u/michaelnovati replied · · edited ★ FEATURED
We run ads for our program (not a bootcamp but have experience with ads)
Honestly, with good quality ad targeting it's impossible to know. It might FEEL like a company is spending millions of dollars and you see the ads every place you go.... inescapable... but the company might be spending very little and just optimized how to target you or their audience very well and not waste money on irrelevant people.
So it's possible that the more you see a company, the better their marketers are. It's also possible they are spending a ton of money. You'll never really know though and advertising is the main way companies find customers so almost everyone does it.
The ones that don't spend money, hire people to create public content and "free" workshops. They end up spending MORE MONEY on those people's salaries and running those than they would on advertising.
Codesmith is a good example, and it's interesting because you would think "this place doesn't need do ads is so good" but in reality it costs more to run all their community management stuff and to sponsor Course Report, etc... to get people in the door and they pay that extra cost to have this impression. Will Sentance talked about this strategy in a podcast from a few years ago.