Solved: Best way to buy traffic for web app prototype?

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out! Happy to give you some of my initial thoughts on buying traffic for your new web app prototype. It's a common spot to be in, and it's easy to waste a lot of money if you don't get the foundations right from the start.

You mentioned wanting to stick to text-based ads, which is a fair starting point if you're not comfortable with creative. But honestly, the success of your experiment will depend less on the ad format and more on three things you probly haven't focused on yet: who you're targeting, what you're offering them, and what the numbers behind your business look like. Get those right, and the ad channel almost picks itself. Let's get into it.

We'll need to look at your customer's nightmare, not their job title...

Right, first things first. Forget everything you think you know about Ideal Customer Profiles (ICPs). That document your last marketing person made saying "we target companies in the tech sector with 50-250 employees"? Bin it. It's completely useless. It leads to generic, boring ads that nobody clicks on because they don't speak to anyone's actual problems.

To stop burning cash, you have to define your customer by their pain. Their specific, urgent, expensive, career-threatening nightmare. That's what you're selling a solution to. Your web app isn't a collection of features; it's an aspirin for a pounding headache.

Let's imagine your prototype is a new project management tool. Your ICP isn't "a project manager". It's a Head of Operations who just had to tell the CEO that a major product launch is delayed for the third time because her team is drowning in spreadsheets and Slack messages. Her nightmare is her team quitting from burnout, her project failing, and her own job being on the line. She isn't searching for "project management software"; she's desperately looking for a way to stop the chaos and get back in control.

Once you've figured out that specific nightmare, you can find where these people hang out online. What podcasts do they listen to on their commute? What industry newsletters do they actually read? What software tools (like HubSpot or Salesforce) are they already paying for? Are they in specific Facebook groups or following certain influencers on LinkedIn? This isn't just data; it's the blueprint for your entire targeting strategy. You have no business spending a single pound on ads until you've done this work. It dictates the keywords you bid on, the interests you target, and the language you use in your ads.

Without this deep understanding, you're just shouting into the void and hoping someone who might need your app happens to hear you. With it, you can whisper directly into the ear of someone who is desperate for your solution. It's the difference between a campaign that costs a fortune and gets no results, and one that starts bringing in users from day one.

I'd say you should delete your "Request a Demo" button...

Now we get to the second, and arguably most common, reason why ad campaigns for new software fail: the offer. I'm going to take a guess that your plan is to send traffic to a landing page with a big "Request a Demo" button on it. If so, I need you to listen very carefully: that is the single most arrogant and ineffective Call to Action in B2B marketing.

Think about it from your customer's perspective. They are a busy, important person dealing with that 'nightmare problem' we just talked about. They see your ad, click on it, and you're immediately asking them to commit their valuable time to a meeting where you will try to sell them something. It's high friction, it offers them zero immediate value, and it instantly makes you look like every other desperate vendor out there. It's a huge barrier.

Since you're at the prototype stage, this is your chance to build a better system from the ground up. Your offer's only job is to deliver a moment of undeniable value—an "aha!" moment that makes the prospect sell themselves on your solution. You've got a massive advantage here if you're a SaaS company.

The gold standard offers are:

• -> A Free Trial (no credit card required). Let them actually use the prototype. Let them experience the relief of their problem being solved. When the product itself proves its value, the sale becomes a formality. This creates Product Qualified Leads (PQLs), people who are already convinced, instead of Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) who your future sales team have to chase.
• -> A Freemium Plan. Same logic as above. Give them a core version of the product for free, forever. This gets them into your ecosystem. Once they rely on it, upgrading to a paid plan becomes a no-brainer.
• -> A Pre-Launch Waitlist with an Incentive. If your prototype isn't quite ready for public use, this is a great option. Create a landing page that shows off the features and sells the dream. Collect emails for a waitlist, but you MUST offer a real incentive. Something like "Sign up now for 50% off your first three months" or "Get early access and a lifetime free account". You then need to keep this list engaged with updates until you launch.

If you're not a SaaS product, you're not off the hook. You have to bottle your expertise into something that provides instant value. A marketing agency might offer a free SEO audit. A data analytics firm could offer a 'Data Health Check'. For us, as an advertising consultancy, we offer a free 20-minute strategy session where we audit failing ad campaigns. You have to solve a small, real problem for free to earn the right to solve their bigger problems for a price.

Fixing your offer is more important than anything else. A brilliant ad campaign sending traffic to a bad offer will always fail. A mediocre ad campaign sending traffic to an irresistible offer can still be a huge success.

You probably should calculate how much a customer is worth...

Before you set your daily budget, you need to answer a different question. It's not "How low can I get my cost per signup?" but "How high a cost can I afford to acquire a great customer and still be profitable?" The answer lies in a metric called Lifetime Value (LTV).

Getting a rough idea of this number is non-negotiable. It transforms your mindset from cost-cutting to intelligent investment. It's the core metric that lets you scale aggressively once you find something that works. Here's how you can estimate it, even at this early stage.

