🚘 France is offering leases for electric vehicles for $100 per month.

📈 Tech was supposed to help lower inflation, but could be actually driving it up.

💪 Understanding the evolution of flex culture can help you map out your marketing plan.

Check out Volv for more 9-second news digests.

🔒 Data Privacy Opportunities for Founders

from the Hustle Newsletter by The Trends Team

The Signal: A data breach costs a company $4.3M on average, a 12.7% increase from 2020, and they have become increasingly common. But a data breach is just one of many ways that businesses can screw up when it comes to privacy.

Privacy rules in the US are changing. Fast.

*Source: Statista

Five US states have passed consumer privacy laws in the last two years. More than half of all US states have privacy bills in the works, and a federal bill will be voted on soon.

If the implementation of privacy laws in Europe is anything to go by, regulation will create a huge compliance burden and create demand for new tech solutions. In fact, 68% of US-based companies have spent an estimated $1M-$10M to meet the EU's GDPR (general data regulation protection) requirements.

*The International Association of Privacy Professionals tracks ongoing changes to the privacy regulation landscape. Source: IAPP

Here are new opportunities for founders in this space:

1. Privacy consulting:

The fast-changing patchwork of privacy rules is tough for businesses to navigate.

Smaller companies likely won't have a legal department with a privacy specialist, but they may still be collecting loads of sensitive data. You could provide a consulting service that helps companies collect and use data without getting into trouble.

You could also help companies build data breach action plans so that, if a breach does happen, they can react quickly to protect customer data and put out PR fires.

*Source: Twitter

2. Compliance tools:

Europe's GDPR spawned a plethora of data management and compliance solutions (i.e. Private AI, Jentis, and Osano) that have raised $19.4M. You could create US or state-specific versions of these tools.

3. Consumer experience:

Cookies banners that pop up on every other website are a pain in the neck. You could design visually-appealing cookies banners that add to the customer experience and incorporate the brand.

I don't care about cookies is a browser extension that automatically accepts cookie policies. You could create a more nuanced solution with custom preferences. For example, you may want a retail website to keep track of which items you've viewed, but prevent a trashy tabloid from tracking your celebrity gossip habits!

You could also create solutions that help consumers track or request their data from different companies.

4. Branding:

According to a survey, 39% of consumers have lost trust in a company because of dodgy data practices. If you're a marketing agency or business operator, you can build positive privacy policies into your marketing and brand identity.

Concerned about getting data management right for your business? The Trends team will be speaking with a privacy lawyer soon to get the lowdown. Keep your eyes peeled!

How have you handled privacy protection? Share your experience below!

Subscribe to the Hustle Newsletter for more.

🧠 Harry's Growth Tip

from the Marketing Examples newsletter by Harry Dry

Stay up on current events so you can use newsjacking to your advantage.

Go here for more short, sweet, practical marketing tips.

Subscribe to Marketing Examples for more.

💻 Todd Sold His First Website Business for $65K

by Todd

Hey, indie hackers! I'm Todd, and in June 2018, I launched a website in the highly competitive personal finance space.

I created this side project, not only to help people learn about finances, but to earn additional income. My goal was for the site to be acquired one day.

Fast forward to summer 2021, and I sold it for $65K+. It was a challenging, fun journey to grow the website as a side project with a very small budget. I'm currently working on my next website project, Remote Work Junkie, which I just launched back in March.

AMA!

How did you grow your website?

Here's what I did to help my site grow:

• Treated it like a business from day one.
• Had a newsletter list built in from day one.
• Used Help a Reporter (HARO) to quickly get links, establish authority, and drive some early traffic.
• Wrote great content consistently, no matter what. I had a schedule of new posts every week.
• Mixed in giveaways and contests to drive awareness and gain attention.
• Leveraged content syndication, which is often overlooked. It can get you additional traffic and links to build trust.
• Leveraged social media. The majority of my traffic came from Twitter and Reddit.

How did you consistently create content?

For the first two years, I wrote everything. When I started to make money from the site, I brought on two freelancers. I would do the keyword research and outline for posts, then they would fill in some of the content for those outlines. From there, I would edit and add a bit of my personal touch to it. It saved me a few hours per week, and it was fairly cost-effective.

I did scale back when I knew I was getting ready to potentially sell, but at that point, I had close to 200 articles doing a lot of work for me on traffic and revenue. By then, I didn't need to pump out as much content.

How did you come up with ideas for what to write about?

For content websites, pretty much everything has been done and written about in some way. Here are the things that I considered to keep my content fresh:

• Is it something that I'm interested in? I am a finance and remote work nerd, so those subjects keep me focused and interested.
• Are there opportunities to compete with any of the big sites that rank or dominate search engines? The major media sites really love targeting keywords with massive search volume, but often overlook many other areas of content. That makes it easier for smaller sites like me to swoop in and grow.
• Do I need credentials to have a shot of being trusted source? I'll never write about healthcare because I know nothing about it, and have none of the necessary credentials. I have remote work experience and a good story, and that's all you really need to write about that particular field.
• What are the opportunities to generate revenue from this niche? Because my site was about business and tech, payouts were generally much stronger than, say, music as a niche.

What enticed the buyer of your site?

My business model consisted of ads, affiliate marketing, and sponsorships. These were all companies for investing, financial planning, or budgeting that could genuinely help my audience. My audience was made up of people looking to increase their financial knowledge. So, I worked with apps and products that I liked, used, or was currently using. Same with my affiliates.

Generally, website content businesses have a pretty large range of monthly multipliers; I've seen everything from 10x to 58x. Most buyers in this space look at the income and how the traffic direction is progressing. You can check out Empire Flippers for some of the going multiplier rates.

To make it more attractive, I purchased all the domain variations, and ensured that I had decent followings on social media and email. Some buyers don't care about this, others do. However, I tried to do everything that could make it more attractive to buyers. I made sure it was professional, built domain authority, built community around it, etc.

I was at around a 40x monthly net income multiplier, but traffic was stalling for me. My income stayed steady even with traffic dips, so that wasn't a major concern for the buyers. Plus, after a while, I like to work on new projects, so it was time to sell!

Discuss this story.

🐦 The Tweetmaster's Pick

by Tweetmaster Flex

I post the tweets indie hackers share the most. Here's today's pick:

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Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Gabriella Federico for the illustrations, and to Jakob Greenfeld, Priyanka Vazirani, The Trends Team, Harry Dry, and Todd for contributing posts. —Channing