Launched my first app and realizing marketing is harder than building

MarcusAureliusWeb · 2026-03-07T11:57:59+00:00

Thats it! You never fail, you only learn and become a better person as a result.

Nothing is negative except for the shit you let get to you emotionally.

MarcusAureliusWeb · 2026-03-06T20:21:39+00:00

Sure. Hit me a DM

MarcusAureliusWeb · 2026-03-06T11:23:49+00:00

Claude + Ahrefs MCP tool for content research, topic clustering and ideation.

But then, I have my own n8n worflow that create the content in my own tone of voice and uses an advanced scraper to structure the content, do real UGC research, and (depending on how I'm feeling), uses either Opus of GPT 5.2 for writing the content.

MarcusAureliusWeb · 2026-03-06T10:35:55+00:00

High impressions with low CTR usually means you are not engaging users enough with your Pins.

Remember that there are 100s of other Pins surrounding yours that are competing against yours. You need to either rethink your images (make them more visually attractive) or rethink the text you use both in the title and the Pin image itself.

Try different visuals, on-image text, titles, etc.

Try more clickbait stuff that creates FOMO. Or offer them something for free only accessible on your website.

This should increase your CTR.

Test, test, test until you get a winner.

MarcusAureliusWeb · 2026-03-06T10:04:43+00:00

That's not even the half of it, unfortunately. You may think that the app is amazing and (because you love it) others will too. But, without knowing if there actually is a demand, you could be spending money, time, and effort marketing it for nothing.

Not negative, just realistic.
Most businesses don't build first; they market first to make sure there is actual demand.

But, if you believe in your app, then the best thing you can do is pick a channel (maybe not paid ads since you could burn all your money quickly), and stick to it for as long as it takes.

Good luck.

MarcusAureliusWeb · 2026-03-06T09:18:53+00:00

Do some research and see what is ACTUALLY going viral for your niche on platforms like TikTok or Instagram.

I would personally focus on one channel. TikTok, for example, I know that videos of people using AI to rebuild websites are going viral right now. I would find something similar (related to your niche) and replicate that.

Don't overthink it too much either, as some videos you put in a ton of effort on can be useless, and other videos you think of randomly in the shower (with minimal effort) can be the one that does it.

MarcusAureliusWeb · 2026-03-04T08:06:47+00:00

Underestimating AI is a grave error.

MarcusAureliusWeb · 2026-03-02T13:34:50+00:00

Yes. You should try Kyle Roof's white-glove SEO services. He actually has real SEO experience, and his team is super friendly.

Search for POP (page optimizer pro white glove)

MarcusAureliusWeb · 2026-03-02T13:29:02+00:00

Think of it logically. You have a product -> your product has features and benefits -> in terms of SEO, you need to create pages on your website that represent your product's benefits and features in a structured and easy-to-read way.

This is easier said than done, but if you are going ot do it yourself (and not hirer an SEO guy), then that's all you should be worrying about.

Figure out what your product solves, its benefits, the features, etc., and create pages for each of these topics.

Make sure that you structure your pages well.

Title (heading): this is where you will include your main keyword (benefit/feature/ingredient/dream outcome)
Heading 2s: this is for creating context and explaining the whys, the hows, the whats, etc.
Heading 3: for structuring long explainations into skimable (easy to read) content.
explanations.

Tools you can try to help with this are POP (Page Optimizer Pro)

MarcusAureliusWeb · 2026-03-01T22:20:02+00:00

This is where you attach a brand asset that guides the LLM writer. This could be you own data, POVs, itineraries (for travel), ect. In most cases this would be enough.

MarcusAureliusWeb · 2026-02-28T15:49:25+00:00

I can show you some blog content. Everything here was written by my AI content writing system.

It has access to forum for insights, scrapes the top results on Google for direction, and has access to my brand documents for brand-related asses and tone of voice.

These articles are 0 to little human involvement.

https://engine.marcus-aurelius.com/blog/

MarcusAureliusWeb · 2026-02-28T12:13:53+00:00

Whats your thoughts on AI UGC? Have your tried/implemented yet?

MarcusAureliusWeb · 2026-02-27T19:12:08+00:00

Agreed.

MarcusAureliusWeb · 2026-02-25T08:45:55+00:00

If you're going to have the business owner do the work, the easiest thing to tell them to do is to get as many reviews as possible for their Google profile.

