Great Article. For us, differentiation between ads and marketing was where we found success. We used ads to challenge our assumptions and iterated quickly against segmentations, content delivery, conversions, macro demographics, and personas. This data fed into our marketing strategy and allowed us to create strategies for marketing.
We burned $8k to get the data we needed on ads (plus <$100 on books), then another $4k to break even on future conversions, all under 6 months. This money bought about ~225 people. Our next 500 people took 75% less money to acquire. Since then we've been refining every 2 weeks to sustain a 2% conversion rate. We're aiming for 3% while increasing LTV. I spent 10% of my time in 2017 on PPC (large chunks of time with large gaps in between).
We are still in the early stages of our marketing effort, so no reliable data yet on success/fail on our blogs, drip campaigns, or community building efforts.