More than 5 years without success :-(

[WuBa-Solutions]

Hello entrepreneurs!

I'm happy to have read both of the books and I have had read a lot of other books. I started my journey I guess around 5 years ago with an idea in the construction sector after I have finished my house.
I started a website where I have offered a planning and tracking tool for the private house builder. In parallel I have developed for the same website a reverse radius search implemented. The companies are setting how far the distance shall be and if a private house builder searches for a professional, he will only get results for companies willing to come at this location. Was not working and was not able to acquire any customer. ;-(
Then my brother saied, why I don't develop an app for this kind of service. I was smiling and don't guess it is better than the website. One day I was so frustrated to give the idea from my brother a shot. My current app "construction cost manager" was born. Now I have the app and get little money (200€ per year). It is better then the 0€ before but not the direction to say it will bring me wealth.

Next step for me will be to learn more about how to bring the app to the next level. There are users and a market, because I sell the app. Currently I improve the app according the feedback I get from the users. The next idea I have is to analyse the data from my previous AdWord campaign (I know that I got a 7% conversion rate). But AdWords costs me for 100 users downloading the app around 29€ and the paying users bringing me only 9€ after tax and after commission. With Facebook I had no good experience because I can't well target the audience there or I have to learn how I could do it better. In german there is only the possibility to target "house and garden" as interest which is too broad for my app.

If someone has good sources for me where I can learn more about ad , would be great. I mean there are so much wannabe gurus out there, and I search for high quality sources. No shortcut. ;-) I would appreciate it a lot, if someone has a hint for me, what I'm overlooking to grow my business and make it profitable.

 

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[lowtek]

Welcome aboard!

Cheer up, you've already made your first $1 online. That's a big step, and it tells you that you can make many more.

A 7% conversion rate is solid. Having a cost of acquisition greater than your price point is not. Simple places to start would be to tailor the traffic with negative keywords and focus on more narrow keywords. You can also do more advanced targeting towards traffic that has visited and interacted with your site. So, if someone visits several pages, you can show them one ad, vs showing a different ad to people who have never seen your site.

If I remember correctly, you can place a Facebook pixel on your site and then use that to create a lookalike audience? It's been a while since I did FB advertising, so don't quote me on that.

It also sounds like you need some other product to make money. An up or cross sell, if you will.

Check out posts by our very own @Andy Black and @eliquid for high quality PPC content.

 

[WuBa-Solutions]

Welcome aboard!

Cheer up, you've already made your first $1 online. That's a big step, and it tells you that you can make many more.

A 7% conversion rate is solid. Having a cost of acquisition greater than your price point is not. Simple places to start would be to tailor the traffic with negative keywords and focus on more narrow keywords. You can also do more advanced targeting towards traffic that has visited and interacted with your site. So, if someone visits several pages, you can show them one ad, vs showing a different ad to people who have never seen your site.

If I remember correctly, you can place a Facebook pixel on your site and then use that to create a lookalike audience? It's been a while since I did FB advertising, so don't quote me on that.

It also sounds like you need some other product to make money. An up or cross sell, if you will.

Check out posts by our very own @Andy Black and @eliquid for high quality PPC content.

Thanks a lot for all! I will check the posts you have recommended to me immediately.

 

[inputchip]

How many monthly active users does the app have? How many downloads? How long has the app been on market? How do you charge users?

Who is your ideal target customer? You need to get a clear picture of who you are looking to target and then figure out how you can target them with ads via interests, demographic, likes, follows, etc.

Where are you driving traffic? Do you have a landing page?

 

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[WuBa-Solutions]

How many monthly active users does the app have? How many downloads? How long has the app been on market? How do you charge users?

Who is your ideal target customer? You need to get a clear picture of who you are looking to target and then figure out how you can target them with ads via interests, demographic, likes, follows, etc.

Where are you driving traffic? Do you have a landing page?

Thanks for your comment. I have collected some data.
Launch of the app: April 2018
Downloads since start: 3270
Active users: 477
User will be charged per in-App purchase for premium version (pdf report, cloud backup, unlimited usage).

My ideal target customer is a private house builder between 25 and 45 years old and currently planning there budget for their private house construction or want tracking the costs based on the planned budget during the construction phase.

