Where Dutch Startups Get Traffic From?
Amsterdam Startups
Where Dutch Startups Get Traffic From?
Amsterdam Startups
Getting traffic and clients is super easy, barely an inconvenience. Except for when it's not.
Look at your competition - they seem to have always had that amazing traction! They got lucky one day, and suddenly enjoy 1 million visitors per day.
But how much truth is in it, is it only just luck? How does the competition, both small and big, get that praised traction?
Bunq BV
founded
2015
market
Fintech Banking
total funding
€ 49.0m
Bunq runs an independent, online banking platform - and, since its a dutch company, also a cost-sharing addon. Obviously. It is also important, that their main business is their app, not their website.
Bunq’s internet traffic, for a bank, is quite miniscule. Monthly bunq gets only around 16000 visitors in the Netherlands, 2000 in Germany - for other countries their website barely passes 1000 visitors.
Bunq started gaining traffic and recognition in late 2016, reaching their prime 20000 monthly visitors by the end of 2017. They never got back to these numbers after 2017 though, and keep losing traction.
Bunq gets most traffic through their app - from App Store and Google Play.
As for marketing bunq cooperates with big Dutch websites, which works for them very well - pin.nl, businessinsider.nl, usabilla, MasterCard, and nu.nl. They enjoy some attention via their blog posts on medium.com as well.
Bunq also invests heavily in paid social network traffic.
Booking.com
founded
1996
market
Travel Hospitality E-Commerce
total funding
€ 161.0m
Booking is a hospitality and travel corporation, and at its current stage it doesn’t have to make much effort to market online. Booking itself is the source of the greater part of their own 80.000.000 traffic.
But they did not start as a self-marketing platform people autonomously drive to - they had their humble beginnings too.
Booking’s initial traffic never came from hotel or places’ websites - if customer was already on a hotel page, they’d book directly there. That's a lost lead. The goal was to redirect customer so that they land on Booking instead of the hotel website.
What won this traffic for Booking seem to be the early partnerships with travel agencies and, especially, cheaper airlines. In fact, plenty of traffic for Booking still comes from western, eastern, and european airlines.
Currently, thanks to their wide network of reviews and embeddable widgets, Booking gets traffic driven to their website through various third-party partners - hotels, agencies, and airlines.
Otrium BV
founded
2015
market
Online Fashion
total funding
€ 8.6m
Otrium is an online discount outlet for big fashion brands. Their traffic is almost exclusively Dutch. Starting 2019, each month they get around 65.000 visitors.
Otrium traffic is driven not by Otrium itself, but rather by the brands they offer. If you were to search for “America Today sale”, you are likely to see Otrium in the top results. All 50 primary keywords they target with press and ads are brands they offer.
Otrium was also featured on Wired, RTL, iAmsterdam, and some startup websites - as well as fashion news outlets. They work close to their target audience and often offer discount deals on partners' websites.
If you take a look at Otrium paid advertising, you can actually see how much they focus on offered third-party brands instead of their own.
Framer
founded
2013
market
Software Development
total funding
€ 33.0m
Framer is an software prototyping tool for startups. They are based in Amsterdam, enjoy a healthy 20.000 visitors per month - and did I mention almost none of these visitors are Dutch?
That would make sense. While plenty of software is sold in the Netherlands, it is often created in Asia and Eastern Europe. Hence, many of Framer top customers come from India, Indonesia, and Ukraine.
The best lesson from Framer’s growth is patience. It took almost 7 years for Framer to click. But when it clicked, they exploded over night, and run on love-driven marketing since.
Designers seem to go absolutely crazy about Framer, and it is easily seen in billions of design websites promoting it as The Design Tool for every designer. One of the top keywords for Framer is high quality - and this speaks for itself.
While organic traffic is great, Framer also seems to invest heavily in cooperation with other software brands. Every app that connects with Framer links to their website.
Framer runs a few ads around as well. These barely show what Framer does, but focus on who and how uses Framer - promoting the usefulness over plain features.
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