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[Pandara_RA!]

That's awesome coverage! Congrats. Already almost 1.8mm views. That's fantastic awareness for your project. It's interesting almost 2 million views with no real translation to Kickstarter backers? I wonder if this is related to the age of his demographics or that his viewers are less buyers and literally just their for the show... Either way though, getting your game in front of a few million people is huge!

Yeah sadly the conversion is minimal, although one backer did put in $1000 from seeing the YT which helped a lot.  It's an interesting case study, one that I'll be analyzing more.

Interestingly another local who ran a kickstarter for a documentary called the Tickle King had a similar experience:
Stephen Fry, who is a very famous English Actor, backed him and tweeted the project but it also led to very little conversions.

You are right though for general PR this has worked wonders and gained the project a lot of attention from other parties.

Pewdiepie is an incredible guy as well - my hat is really off to him for helping out comparative nobodies like us!  

I know 2million views seems like a lot, though you have to keep in mind the bounce rate, bots etc. Then take all that and assume the advertising standard of .1% up to 1.5% conversion rate (depending on demographic etc). (conversion meaning people who follow up and go to the kickstarter page) then from there a percentage of that percentage will convert to a sale.

Base..................................................................................................2.0 million views
assuming 10% bots ..........................................................................1.8 mil
assuming a generous 30% "low time" bounce rate............................1.26 mil
.4% conversion rate to KS page ("decent ad/semi-targeted demo")..5,040
5%-10% sale conversion rate ("decent to good")..............................25.2 - 50.4 backers.

Conclusion: about 25.2 backers.

Theory: The ad displayed likely didn't actually reach 2 million people and the people reached likely didn't get pushed over the edge by the advert to follow up.

(imo, the conversion rate is likely less than even .4%...closer to .1%)

[joe_eyemobi]

Yeah that makes a lot of sense actually - I think the demographic percentage is probably closer to the lower end.  As qwurp mentioned, a good proportion of his audience are younger kids and teens who are probably less likely to have any money to back a project. I guess the publicity is the main thing that we gained out of the whole exercise which I'm still very grateful for! 

[joe_eyemobi]

Ok we're now 4 days out from the end of the campaign.

We've been doing fairly well in the PR department, e.g. Lets Plays from some notable Youtubers, articles in IGN, Gamasutra, Incgamers.  However we're really struggling with uptake of backers.  I've been looking at similar recent projects and haven't figured out why this is happening.   

If anyone has any recommendations on what we could do, that would be really awesome.

[Müsta Klaki]

I'd back it if Kickstarter took paypal, but they don't.

[joe_eyemobi]

I'd back it if Kickstarter took paypal, but they don't.

Hmm I thought they used to at one point.  Do you find the amazon payment system a bit troublesome?

[Müsta Klaki]

I'd back it if Kickstarter took paypal, but they don't.

Hmm I thought they used to at one point.  Do you find the amazon payment system a bit troublesome?

I don't think you can do it in Canada.

I also don't have a credit card. I use PayPal for everything, which is attached to my chequeing account. Amazon is really the only thing on the internet that doesn't take PayPal, because they're idiots. KickStarter uses Amazon Payments so Paypal will never be allowed... but if I want to buy something online I can just go to Ebay.

[joe_eyemobi]

I'd back it if Kickstarter took paypal, but they don't.

Hmm I thought they used to at one point.  Do you find the amazon payment system a bit troublesome?

I don't think you can do it in Canada.

I also don't have a credit card. I use PayPal for everything, which is attached to my chequeing account. Amazon is really the only thing on the internet that doesn't take PayPal, because they're idiots. KickStarter uses Amazon Payments so Paypal will never be allowed... but if I want to buy something online I can just go to Ebay.

Bummer, I had no idea - that does seem really stupid to not accept Paypal payments - PP is one of the most popular systems

[Müsta Klaki]

Bummer, I had no idea - that does seem really stupid to not accept Paypal payments - PP is one of the most popular systems

I always thought about that... like, if I ever make a Kickstarter, I wouldn't. I'd probably have to go on Kickstarter's little brother that's full of scams... Indiegogo.

I don't think Kickstarter actually really promotes you stuff. I mean, it shows up in searches and stuff, but I doubt your game got on the front page or anything. Most of your promotion seems to have come from PewDiePie, so I mean, if you were on Indiegogo you probably would have reached your goal. The platform in this case wouldn't matter, Indiegogo just has more payment options is all.

[FuzzySlippers]

It's a shame Amazon doesn't allow bank transfers because Paypal has a lot of really scummy business practices. Amazon will work with you if there are payment problems while Paypal might just stonewall you and you get caught in customer service hell even if its a lot of money on the line. I used to work with payment processors and Paypal a lot at an old job and its crazy how terrible those companies can be as they've been benefiting from the lack of alternatives until recently.

[joe_eyemobi]

@Mustaklaki - yeah from my previous research IGG seemed to be very dodgy which is why we went with KS, but you're right KS's featuring system seems to be pretty random.  We've never been featured yet a lot of far more obscure and less developed projects get featured all the time. So basically we're relegated to page 100 or something under gaming so no one can find us.
I followed the Poncho guys' advice and have messaged them, but I won't hold my breath for a response seeing as it's only 3 days left.