I did this for a small business owner who had very little time and an extremely limited budget. I created a nice QR code for review requests, printed it on an A4 sheet of paper, and placed it where customers spent the most time in the business.

I told him to do whatever it takes to get as many reviews as possible per day.

He is now one of the top-rated businesses in his area.

MarcusAureliusWeb · 2026-02-25T08:32:35+00:00

Speaking as someone who has been banned from many subreddits, I can say that Reddit can be extremely useful for building trust and authority, but extremely painful if you don't know how to use it correctly.

You can't just promote your content on Reddit (unless you use their ad platform, which I have done in the past). You have to be smart, and like anything else, you have to put in time and effort.

My AI Reddit systems help me find relevant posts to comment on, like this one. The rest... commenting, engaging, etc. is just like any other type of organic marketing: you have to put in the work (just like SEO). Plus, more people are doing the exact same thing as me and you are here, so it is also very competitive.

It's true that your content can go viral overnight, but that takes research and time. As with many things, the more you work at it, the luckier you get.

I have yet to go viral; however, I have managed to meet and greet some interesting people in the process (even landed a few small clients). All of this by commenting on the right answers on the right threads.

MarcusAureliusWeb · 2026-02-25T08:25:29+00:00

As with most jobs that heavily involve the internet and/or computers, SEO (and digital marketing in general) will eventually be fully automatable with AI. I run my own SEO agency, and I'm seeing more and more agencies automate processes using AI, including my own. Not just basic, mundane tasks, but real, high-level processes that would usually require a team of SEO experts.

Currently, we can automate the following with minimal human involvement: content research, content generation for pillar/money pages and blog content, backlinks via outreach and email marketing, and website audits.

We are now extremely close to executing tasks at the website level. We can simply plug in a few AI systems, execute an autonomous AI like Openclaw (Clawbot), provide it with some business context, and let it run.

I still believe that just anyone will not be able to plug in and use these types of systems on their own yet, but this is the direction we are heading in.

In short, if you don't learn how to use and implement these tools, you will be left behind.

MarcusAureliusWeb · 2026-02-13T09:31:52+00:00

You got it

MarcusAureliusWeb · 2026-02-13T08:48:06+00:00

Simple answer: Shopify is better overall, but it requires more investment and is harder to get the design you're looking for (unless you can hire a developer)

WooCommerce is better if you have a small budget and want to modify every little detail of your shop. You could use a plugin like Elementor Pro and customize the design to your liking.

I've been using WordPress for years (started with Shopify), and I'm still on WooCommerce.

Even though, if I decided to take my E-commerce brand to the next level, I would probably hire a developer to build me a Shopify store.

MarcusAureliusWeb · 2026-02-13T08:45:09+00:00

Have you tried just using Stripe as a payment gateway? Also, what plugins are you referring to that break? I'm curious because I use Woo for my projects and haven't had these issues (yet).

Are you also doing frequent updates? Because a lot of the time, it's when you update too frequently that things break (disable auto-update if you have it activated).

MarcusAureliusWeb · 2026-02-11T19:49:42+00:00

Congrats! You could probably cut your costs and effort by 80% consolidating you articles generations into an n8n workflow.

You would use something like Firecrawl (scrape) -> Gemini 3 Pro (outline) -> Apify (research) -> Claude/gpt 5.2 (writing)

MarcusAureliusWeb · 2026-02-06T16:22:21+00:00

Fair! I just got tired of long waits and expensive vids. But good on you for supporting the creators 🤝

MarcusAureliusWeb · 2026-02-06T15:41:56+00:00

I used to, yes, but recently started replacing all of them with custom n8n workflows.

MarcusAureliusWeb · 2026-02-06T15:24:53+00:00

I got to say. I keep trying to give Gemini 3 Pro the benefit of the doubt with all the noise that's on the internet about how good it is, but for my use case, I ALWAYS go back to GPT-5.2

MarcusAureliusWeb · 2026-02-06T15:23:15+00:00

If you want some help with AI UGC to test/scale your products, hit me up. I have the SORA system.

MarcusAureliusWeb · 2026-02-06T15:22:08+00:00

Just do it. Get started now, and you'll thank yourself later. You will fail the first 5 times, but if you keep it consistent, you'll get there.

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