As I have written in my introduction, is only possible to target "house and garden" in Facebook, which is not specific enough (age and the other stuff is possible). I was not using "Look a like" because of the General Data Protection Regulation in Europe (maybe have to learn how I can use it legal). Currently Google Adword was not working well with 29€ expense related to 9€ revenue per 100 downloads. I plan now to have a promo video to have more qualified downloads to increase my conversion rate. I can also try to increase the in-App price (currently around 2,90€).

 

[WuBa-Solutions]

It also sounds like you need some other product to make money. An up or cross sell, if you will.

I was reading your post again, and can you give me more details what you mean with this? Did you mean, I should add more value to the current app and charge the user with additional in-app purchase? Or with another product/app (I would have 2 more ideas in my pocket). But I was thinking, that I should concentrate me on that one to learn more how to get more out of it. Later, with that knowledge, I create the other two apps. Maybe I waste my time with that (is another thought I have) and should start immediately the other apps.

 

[Jon L]

So what does the app do? It sounds like it sorts tradesmen based on service area, right?

I know for me that that is not how I'd want to find a contractor. There are a ton of crappy contractors out there. If I were building a house, I'd want to do it based on referrals from people that I know that have had experience with the contractors.

 

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[WuBa-Solutions]

So what does the app do? It sounds like it sorts tradesmen based on service area, right?

I know for me that that is not how I'd want to find a contractor. There are a ton of crappy contractors out there. If I were building a house, I'd want to do it based on referrals from people that I know that have had experience with the contractors.

No. It supports normale people like you and me during their planning phase of the budget for there own house. During the construction phase with the commissioned company, you can check if the budget will stay in the planned boundary, because you can store the payments for each position. You can add for each position a payment and the app will calculate if you will stay within the planned budget (e.g. sum of all payments and open estimations compared to the budget you have on your bank account and the bank loan).

Attached I have added some screenshot to have a better understanding what it is supposed to do. ;-)

 

[SamRussell]

Thanks for your comment. I have collected some data.
Launch of the app: April 2018
Downloads since start: 3270
Active users: 477
User will be charged per in-App purchase for premium version (pdf report, cloud backup, unlimited usage).

My ideal target customer is a private house builder between 25 and 45 years old and currently planning there budget for their private house construction or want tracking the costs based on the planned budget during the construction phase.

As I have written in my introduction, is only possible to target "house and garden" in Facebook, which is not specific enough (age and the other stuff is possible). I was not using "Look a like" because of the General Data Protection Regulation in Europe (maybe have to learn how I can use it legal). Currently Google Adword was not working well with 29€ expense related to 9€ revenue per 100 downloads. I plan now to have a promo video to have more qualified downloads to increase my conversion rate. I can also try to increase the in-App price (currently around 2,90€).

I don't think using a Facebook look-a-like is illegal under GDPR...

Even if it is... GDPR is a total clusterfuck. Even their own website isn't compliant with the rules they made up.

The data commission aren't going to come chasing you for using a Look-a-like audience to show a bunch of people on Facebook some ads.

It's mainly designed as a way to further shaft big corporations at whim, rather than go after people getting started.

Give it a go!

 

[inputchip]

Right now, according to the numbers you gave, your active users are worth about 0.02€ each if you clear 9€ on 477 active users.

This means you need over 100k active monthly users to clear just 2000€. Only 15% of the downloads stay as active users. That means you need about 700k downloads. How big is the private home building market?

Most home builders that I know would use more robust desktop software to track expenses and keep their clients updated.

 

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[PowerJen]

I'm not great at maths like inputchip, but I can offer some advice. To get free advertising and prevent the problem of ads that cost more than real return, use your current website and advertise your App on that (square banners as well as wordy posts or videos showing it).

A niche content creation plan is one way you can build up free traffic to all your income streams. If you want a free monetization plan for a niche content website, I have one sitting around here somewhere.

P.S. My blog content traffic converts in a drip fashion to my editing services, which is far harder to sell than a simple app. I also use Google Ads when I'm not busy.