@FuzzySlippers - I've heard some similar stories about PP in the past.  You'd think with all the cash they rake in that they'd tidy up their internal processes a bit more 

[Müsta Klaki]

@Mustaklaki - yeah from my previous research IGG seemed to be very dodgy which is why we went with KS

Well I mean, being a project creator isn't so bad. It's just that a lot of Indiegogo is dumb shit like, "Oh hey I invented a (completely-impossible) perpetual energy machine give me a million dollars" and they'll get like 1000.

Now that makes sense, they don't get the 1000 if it's Kickstarter. But on Indiegogo you can put on Flexible Funding, so they get the money anyways and don't have to actually do the things they said.

Kickstarter doesn't have Flexible Funding, but they (a few months ago) changed their review process (as in they don't have one), hence the stupid Potato Salad + thousands of copy-cats.

But again, if your promotion comes from an outside source, it really shouldn't matter what platform you're on. It's just the middle man.

[joe_eyemobi]

But again, if your promotion comes from an outside source, it really shouldn't matter what platform you're on. It's just the middle man.

Yeah that's true - this is reflected by the fairly low percentage of backers from within KS itself.  The vast majority comes from external sources.

[joe_eyemobi]

Well, it's the second to last day now.  We've crept up to 81%, but we still lack raw backer numbers.  I've been trying to look through kicktraq and all our other information but I can only theorize at the moment why this is happening.  I wish there was a more concrete indicator of what the issues are :/

[Müsta Klaki]

Will you still complete/work on the game, even if the goal isn't met?

The Kickstarter's moderate success tells you that there's at least interest. You just may need a different funding source.

[joe_eyemobi]

Will you still complete/work on the game, even if the goal isn't met?

The Kickstarter's moderate success tells you that there's at least interest. You just may need a different funding source.

Yeah absolutely - the KS is only a stepping stone.  We'll take the learnings we've picked up so far and try to improve the game and marketing approach.  The baffling thing is that there isn't any clear single indicator that definitively suggests where the problem is - but I have some theories which I'll cross reference at the end of the campaign.

Funding-wise there will be a couple of alternatives that funnily enough wouldn't have been open to us had we not started the KS campaign.

[Danny Hayes]

Hey, I came over from the Poncho forum post on kickstarter.

Yeah, Like mine it seems you did everything right, but for some reason it didn't work out. I think kickstarters these days require a massive first day, like hitting 20% within 24 hours to be successful now. Momentum seems to be everything, after the first 10 days poncho was at like 15% and I think people just saw how low it was and were like, "nah, it won't get funded", so they don't bother.

I think the amazon payments option thing really hurt Poncho, because we're in the UK, the only option to backers is to enter in all their card info because amazon payments aren't available, so they have to do more than a few quick clicks to pledge. That sucks.

[WildFactor]

Hey, I came over from the Poncho forum post on kickstarter.

Yeah, Like mine it seems you did everything right, but for some reason it didn't work out. I think kickstarters these days require a massive first day, like hitting 20% within 24 hours to be successful now. Momentum seems to be everything, after the first 10 days poncho was at like 15% and I think people just saw how low it was and were like, "nah, it won't get funded", so they don't bother.

I think the amazon payments option thing really hurt Poncho, because we're in the UK, the only option to backers is to enter in all their card info because amazon payments aren't available, so they have to do more than a few quick clicks to pledge. That sucks.

In your case, having your campaign in UK pounds doesn't help either.
Also Kickstarter is loosing a little steam, so it's harder than it use to be.

[Danny Hayes]

Very true.

[qwurp]

48 hour emails will be going out in a few hours and it will start appearing on "Ending Soon" recommendations so there should be some organic growth to the campaign and generally the last 48 hours see an increase in interest. It helps that you're not too far from your goal. Either way, looks like it will be a pretty intense last 48. Go take some heart medicine and make that final push! Don't lose heart yet, you're well positioned.

[joe_eyemobi]

Hey, I came over from the Poncho forum post on kickstarter.

Yeah, Like mine it seems you did everything right, but for some reason it didn't work out. I think kickstarters these days require a massive first day, like hitting 20% within 24 hours to be successful now. Momentum seems to be everything, after the first 10 days poncho was at like 15% and I think people just saw how low it was and were like, "nah, it won't get funded", so they don't bother.

I think the amazon payments option thing really hurt Poncho, because we're in the UK, the only option to backers is to enter in all their card info because amazon payments aren't available, so they have to do more than a few quick clicks to pledge. That sucks.

Hey Danny, thanks for the encouragement and I agree you have a great looking project so there are no obvious answers to why either of us haven't gathered enough momentum.  I plan to write up a post mortem after this is all finished and try and take a punt as to why we didn't get as many backings as we wanted.  It's possible there are a number of small, subtle contributing factors so it will be a matter of doing some thorough analysis.

Either way though, no worries Danny you've got a fantastic game and on top of that you've now got a substantial and loyal fan base!

Just curious though, you mentioned you had 15% on day 1.  Did you arrange for some personal backers to ready at the start?  Did you have fans prior to the KS which you could leverage?