Show HN: Topics.io – Automate ads based on weather, CRM, etc. | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Topics.io – Automate ads based on weather, CRM, etc.

topics.io

59 pointscosbgn24 comments

We use conversion pixel.

Isn't Google and FB going to auto-optimize our ads based on machine learning and data sources which also include weather

I don't think they use weather, but honestly, working in this field I would stay as far away as possible from auto-optimizations. For example adwords express delivers much worst results than a normal adwords campaign. As of today, I would keep all optimization in my hands, in the future, this will probably change. (This said do keep the pixels they offer many other advantages!)

What still needs to happen before launch / open to public?

Are there any other platforms/apps that try to do this?

I've been looking for a simple solution for this but haven't found anything great.

Best of luck w/ launching & getting users cosbgn, potentially very useful tool.

Hi @sunsetMurk, did you signup for the beta? We are reaching out to each user to build user stories and build a set of templates based on those. In any case, AdWords should be out in ~10 days and Facebook shortly after.

This is a pretty common trigger. I was researching a similar idea a couple years ago. Some others include:

http://www.weatherunlocked.com/ http://www.weatherads.io/

Had found some others but the bookmark folder seems to be gone.

Yeah weather has been pitched by a lot of ad tech, and beyond some interesting creative for car companies I don't see much value. Imagine the car driving in snow if it's snowing, or in the rain etc.

@Joyup.me we use weather, context, time of the day, day of the week, occasions, and public holidays to suggest and optimize their ads. We are trying to provide a chat UI to get necessary input and use ML to get their campaigns going. We are primarily marrying Facebook, messenger, Instagram data with POS data for food businesses. Please feel free to reach out abhi@joyup.me

I see how this impresses people outside of a marketing role - but how is this any different than whats available in each individual platform? Sounds like your product is one small feature thats already available elsewhere.

I'd be more impressed if this was dynamic creative optimization in each of these platforms.

Hi, what do you mean with dynamic creative optimization?

as for "already available elsewhere", adwords is definitely the most powerful out there, they do offer AdWords scripts which can be used (knowing javascript) to accomplish most of this, you are right.

As for Facebook and others, I don't think this is the case. Googling I found this: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/community/question/?i... and it's for weather (probably the most common trigger), imagine CRM, or Google Analytics Goals. Could you please point me out to some docs on how can I accomplish this nowadays on other platforms?

Really interesting idea. Intrigued by what the UX is like as that's something my clients have often struggled with. I'm surprised there aren't more advertising optimisation platforms out there that use localised data like the weather, twitter trends etc.

Yes UX is important. We are trying to keep it as simple as possible, with just 3 tabs. Ads, triggers, actions.

You should probably focus on only one aspect, and rock it. Like if the weather does have an influence on my business, I would want an app that understand 100% of it. But now I am left thinking none of these triggers can make or break my business, so I won’t probably use it.

Hi @hartator, yes we don't plan to add 100 triggers, however, we do plan weather, Google Analytics (for Goals, inventory and all that) time/date and few CRMs. I think these are important to build a solid product, in any case, we will release one at the time.

Regarding make or break I understand. We are working on a tool where you can set up triggers and it analyzed your past data to tell you if your market depends on that trigger. E.g. you set weather is sunny, we check in the past 60 days your conversions for sunny days and not sunny days and tell you if there was a difference or not. If there was, we can save you money (or make you more money) if there wasn't we will tell you directly that you won't need this for your market.

I see, I guess the weather thing is mainly for local businesses.

Yes, exactly. Weather will be more for local businesses, restaurant deliveries etc. CRM and Google Analytics goals/page views more for SAAS/ecommerce.

Also, can you think of any trigger which could make or break your business?

I don’t really know, what will be your take? (https://serpapi.com)

I do know we have exceeded several times what we expect to spend on Adwords, for bad keywords/locations that could have been avoided if we were paying better attention.

How about "blacklist all countries where bounce rate is > than 80%". Would that make sense?

Yes, it's what we ended up doing but with conversions.

Everyone's going to have a different answer, so don't try to handle it yourself.

Instead, try adding integrations for services like zapier or automate.io so people can use their existing triggers that make-or-break their business and integrate it with yours.

Yes exactly, the idea is very similar to Zapier, ideally even creating a framework (or API) for users to connect their own integration.

https://www.deltax.com They also have a similar feature 'signal2ads'. Disclosure:I used to work there

Interesting, I can't find their price on the website. Do you mind telling me more or less their price point?

Pricing was percentage of media spend. The platform is targeted more towards enterprises and agencies. So pricing varies a lot between clients

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