Ask HN: I'm starting a service to send solicited ads via sms. Your thoughts?
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
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 17.9 ms ] threadMy 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.
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.
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.
What we want to do is give users about 2minutes of free talk time for every ad they get from us.
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.
Just to reiterate, phoned numbers will be in our database, advertisers skill not get their hands on this db.