Slickplan: Free Trials From Meta and Reddit, Built Targeting First

By Kevin Veitia

Client

Slickplan, a web-based tool for planning websites: visual sitemaps, wireframes and content planning, used by designers, agencies and in-house web teams

Channels

Facebook and Instagram (Meta Ads), and Reddit Ads, run alongside Michael Reiss of Advertology

Timeframe

About two years, roughly 2017 to 2019

Engagement

Targeting, ad design, copy and management

Goal

Free trial sign-ups

The challenge

Slickplan helps people plan a website before anyone designs or builds it: the sitemap, the wireframes, the content. Its customers are web designers, UX people, agencies and in-house web teams. That's a small, specialized audience, and a skeptical one. These are people who build websites for a living and see ads all day, many of them for their own clients.

The goal was simple: free trials, at a cost per trial the business could live with. The hard part was finding the right few thousand people on platforms with billions of users, and saying something they hadn't already learned to ignore. Slickplan's own Facebook followers, about 1,100 of them in mid-2017, told us where to start: mostly men, interested in technology, web design and marketing.

What we did

Settled the targeting first

Everything we ran in those years followed the same order, the SUREFIRE method. Settle the targeting first, with one control ad held steady so any change in results comes from who sees it. Only then test the creative. Back then, the audience was the biggest lever in an account, and creative tested on the wrong people tells you nothing.

One designer, one writer, one point of view

Kevin had full creative control on this account. He designed the ads and wrote the copy himself, so every test came from one point of view, and nothing got lost between a strategist, a designer and a copywriter. When a test won, he knew why, because he'd made every choice in it.

A question, then Problem-Agitate-Solution

The copy followed one framework. Open with a question the reader answers yes to, aimed at a pain they've already felt. Then PAS: name the problem, agitate it until it feels as costly as it really is, and offer the solution.

For a tool like Slickplan, the problem is familiar to anyone who has built a website: a project that starts without a plan, a structure that lives in someone's head, a client who reorganizes the pages after the design is done. The agitation is the rework that follows. The solution is a plan everyone can see before the first page is designed, and a free trial to try it.

Reddit, the channel nobody expected

Slickplan hadn't considered Reddit. It made sense to try, because Reddit is where web designers and UX people argue about tools in public, and a planning tool is exactly the kind of product people research before they buy. It became one of the strongest channels in the account, and the one that surprised the client most.

We tested two types of targeting against each other with the same ads, the way we did for Yizzam, and moved the budget to the one that brought in trials more cheaply.

Results

We're leading this one with method rather than numbers, on purpose. The ad accounts from 2017 are long gone, and we won't quote a cost per trial we can't show you. Here's what we can say:

• About two years of steady free-trial acquisition on Facebook, Instagram and Reddit
• Reddit, a channel the client hadn't considered, became one of the strongest in the account
• Years after the engagement ended, Slickplan asked us to run the account again

And here's what the client said, in public:

"OuiGrowth helped us achieve our ad goals on Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit. We were especially surprised with Reddit, which we hadn't considered before. Thanks OuiGrowth!"

Ian Lawson, Slickplan

What you can take from this

• Settle the audience before you test creative. Creative tested on the wrong people tells you nothing.
• When one person designs the ad and writes the copy, every test result has a clear reason behind it.
• Open with a question your reader answers yes to, then name the problem, make it felt, and offer the fix.
• Try the channel where your buyers argue about tools. For Slickplan, that was Reddit.
• Test two types of targeting with the same ads before you commit budget to either.

Want a second set of eyes on your account? Book a free 30-minute consultation and we'll walk through what's working, what isn't, and where the next win is. Curious what it costs first? Our pricing is public.