You'll need to make some educated guesses:

• -> Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA): What do you plan to charge per customer, per month? Let's say it's £100.
• -> Gross Margin %: What's your profit margin on that revenue after server costs etc.? Let's say it's 80%.
• -> Monthly Churn Rate %: This is the tricky one. What percentage of customers do you predict you'll lose each month? A good SaaS business might be around 3-5%. Let's be conservative and say 5%.

Now, the calculation is simple:

LTV = (ARPA * Gross Margin %) / Monthly Churn Rate

So, in our example:

LTV = (£100 * 0.80) / 0.05
LTV = £80 / 0.05 = £1,600

This means, based on your estimates, each customer you acquire is worth £1,600 in gross margin to your business over their lifetime. This is your truth. This is the number that unlocks growth.

A healthy business model often aims for a 3:1 ratio of LTV to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC). So, with a £1,600 LTV, you can afford to spend up to £533 to acquire a single customer. Suddenly, paying £5, £10, or even £50 for a trial signup doesn't seem so scary, does it? It looks like a potential bargain. This is the maths that separates the businesses that can scale from the ones that are constantly terrified of their ad spend.

You'll need to choose the right place to find customers...

Okay, now that we've got the critical strategy parts sorted (ICP, Offer, LTV), we can finally talk about where to actually run your ads. Your preference for text-based ads is a good constraint because it forces you to focus on channels driven by user intent.

Google Search Ads: Your Top Priority

This is where you should start. It's the purest form of intent-based marketing on the planet. You're not interrupting people; you're helping them at the exact moment they are looking for a solution to their problem. For a B2B web app, this is gold.

Your job here isn't to target broad, expensive keywords like "project management software". You'll get destroyed by massive companies with huge budgets. Instead, you use your 'nightmare' research to find long-tail keywords that signal a specific, urgent pain point.

For our example Head of Operations, she might be searching for:

• -> "how to fix missed project deadlines"
• -> "best spreadsheet alternative for team tasks"
• -> "software for remote team visibility"
• -> "[competitor name] alternative"

These are 'problem-aware' keywords. People searching for these are pre-qualified. They have the pain you solve. Your ad copy then just needs to connect that pain to your solution using a simple framework like Problem-Agitate-Solve.

Problem: Tired of chasing status updates?
Agitate: Missed deadlines and team burnout are costing you.
Solve: Get a single source of truth for all your projects. Try [Your App Name] Free.

This approach of using problem-aware keywords on Google Ads is incredibly effective. We've seen it deliver great results. For example, in one campaign we ran for a software client, we successfully drove 3,543 users at just £0.96 per user.

LinkedIn Ads: A B2B Powerhouse (with a text option)

If your web app is for businesses, you need to consider LinkedIn. The targeting is unmatched. You can get your ad in front of the exact job titles, in the exact industries, at companies of the exact size you want to work with. It's more expensive, for sure, but the quality of the leads can be incredible.

While LinkedIn is known for its image and video ads (Sponsored Content), they do have a 'Text Ad' format. These appear in the right-hand column or at the top of the page. They are simple, quick to make, and can work to start conversations or drive traffic. You could easily test these without needing any creative assets.

However, I'd be doing you a disservice if I didn't suggest you also test Sponsored Content with a very simple image. It doesn't need to be a design masterpiece. A clean screenshot of your app's dashboard with a strong headline can work wonders. We've seen lead costs for B2B decision-makers on LinkedIn come in around $22, which, if you know your LTV, can be an absolute steal.

A Note on Meta (Facebook/Instagram)

I know you said you want to avoid image/video ads, but I have to mention Meta. It's often underestimated for B2B and software promotion. We've had massive successes here, like generating 5,082 software trials at just $7 a pop for one client, and 4,622 registrations at $2.38 for another. These are numbers that are very hard to ignore.

The reason it works is that Meta's algorithm is incredibly powerful at finding people who will convert, even with broad targeting, once it has enough data. You could start with a simple, clean graphic showing your app's main benefit. You don't need a Hollywood production. The potential scale on Meta is enormous and once you have a validated offer, it's often the best channel to pour fuel on the fire.

This is the main advice I have for you:

Getting traffic to your prototype isn't about picking a channel and throwing money at it. It's a methodical process of building a solid foundation first. If you skip the strategy, you're just gambling. Below is the step-by-step plan I'd recommend you follow.

As you can see, the actual "buying traffic" part is quite far down the list. Getting the strategy right is 90% of the battle. It's not as exciting as launching ads, but it's what seperates the campaigns that succeed from the ones that are a complete waste of money.

This stuff is complex, and it's easy to make costly mistakes, especially when you're just starting out. You're juggling product development, strategy, and now you have to become an expert in advertising overnight. It's a lot. Getting professional advice can make a huge differance, not just in getting better results, but in getting them faster and avoiding those early, expensive lessons.

We do this all day, every day for software and B2B companies. We've seen what works and what doesn't across hundreds of campaigns. If you'd like to have a chat, we offer a completely free, no-obligation initial consultation where we can look at your specific prototype and give you a tailored plan of attack. It might be a really helpful next step for you.

Hope this helps!

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh