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Online advertising for bootstrapped startups  

Rob Walling has posted this "5-minute" guide to advertising for startups. It doesn't go to a great depth, but it's a solid introduction. The article covers:

  • Strategies to make the most of advertising:
    • Converting advertising into emails (making it stick)
    • Using advertising to test hypotheses
  • The top five advertising options:
    • Niche advertising (InfluAds, BuySellAds, etc)
    • Google AdWords
    • Facebook Ads
    • StumbleUpon
    • Reddit

An interesting point is the view that advertising is not a viable way to scale a bootstrapped startup's customer acquisition:

unless you have deep pockets think of advertising not as a long-term traffic strategy, but as a testing tool to improve your website and find out more about your ideal visitor. Few bootstrapped startups can withstand the cash outlay required to turn advertising into a marketing activity with a positive ROI

More from the library:
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Don't choose freemium by default
Should you learn to code?