The company and program
| Fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Client | A Series A serverless Postgres database platform with a free tier and usage-based paid plans. |
| Stage | Series A |
| Industry | Developer tools |
| Timeline | One quarter, Jul 1 – Sep 30, 2026, against Q2 2026 |
| Channels | Google search, Reddit promoted posts and YouTube in-stream ads |
| Team | A Kiko growth lead plus agents for joining ad clicks to product events, search-term mining and weekly reports. The client's developer advocate checked every ad for technical accuracy |
The approach
| Test | Hypothesis | Compared against | Decision rule |
|---|---|---|---|
| Template landing | Ads that land on a one-click starter template for Next.js or Node reach a first query faster than ads that land on the homepage | Homepage landing in Q2 | Keep it if sign-up to first query is at least 10 points higher after 2,000 sign-ups |
| Developers in framework subreddits will try a database shown inside a working template | Google search alone | Keep Reddit if its cost per production project is within 20% of Google's after $15,000 | |
| YouTube demo | A 60-second branching demo works as pre-roll before developer tutorials | A 30-second cold-start benchmark ad | Each ad gets $500–$1,000 or 7 days. Kill any ad 30% above the best YouTube ad on cost per production project |
A production project ran 10,000 or more queries in one week from a deployed app, not localhost, within 30 days of being created. Production projects, not sign-ups, are the number that pays.
What we changed
- Weeks 1–2. Joined ad clicks to product events (sign-up, project created, first query, deployed app, production project) and built template landing pages for Next.js and Node. Cut the Q2 Google search terms that brought students and tire-kickers.
- Weeks 3–5. Launched Reddit promoted posts in r/nextjs, r/node and r/webdev, and YouTube in-stream ads before developer tutorials.
- Weeks 6–9. Paused the 30-second cold-start ad in week 7 and moved Google budget toward category searches such as "serverless postgres".
- Weeks 10–13. Scaled the three best campaigns. The developer advocate recorded two new branching demos.
The results
| Metric | Before (Q2 2026) | After (Q3 2026) | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Production projects from ads | 1,400 | 6,200 | 4.4x |
| Cost per production project | $42.86 | $33.87 | −21% |
| Sign-ups from ads | 9,800 | 41,300 | 4.2x |
| Sign-up to first query | 38% | 55% | +17 pts |
| Sign-up to production project | 14.3% | 15.0% | +0.7 pts |
| Paid-plan upgrades within 30 days | 210 | 890 | 4.2x |
Reddit cost $32.73 per production project, 13% above Google's $28.97 and inside the 20% rule, so it stayed.
What didn't work
- Competitor search terms. They cost $37.11 per production project. Many of those developers had already picked another database for production and signed up to compare. The campaign runs at a lower budget now.
- Promoting a benchmark on Reddit. The benchmark post cost $38.33 per production project, and the comments argued about the method instead of trying the product. We stopped promoting benchmarks and promoted templates instead.
- The 30-second cold-start ad on YouTube. It cost $52.00 per production project, 30% above the branching demo's $40.00. We paused it in week 7.
What we learned
- Land every ad on something that runs, not on a page that describes it.
- Judge channels on production projects, not sign-ups. Reddit and YouTube brought almost as many sign-ups as Google, but only 12% of them reached production, against 20% from Google.
- Give the developer advocate a veto over every claim in every ad.
Frequently asked questions
How much do developer ads cost per production project?
In Q3 2026, $33.87 per production project: $28.97 on Google search, $32.73 on Reddit and $43.64 on YouTube, with no creator fees. Series A programs like this typically run $50,000–$90,000 a month in media.
How long does it take to add Reddit and YouTube to Google search?
One quarter. Tracking and template pages took weeks 1–2, Reddit and YouTube launched in weeks 3–5, and the three best campaigns scaled in weeks 10–13.
Would this work for a seed-stage developer tool without a free tier?
The template-landing idea carries over. The measurement does not. Everything here was judged on a free project reaching 10,000 queries a week within 30 days, and the 20% Reddit rule needs $15,000 of spend to read.
Related case studies and guides
Same industry, other angles:
- Creator marketing: 4,800 developer sign-ups in 10 weeks; 2,100 sent a first trace
- Product growth: Median time to first successful API call down from 3 days to 40 minutes
- Full growth system: grew self-serve ARR from $800K to $3.2M in 9 months
- Creator marketing for developer tools
- How to cut a developer tool's time to first value, plus YouTube ads
- Developer tools creators
- All case studies
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