Jennifer

 

[WuBa-Solutions]

Right now, according to the numbers you gave, your active users are worth about 0.02€ each if you clear 9€ on 477 active users.

This means you need over 100k active monthly users to clear just 2000€. Only 15% of the downloads stay as active users. That means you need about 700k downloads. How big is the private home building market?

Most home builders that I know would use more robust desktop software to track expenses and keep their clients updated.

Thanks a lot for your feedback and calculations. I like such discussion and in my environment I do not have someone to talk about such stuff.

Maybe I have used the wrong words, because English is not my mother language. :-( The target user is e.g. Families which are planning to let their house build and therefor they will collect cost estimations from construction companies and craftsman. In the app they can put these kind of information. They can also enter their private budget into the app and see the gap in there budget. With the gap they can go to the bank and ask for a loan. When the bank has agreed to approved their the loan, they can start with let build here house. During the construction phase the user will be able to enter the amount of payment for each planned position. The user will have all the time a control over there budget and see if some positions are more expensive as unexpected. Maybe the family will have an extra wish and can see if the rest of the budget will be enough.

The user feedback is very positive and I can see that there is a added value for the market. Some user told me, that it is currently unique and very useful. Currently I get also more and more feedback what user wish to have or they miss in the app and I can improve it accordingly.

With the upper explanation in mind I figured out, that only in the region of Germany, Austria and Switzerland there are around 150k families let build there homes. With the current in-app freemium price of 2,90€ and only catching 10% of the 150k families/users I will make 43500€ per year. And that is only in the region of Germany/Austria/Switzerland. Possibility to scale to other countries like USA, France, England, Australia, Italy, Spain, ... This is my vision.


In your opinion, did I miss something in my thoughts? In my opinion I have to solve the problem to get more qualified users which are willing to pay for the freemium version of the app. With this in mind I plan to let create a promotion video which I can add to the adword promotion to get more qualified and active users.

 

[SamRussell]

If the app is a few bucks, rather than goto the user, can you goto the banks / construction companies / architects, and pitch the app as a value-add for them? Either have them use a whitelabel version, or, get them to offer it for free to their clients as a bonus (the company paying you a few bucks per person that uses it)?

 

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[WuBa-Solutions]

I'm not great at maths like inputchip, but I can offer some advice. To get free advertising and prevent the problem of ads that cost more than real return, use your current website and advertise your App on that (square banners as well as wordy posts or videos showing it).

A niche content creation plan is one way you can build up free traffic to all your income streams. If you want a free monetization plan for a niche content website, I have one sitting around here somewhere.

P.S. My blog content traffic converts in a drip fashion to my editing services, which is far harder to sell than a simple app. I also use Google Ads when I'm not busy.

Jennifer

Hello Jennifer,

thanks a lot for your feedback and advise! I would be very interests in such a monetization plan as an option for me. I have to fight at a lot of fronts now to get profitable.

Can you send me a link to your blog? Would be interested what you are doing and how did you build it up.

Robert

 

[WuBa-Solutions]

If the app is a few bucks, rather than goto the user, can you goto the banks / construction companies / architects, and pitch the app as a value-add for them? Either have them use a whitelabel version, or, get them to offer it for free to their clients as a bonus (the company paying you a few bucks per person that uses it)?

Very nice idea! I tried once to contact a online real estate newspaper and got no reply. I have tried also to contact a platform where user can find craftsman and construction companies, but also without a reply. Maybe I gave up to early (had alot of other stuff to do beside). But it is a good idea to try it more harder. Thanks!



Do you have some experience with that? Can I contact you and discuss with you, when I have a plan ready?

 

[SamRussell]

Very nice idea! I tried once to contact a online real estate newspaper and got no reply. I have tried also to contact a platform where user can find craftsman and construction companies, but also without a reply. Maybe I gave up to early (had alot of other stuff to do beside). But it is a good idea to try it more harder. Thanks!



Do you have some experience with that? Can I contact you and discuss with you, when I have a plan ready?

Dude I'm just spitballing here - the only advice I would be able to give you would be to go knock on some doors. I'm a guitar player

But, if you think talking it over would help, then I'm happy to talk and bounce ideas. Shoot me a message when you're ready and we can Skype.

 

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