Skip to content

Top Best Ask Show New Jobs

Ask HN: I'm starting a service to send solicited ads via sms. Your thoughts?

3 pointswairagu14y ago6 comments

Hi, I' m in Kenya . I want to start a service where ; Users who would like to to receive sms ads can sign up. Users in turn receive mobile phone credit per sms ad that they receive .

Advertisers can then use my service (from the website) to target users with relevant ads . I 'll then send this ads to the relevant users via sms. I' ll charge advertisers a constant service charge , profit margin plus cost per sms ad sent.

Questions 1. As an advertiser what things would you like to know about users in order to determine which users to send which ads to? eg age , marital status, gender etc</p >

2. As a user would you be willing to join such a service . If yes, on what conditions < p>

3 .Any other advice, in biz or your thoughts are welcome .</p >

anything ,

6 comments

6 comments · 3 top-level

bediger14y ago· 1 in thread

Please, I beg of you, in the name of all that does not suck, DO NOT MAKE THIS SERVICE!

It will be abused, people will spam, and others will be annoyed by the spam, and have to pay for the spam.

You have no economic incentive to take people off send-me-ads-lists. You will make money by the SMS, probably, or at least you'll charge incrementally, 100 some price, 1000 some more price, etc etc. It will be against your better monetary interest to accept "remove" requests, so you won't put any effort into the interface, you won't fix bugs, and you'll ignore any inquiry that isn't exactly correct, with well-formed sentences. You will make it easy to get a phone number ON the lists, since that is how you make money.

This is a recipe for disaster for the victims of your proposed service, and a moral disaster for your, as you will find yourself compromising your moral and ethical standards along the way. You will find yourself a near-criminal, universally loathed spammer within 2 years.

wairaguOP14y ago

I hear you, but we will set standards that will be adhered to by employees who may be in a position to see a users phone number. Just like your ISP that has your email, but does it send you spam just because it has it? Google has my phone number, but they don't send me spam. because they have policies against those kind of things, that's what we aim to put in place. Maybe hard but we will.

Just to reiterate, phoned numbers will be in our database, advertisers skill not get their hands on this db.

breckinloggins14y ago· 1 in thread

Answer to number 1: Standard demographic information, sure, but also what kind of phone they have. This would make it easier to push advertisements for apps

Answer to number 2: No, because I think the age of "interruptive" marketing is over. However, if I could get a free phone and some kind of basic service plan and I was low on funds, I would absolutely do it.

Answer to number 3: You're in Kenya... the advice you get from people in other countries may or may not apply, so take everything with a grain of salt (including what I'm saying). Also, I think your business will be made or broken by the agreements you can make with carriers.

wairaguOP14y ago

Here in Kenya most phone users (about 95%) are on a pre pay plan, ie you pay first then the money you have paid decrements as you talk. 1US dollar will give you about 15 minutes of talk time.

What we want to do is give users about 2minutes of free talk time for every ad they get from us.

mgl14y ago· 1 in thread

Don't you think that the engagement factor for subscribed ads can be really, really low? Did you talk to potential advertisers or ad networks about this idea? Are they willing to spend their money on promoting their ads via this channel?

My concern is that without putting ads in any context (like embedding in conversation) people will just ignore them, completely. Also, any advertiser would like to know much more about users to target ads more precisely, a set of interests should be just a starting point.

wairaguOP14y ago

Haven't talked to potential advertisers yet.

I hear you on the fact that users may ignore ads if they are not in any context. So I was thinking that maybe I can implement a mechanism where users have to reply back with something that was embedded in the ad to prove that they have read it.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse