Notes for indie advertisers.
Practical guides on budgets, copy, distribution and measurement — written for people doing marketing between building sessions.
Why Traditional Ad Platforms Fail Indie Makers
Google Ads and Meta are built for teams with budgets, agencies and months of patience. Here is why indie products need a different kind of ad network — and what to look for instead.
How to Advertise Your Side Project Without a Marketing Team
A practical first-campaign checklist for solo founders: one channel, one offer, one metric, and a budget you can afford to lose.
How to Find Your First 100 Users (Without a Launch Budget)
The first 100 users come from conversations, not campaigns. A step-by-step approach for indie founders who need real people using the product this month.
The Indie Hacker’s Marketing Playbook for the First 90 Days
A calm, sequenced marketing plan for a solo product: foundations, distribution, paid experiments, and a monthly review that keeps you honest.
Best Places to Promote Your SaaS in 2026 (Ranked by Effort and Intent)
Communities, directories, newsletters, podcasts, ad networks and SEO — an honest map of where indie SaaS products actually get discovered, with the tradeoffs of each.
How to Write Ad Copy That Converts (Without Sounding Like an Ad)
Six rules for indie ad copy, three formulas that work, and the one test to run before you spend a cent.
Newsletter Sponsorships vs Paid Ads: Which Should an Indie Product Buy First?
Both put your product in front of an audience. They differ in trust, precision, cost and how much work they demand from you. A practical comparison for small budgets.
How to Track Ad Performance Without Analytics Overload
Three numbers that tell you whether a campaign is working, how to set up attribution you will actually maintain, and when to ignore the dashboard.
Building an Audience Before You Launch
Why the best time to start marketing is before the product is ready, and a realistic system for building an audience without becoming a full-time content creator.
How Much Should You Spend on Ads as a Solo Founder?
A simple framework for setting a test budget, understanding what a customer is worth, and knowing when to increase spend instead of guessing.
Advertising Ethics for Indie Products (and Why They Matter More at Small Scale)
Small networks live or die on trust. Six rules we apply to campaigns, from fake urgency to privacy, and how publishers can hold us to them.
SEO for Indie Hackers: Beyond Google
A practical SEO baseline for small products — the technical setup that matters, the content that compounds, and the search surfaces most founders ignore.
Launching on Product Hunt and Beyond: What Actually Happens
A realistic timeline of a launch: the prep that matters, the 48-hour window, the follow-up most founders skip, and how to turn a spike into a few lasting users.
How to Scale a Micro-SaaS with Paid Ads (Without Wasting the Budget)
Scaling is not spending more. It is finding one channel that repeats, fixing unit economics, and adding budget only when the system can absorb it.
What Is RoketAd? A Plain-English Guide
An advertising network for indie hackers, explained without jargon: who it is for, how campaigns work, what publishers get, and what the platform is not.
You built the product.
Now get people to see it.
Join the waitlist and be first in line when RoketAd opens.
For advertisers and publishers · Free during early access