[blurrywh]

Nice question. I am just wondering if anyone will disclose their current killer acquisition hacks. Moreover, the question heavily depends on your business, so is it B2B, B2C, online, app, bot, etc.?

However, a good read on this which tackles all ways of user acquisition/Marketing is 'Traction' from the DuckDuckGo founder. It's not an exciting book but gives an ok overview.

You could also just start with the channel which seems most obvious, set up analytics from day one and iterate over and over. With this approach you should get a good feeling if your acquisition strategy works and if yes you should optimize. Otherwise move on to the next channel.

Edit: When you search for Traction on Amazon.com there's also another one on #1 (good Amazon search hack from another other author btw) which is not the mentioned book (the one I mean is blue-ish)

[jtraffic]

> I am just wondering if anyone will disclose their current killer acquisition hacks.

I see this attitude all the time. Why are people so worried? The fear is this weird chain of reasoning: As soon as you say it tons of people will automatically conclude it is a good idea -> tons of them will be in a position to execute it -> people will flood to the strategy and somehow take away the returns because it is a zero-sum game.

But I find that for every person on HN who automatically concludes something is a good idea, there is another one who disagrees. Second, not everyone is in a position where someone's genius growth hack is even applicable. Third, some of these strategies would still work even if tons of people used them, such as "do things that don't scale." The point is that they are localized.

I guess you can't rule it out, but the chances seem smaller than the number of worriers suggests.

[blurrywh]

> I see this attitude all the time. Why are people so worried?

If you find the map straight to a goldmine, why should you share it?

Example: Last month you found a new way to target on FB ads (=> mix of ad creatives, country and interest), with tons of traffic at ultra low CPC. The space is quite popular and you are surprised yourself why no one else found this way. Conversions are sky-high and it seems not to end.

Why should you share this? If you share you will destroy the low CPC within days. If you had ever found a goldmine in the past you might understand. And if yes, please share this goldmine.

You can make this example for every Marketing channel. People never share current tactics, only old stuff which isn't working anymore.

Edit: Why the downvote? I try to explain opportunistic behaviour and I understand and even agree that this behaviour isn't nice or something we would expect. But downvoting seems to be easier than replying properly...

[SyneRyder]

I didn't downvote you, but your post seemed narrow-sighted, focused on a single goldmine as if it's the only one that will ever exist. If obscurity is your only defence, it isn't a strong competitive moat. Better to have a technique for finding lots of goldmines.

> If you had ever found a goldmine in the past you might understand. And if yes, please share this goldmine.

I did this once on HN, over a year ago. I shared an exact technique that made me a 50%+ return during the year after I posted it. (Okay, maybe that's more like a tiny mini treasure chest, but it was still a money maker.) I'm not sure anyone even read it. Even if you give people a goldmine the majority won't be in a position to take advantage of it. Or perhaps they have better opportunities.

Sharing tactics can help you make contact with other interesting people, who are open to collaboration or cross-promotion and who provide you with opportunities in return. It's basically the Patio11 / Patrick McKenzie strategy.

[jtraffic]

I think I can see your perspective now, though I don't agree.

> If you find the map straight to a goldmine, why should you share it?

It's not that you should share it. It's that the risk of people flooding to your strategy and ruining ROI is low, so if you want to share it for some reason (e.g., contributing to the community, being nice), I don't think you should worry.

Your example is artificial. In attempting to justify a fear that I find overly common, you've provided an imaginary scenario where that fear might be justified. I don't think it addresses the argument well. Plus, even in your example, I think the risks are low. Lots of people have to read your comment, believe you're telling the truth, and most importantly, be set up to quickly use the information to drive traffic to their own site. Chances are their products aren't exactly the same as yours, and the conversion rates might not be so high for them. Many will anticipate this and not even try. Everyone else will just extract the higher level "insight" from the keywords and move on.

I'll share a story. There is a very successful company called Ravean, they sell coats and sleeping bags with heated linings. They've done several million on Kickstarter over the past few years. The founder of Ravean did some interviews and explained his ad strategy. He said initially he tried advertising with keywords targeting camping and outdoor consumers. Eventually, after burning up 7 or 8 grand, he erased all his keywords and targeted crowdfunding enthusiasts with keywords like "Kickstarter", "Indiegogo" and "crowdfunding." He claims his conversion rates jumped way, way up. In the interviews, he says "I should charge for this advice." Now he does charge for it:

https://ravean.com/crowdfunding/

So, even though there is a freely accessible interview, online, where this guy gives away his knowledge, he still makes money selling the same advice to other people. There is such a sea of information out on the web that any one thing is very likely to get lost.

The Ravean advertising trick is as close to the scenario you mentioned, and here I am, sharing it with HN. But how many people will really read this comment? How many will be doing crowdfunding campaigns in the near future? How many will immediately jump on the advice? Will it move the CPC needle? I doubt it.

[jaggederest]

Every gold rush in history has ended up that the most money is made selling picks and shovels, not working a claim.

This is why there are so many firms selling marketing tools rather than selling marketing directly.

[aisofteng]

>I am just wondering if anyone will disclose their current killer acquisition hacks.

I was also confused by this statement, but for a different reason. There is, of course, a mixture of a science and an art in promoting one's own product - but in the end, it should catch on if it actually provides value. A "hack" in this context sounds to me like what you'd call some sort of trick to peddle a product that isn't meant to provide value.

[levimaes]

Thanks, Traction sounds helpful; I see now that 'boring' practices and advice (etc.) are quite necessarily better for business/software/technology development audiences like us.