AdGrok (YC S10) is out to replace the 'craptacular' Google AdWords interface | Hacker News Reader

AdGrok (YC S10) is out to replace the 'craptacular' Google AdWords interface

xconomy.com

47 pointsmceachen22 comments

I wasn’t too surprised when Garcia-Martinez confessed to me this week that he studied journalism in college—the posts wouldn’t be nearly as provocative if they weren’t so well written.

Ugh... is this ass-kissing some kind of journalistic professional courtesy?

And there’s actually more cunning to his blogging strategy than you might imagine. The posts have drawn thousands of visitors who never would have discovered AdGrok’s website otherwise, without costing AdGrok a dime. “We got a lot of free PR based on my blog post about New York City,” he says. “It was like, whoosh—tens of thousands of page views and lots of signups.”

Frickin genius. This troll is an inspiration to us all.

Author here. It's not ass-kissing, it's a genuine compliment -- Antonio is a good writer.

Also, I think his success with the blog posts is instructive. Antonio freely admits that he's writing "linkbait blog posts to get us free PR" (http://adgrok.com/why-founding-a-three-person-startup-with-z...). I wouldn't advise trying this unless you have something genuinely engaging to say. But you have to admit it's an inventive, low-cost way to get your startup off the ground.

"But you have to admit it's an inventive, low-cost way to get your startup off the ground."

No, it's an awful gimmick which sets a terrible precedent.

Plus conversion rate from blog -> homepage / product page is awfully small. Typical is 2-5%.

"“If Google wanted to do this, they could do it themselves,”

How viable is this long term as a company? Does AdGrok use Google's API?

I'll admit, the Adwords interface leaves a bit to be desired, so this should be interesting.

Google is pretty good at blocking out upcoming competitors.

But do you ever get the feeling that Google knows too much about you? Has a little too much control? I use Google as my primary search, I let them read me email thru Gmail, watch my browsing thru Chrome, etc. But those are all privacy related things, not financial concerns. If I was spending a lot of money on online advertising, I would prefer to use a platform other than AdWords.

AdGrok should be ok.

"Google is pretty good at blocking out upcoming competitors."

Your comment made me think about the last time I tried logging into AdWords using Firefox.

The css file seemed missing or broken, and the form wouldn't submit.

Then I switched to Chrome, and everything was ok.

Not sure if that's deliberate on Google's part.

You probably had AdBlock installed and enabled.

Yes, that makes sense.

I do have AdBlock on my FF install, and I've gotten so used to it, I never notice it in the background.

"but in the long run the cost of using AdGrok will probably average out to about 5 percent of what users spend on AdWords"

One of my clients spends about $1000 per day on adwords. They would never spend $50/day on software like this.

> One of my clients spends about $1000 per day on adwords. They would never spend $50/day on software like this.

Assume the human effort/labor isn't part of the equation: $1000 in adwords -> $1001 in sales. $1000 in adwords + $50 AdGrok -> $1052 in sales.

Only reason to not pay for AdGrok is if the labor cost increases. If the labor cost decreases, they absolutely should do it.

We're beta-testing our pricing model at the same time we're beta-testing our product. There's historical evidence in the ad space that people are willing to shell out 15-20% of their spend on agencies. We're shooting for a pricing structure that will make using AdGrok a no-brainer. Our early adopters are finding AdGrok very "sticky" -- they consistently say they are happy that they never need to log into AdWords again.

1000 a day is actually pretty low. Once you find out what your CPA is and your lifetime customer value you simply look at your profit sheet and write a cheque to google for the full amount if you make a profit within say 10 months.

Yes, that's reality. Google takes 100% of profits in exchange for promise of more profits to take 100% of. Yes I want to be in their business rather then mine too.

The plan is to charge a flat rate for smaller spends, and do more of an agency, percent-of-spend model for larger accounts.

Your buddy with the $1000/month spend would be in the former category, and pay more like $20-$30/month. I can almost guarantee his ROI will be more than 2-3% better with AdGrok, so it would make sense for him to use it.

You're assuming AdGrok is just a frontend to Adwords. I think their platform is much more than that: besides the prettier/easier interface, I imagine its core is based on campaign optimization/management (through ML algorithms) and keyword generation, like kenshoo, clickfuel and clickable.

If that's the case, then it is more than worth the 5% comission.

http://marinsoftware.com/product/benefits.html

these guys also have their own frontend to AdWords. it allows you to manage a campaign across platforms even.

Marin is a product aimed at large companies with their own internal SEM teams, and >$100K monthly budgets. AdGrok aims for the space below this lofty level.

right -- they are in different spaces. but it is good evidence that google won't just shut down adgrok.

I really don't understand why the big image on the homepage of AdGrok has a link to itself. Is there a purpose to it or just got left there somehow? :)

It's an SEO trick. By linking to your home page from your home page, the googlebot falls into infinite recursion and your pagerank exceeds google. Soon, all search queries will lead to AdGrok.

</dry-nerd-humor>

I'm quite excited about AdGrok now. I'm so sick of the Adwords interface. Has anyone got accepted into the Beta yet?

We've sent out some invites, but we're sending out larger waves starting today.

Pop me an email at antonio at adgrok.com, and we'll get you in the next wave. HN readers get priority, of course. ;)

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