A detailed review at how to use Gadget Flow most effectively, the pricing plans and how to use it specifically for reward based projects on Kickstarter and Indiegogo.
Gadget Flow is an established and popular discovery platform that helps promote technology, gear and crowdfunding campaigns.
They're listed as Indiegogo and Kickstarter Experts, marketed tens of 1000's of products and have a readership of over 28,000,000 per month.
You may have seen on message boards, lists and via referrals, that they've been been cited as must-have paid promotion for project owners that can help generate more sales, get more backers and increase awareness.
But do they actually work and how can they help?
This post has been a long time coming as we've been recommending Gadget Flow to most of our clients over the years.
Now under ownership of The Crowdfunding Formula, we've spent nearly five years going through the features that Gadget Flow offers, with the focus being on how they can help Crowdfunding projects, including: Platform listings, Dashboard Management, Pricing Packages and Unboxing Video Segments and more.
The Gadget Flow helps subscribers discover gifts and gadgets by providing a curated list of cutting edge products.
Their Pinterest inspired listings are on their main pages grab attention, whilst each listing has their own page that consists of a custom review with high quality images, specific category tagging (for searchability via the web site and SEO purposes) and the option for users to review the product too.
As we're specifically focused on crowdfunding in this review post, below are the most frequent types of listings that do well on the website.
Backpacks, Travel Luggage & Bags
Timepieces, Watches & Smart Watches
Multi Tools & Every Day Carry
Cool Gadgets & Unique Technology
Health Devices, Personal Gear & Fitness
Apparel, Clothing & Luxury Garments
Board Games, Card Games & Social Gear
Eyewear & Outdoors Technology
One of the biggest Swiss campaigns on Kickstarter is the DWISS Watch project and it's a product Hyperstarter successfully worked on too.
DWISS M2 is a pioneering timepiece with a completely innovative time reading system.
The hours are represented by a disc that runs under the multilayered dial and fulfills the hour’s windows with a colorful continuous rotation disc.
The minutes and seconds are represented in a classic way with sophisticated hands.
Here's a breakdown of Gadget Flow Analytics:
Once you've made a purchase on the List your Product submit page, you'll be taken the Business section of the site and the main dashboard where you can submit more details about the campaign, generate an invoice, upgrade a plan, include a description, title and press kit imagery.
What I've noticed about the dashboard, is that it continues to track clicks after the campaign has ended. As all listings are permanent, clicks by month are still trackable.
Select your Add-ons
The dashboard shows Top Countries and Top Browsers used to view your listing.
The promotion timeline shows approximate dates when the certain promotion items will be actioned. Whether it's a Featured Product, Newsletter or Social Media Mention, Push Notification or Homepage Feature.
The Add-on section is interesting as it allows paid users to upgrade their package through additional Gadget Flow services and there's other packages on offer from partners.
Add-on options include:
There's also offers of getting quotes from Jellop, Green Inbox Ads, Matix Labs, Fetch and Funnel, Crowdreach, Kickbooster and Sprint Crowdfunders Fund.
A new section is the Unboxing Video Series. As a follow-up to add-on features there's a relative new (but logical) feature on GF, which sees your product get reviewed by a tech expert and recorded in a distributed video. The reviews are fronted by tech influencer Jonny Caplan.
What does Unboxing Include?
Submission involves shipping your physical product to be reviewed, filmed, edited and then promoted.
A video review is a great idea, we can see a lot of established brands choosing this option. In terms of crowdfunding projects, the majority of campaigns we work on are at the beginning or where a prototype isn't fully developed.
Campaign owners find that test units are expensive to put together and may be limited to a few, so we find they are at time hesitant to send one out to get a review.
Ideally all campaigns that launch products should have a unit available ready to be prodded and probed, but in the majority of instances - it's just not completed and a (poor) review wouldn't benefit the project.
There's a number of packages available, but which is the best one for a crowdfunding campaign?.
We usually recommend the Pro or Premium option. The reason is that your project will be featured on the homepage which isn't included in the less-expensive options like Standard or Basic. We at Hyperstarter also realise that crowdfunders are trying to raise money, rather than spend too much money!
In the higher packages, the value of being in their newsletter is pretty useful (See an example here). The Ultimate and Platinum packages offer maximum promotion over a longer period of days, plus have the addition of custom videos.
Brief breakdown of some of the pricing features:
Social Media Promotion - Posing on 6+ social profiles such as Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Tumblr and Instagram Stories.
Daily + Weekly Newsletters - The daily newsletter gets sent out at 3 PM EST and features 10-14 new products while the weekly newsletter goes out every Saturday and features 16-24 products.
Push Notification - A push notification to their iOS and Android App users.
Homepage Slider - Displayed above the fold on the GF homepage.
Teaser Video - They will create a short video highlighting the key features of your product which will autoplay on any Gadget Flow feed, including the homepage.
The video integration on the site looks pretty interesting. There's some backend code that quick loads videos to show off a mp4 snippet that certainly makes the product stand out as it's moving in real-time.
We have a feeling this will be the future of all things Gadget Flow, as there's a ton of information and listings which are in a way competing with each other. A moving image makes you want to click on the listing to find out more.
The overall conclusion is sure-go-ahead and use them. If you're unsure about a package or if it's suitable for our campaign, just contact their support team and discuss your needs.
As the website states, all package include 24/7 phone/email/chat support and a satisfaction and relaunch guarantee, which is great.
