One application that is unique to social ads and where they have performed exceptionally well is when they are used to build an audience, engage with that audience over time, and eventually convert them into customers.

For these emails, you should determine the steps absolutely necessary to get value from your product. Then create targeted emails to make sure people complete those steps. For those who fail to complete step one, create a message that automatically emails them when they’ve dropped off. Repeat this at every step where people could quit, and you will

When we looked at companies really taking off, they were usually employing underutilized channels and channel strategies. If everyone in your industry uses social ads to grow, you might be better off using another channel.

suppose your core channel is content marketing, centered around your company blog. To jump-start your blog you may target other blogs for guest posts (in the targeting blogs channel). You might also buy social ads to amplify your best posts on Twitter and Facebook (in the social and display ads channel).

These interactions also get you additional data, like what messaging is resonating with potential customers, what niche you might focus on first, what types of customers will be easiest to acquire, and what major distribution roadblocks you might run into.

Your goal in designing these invitations is to get potential customers to engage with the invite and follow the link (or take the next step) that the invitation contains. Invitations that work best are short and succinct. Sign up for the most viral services you can think of and you’ll see what we mean. Additionally, personal hooks really help.

When you constantly test traction channels by sending through a steady stream of new customers, you can tell if your product is getting less leaky over time, which it should be if your product development strategy is sound. In fact this is a great feedback loop between traction development and product development that you can use to make sure

Traction and product development are of equal importance and should each get about half of your attention. This is what we call the 50 percent rule: spend 50 percent of your time on product and 50 percent on traction.

Effective email campaigns A/B test every aspect: subjects, formats, images, timing, and more. Timing is especially relevant to get higher open rates: many marketers suggest sending emails between nine a.m. and twelve p.m. in your customer’s time zone or scheduling emails to reach them at the time they registered for your email list (e.g., for