How we validated our client’s MVP with 362 beta signups for under $3 each

We frequently get clients to come to us with a new product idea they’ve been brainstorming that they’re sure will disrupt their industry. If you ask anyone who has experience running a startup the first thing they’ll tell you is that you need to test your concept as cheaply as possible to your market. The goal here is to gauge initial interest. Are you building something that no one wants? Or worse, one that doesn’t solve any problem?

One of the fastest ways to test product concepts is using social ads (usually Facebook and Instagram), where you bring visitors to a dedicated landing page that demonstrates the value of your product. The goal here is to get visitors to opt-in for early access and gauge your response. Disclaimer: If you have a paid product, it’s more challenging to correlate the interest against paying customers. However, if you have a free product or one with a free version, it’s easier to tie the metrics together.

Here’s an example of the landing page we used that resulted in a 38% conversion rate (yea, 38%.. insane).

This is exactly where we started when an entertainment company out of Nashville engaged us to run early testing on their startup. Below I’ll lay out our plan and the end results from our initial campaign experiment.

Our Plan

When we first engaged with this client, we learned about their product, business model, and who their customers were. With that information, we were able to identify audiences within Facebook that their customers were apart of. We also took the features & benefits of the product and built out ad copy & creative that spoke to a single benefit or feature.

What we’re trying to do at this stage is to test our message against various audiences, with different messaging in order to find the best ad combination. This allows us to take what could be months of figuring out what works and what doesn’t on Facebook & Instagram, and fast track those learnings into 2-4 weeks.

Here’s an example of what one of our first campaigns looked like (blurred for privacy)

Our first campaign experiment looked something like this:

• 5 Audiences
• 4 Value Props (Product Benefit/Feature)
• 3 Variations of Ad Creative

The result = 60 different ad variations

With all the ads set, we started our campaign. We set a lifetime value of $1,000 with a $100 daily budget. 

Results

The results spoke for themselves at the end of our 10-day campaign.

• Total Leads: 362
• Total Spent: $1,000
• Average Cost Per Lead: $2.77