by karatewolfpunk » Sat Jan 06, 2018 12:09 pm
I can't remember if I discovered Kickbooster through this forum (possibly even this thread) or elsewhere, but I've been looking into it ever since...so for under a week.
A lot of what I pulled up about it seems to be outdated.
One thing I seem to gather is that it had a poor launch, but is improving. I'm launching a Kickstarter (a second attempt after the original failed last year) February 1st, so I'm wondering if using Kickbooster can help at all. So I decided to create both creator and booster accounts.
Some observations:
-Kinda disappointing that you can't create a booster and creator account under the same email
-The affiliate link you get to boost campaign reminds me of bit.ly links - at first I was worried when sharing on social media that a foreign link would appear, scaring off potential readers/backers, but it previews and directs to the Kickstarter link
-They don't have any banners you can share on your blog - I shared some of the affiliate links on my blog using crappy photos I edited
-There's a "free trial" for creators, but it doesn't really mean anything
-It looks like the majority of the campaigns in their marketplace get fully-funded, but who knows how much KB actually contributed to those numbers
-There are a fair amount of Kickstarters to promote, but it looks like fewer than 100
-You can pledge to Kickstarter using your affiliate links to get a commission, so it's kinda like a discount
-Boosters can see how many people clicked on their custom campaign links, and how many people pledged through it
-You have to pay their $30/month subscription fee to publish a pre-launch page on their site, which I don't think is helpful in their case
-I haven't analyzed all of the numbers, but it looks like 10% and 18% commissions are the most popular choices for campaigns to choose
-$30/month subscription + 3% KB fees + #% for commissions is what creators pay to utilize KB services
-Commissions can be set 1-25% by creators
Overall, it looks like if it keeps improving, it could be a valuable tool to creators and affiliates. I could see it doing very well amongst bloggers. I think its main hurdle is that it needs to attract more dedicated boosters. At the very least, it doesn't look like it would hurt to set up a booster account, since it's free. Make some beer money. I haven't made anything yet, although my links are getting a fair amount of views. With my Kickstarter, what I'm going to do is try it out for the first month (my campaign will run for 60 days), and if the results are good, I'll keep going with it. Worst scenario in my case is if I lose $30 from no one buying through the links.
I wish I had learned about KB sooner, that way I could have had more time to properly implement it into my pre-launch. What I plan to do in the pre-launch is to gather both people who are genuinely interested in my project and those who want to make side money and make them sign up for KB. Hopefully that way, day one of launch is even more successful. I'll be creating a banner that people can share on social media or their blogs so that it's pretty and clickable.
I'll keep people updated on my experiences both as a creator and booster.