Part 2: The new 'Igniter' --> YouTube Videos!

As mentioned in the previous post, we believe we are on to something by getting a significant amount of users to the site (using an inexpensive approach) but we did not see any increase in orders or authorizations. We needed a new igniter.

We started brainstorming how we tackle this issue by looking at other Facebook applications that users have virally embraced. (Important note: we're not talking about the applications that use mandatory inviting or spamming techniques)

Looking at Adonomics, the top 10 companies focus on: self-expression widgets, social games, non-profit causes, dating/meetup helpers and vertical reviewing (movies, books, etc.) All of these applications enhance the users experience on Facebook but none seem, on the surface, to give users an experience based on their interests.

The light bulb went off for us that since top3Clicks is already recommending items based on the users interests then it is feels natural that these users would want to see videos based on their interests. We hoping we can add to the YouTube phenomenon as the igniter. So we burned the midnight oil and launched the ability to select, watch and share YouTube videos in a way that may not have been presented this way before.

Here is a screenshot:

If a user has Guns N' Roses in their Facebook interests then notice how they can watch YouTube videos and also shop for items on Amazon. The igniter idea is that users tend to want to come back often to watch new interesting videos and if there is something 'impulsively' interesting they can buy right there.

So continuing from the last post, we dropped an ad to test our theory...

5. With the new Guns album arriving in stores today after 17 years, we decided to drop the following ad yesterday. -->

Our expectations: We focused the site and the advertising around watching videos and suggest that you can purchase items.

We learned: First, people love Guns N' Roses. Second, when users clicked to our site a much greater number of users authenticated in to watch videos. <-- big improvement! We also saw a great deal of clicking to Amazon but want to do more research into what users were doing. Conclusion: It is super early, only a half week, but we're already seeing the qualities we hope to see with YouTube videos. More users have authenticated to use our service and we're seeing the addictive qualities of YouTube.

Part 1: Learning how your application behaves using cheap Facebook ads

The next three posts are all tied together.

top3Clicks was created with a two part vision:
1. Help a person find items to purchase based on their interests.
2. Use that persons expertise to educate and entice friends to find items to purchase.

When we set out to create an application with Facebook, we had a hunch that a users profile interests would be a 'killer' starting point to then recommend items for potential purchase. We focused on making it real simple to use and allowing users to opt into telling their friends about their items of interest.

As expected, we built the application, went live and told all our closest and dearest friends to give it a whirl. From all their wonderful feedback, we fine tuned the experience adding features to make better suggestions, added a Getting Started page, etc. (check the archives) We really have appreciated all the friend QA efforts.

But I have to tell ya, there is nothing like random users to help understand how your application is really performing.

To find random users, we decided to use Facebook ads. As we ran each ad campaign, we started to learn a great deal about our user experience.

Here is the path we took and what we learned:

1. A big congratulations to the World Champion Philadelphia Phillies! (Bacon grew up in Philly and hadn't seen a championship since 1983)

With the victory, we started placing CPC ads to just see if we could get users to top3Clicks and purchase Phillies gear.

Our expectations: We didn't expect a lot of clicks and we were really pumped to see users click on the ad.

We learned: We sent users to the about page for top3Clicks. This gave users a chance to add the application but didn't give the user the thrill of seeing Phillie recommendations. We needed to send users directly to the recommendations.


2. Another big congratulations is in order for president-elect Barack Obama!

With election day a couple days away, we decided to test to see if we could entice users with Obama gear and send the user directly to the recommendation screen.

Our expectations: We knew people would click on ads so we were focused on whether users would purchase items. To our surprise, many users clicked on the ad and went to the site and ordered!

We learned: If we send users directly to our recommendation page (skipping the about page) with a compelling item then a percentage of users will order. The bad news was that not a lot of user that clicked on the ad actually 'Allow' authorization to add the top3Clicks application. So we focused on trying to get that number up.


3. Bacon is also a big Howard Stern fan and knew Artie Lange (his sidekick) was about to launch his new book. So we targeted New York Facebook users with the following ad -->

Our expectations: We wanted to get a bigger percentage of users that click on the ad to actually authorize top3Clicks application. Authorized users allows us to use the users profile for recommendations and to notify friends of interesting items.

We added an auto-authorization feature to send users directly to the recommendation screen to see items and potentially order and added tracking IDs for every action on our site.

We learned: Artie delivered a significant amount of users to the site but we did not see any increase in orders or authorizations. This was disappointing but started the brainstorming process that lead what we'll be talking about in the next 'part 2' post.

4. Marathon is a big The Office fan. We targeted people who like 30 Rock, Comedy Central, The Office and Steve Carell with the
following ad. -->

Our expectations: We focused on creating an 'automagical' flow where a user clicks on an ad then sends a notification to their friends to get their friends to try the service.

We learned: When users clicked to our site and looked at recommendations, we also sent notifications to their friends. We were able to see friends of the original user also sign up for Artie Lange on top3Clicks. (FOAF)


Conclusion: With Facebook Ads, we learned in an affordable, iterative way that we can add features to top3Clicks to achieve viral usage and orders. We're now focused on how to get users to keep coming back. We have successfully had random users start a 'loop of usage'.

Fiddling with new Facebook UX features when old features fail

When we launched top3Clicks, as third party developers, we focused about a third of our attention around the users Facebook 'profile' user experience. This was the major way to keep your friends in tune with what you are watching, etc.

With the new Facebook user design, we have found the profile section (now the boxes tab) to be absolutely useless (or to be nice - 'less useful').

We took a hard look at where we could make changes to get friends thinking about friends again and it became crystal clear that the 'news feed' is the only road for seeing what your friends are up to. Sooo, we just released a new update, tweaking our use of 'news feeds' focusing on tipping off your friends when you add items that you are watching in top3Clicks.

For example, if you are interested in watching 'Phillies' items. You can add the item to top3Clicks, example below.

Now notice below that once the item is added, it will appear in your news feed as something you recently added. Your friends will see this item and can either add the item to their top3Clicks page or they can click on an item that is available at Amazon (like the Phillies jersey). This gives your friends a chance to impulse purchase the item.

As the top3Clicks community adds more items this feature is going to really be cool.

Feedback (good & not so good) always welcome.

-The BaconMarathon

Note that the BaconMarathon is supporting the Phillies this year to win the world series over the Rays. The first time since 1980 when Mike Schmidt and Steve Carlton ran the show. Go Phils!