Developer marketing examples

The best dev tool marketing campaigns, designs, and copy
that I found on the internet

copy
ads
linkedin
brand

Joke ad format with a transitional CTA from sdworx

Dorky joke right?

But it does two very important things beautifully.

It gets a smirk (from some people) and when it does you know you just moved someone closer to your brand.

It has a clear CTA which is hard to do with joke-format ads.

This subtle call to conversation/check us out does the job.

Love it!

developer experience
copy
pricing

Start Free Pricing plan from CircleCi

Why not highlight your free plan?

Most companies highlight their middle paid plan saying it is "most popular".

First thing, yeah, sure it is your most popular plan.

But more importantly, most visitors will not convert to your paid plans right away.

So why not try and capture as many devs as possible on the free plan?

If they like your dev tool there are many things you can do to convert some of them to paid plans.

But if they leave that pricing page and go with some other free tool, you are not converting anyone.

@CircleCI highlights free and they are in the mature, competitive market of CI CD tools.

Idk, it really does make a lot of sense to me.

If people need more advanced features they will choose higher plans anyway.

But if they want to get things started with the basic plans they will choose free or go elsewhere.

I'd rather have them choose free than none.  

blog
call to action

"Aside" call to action from Auth0

A classic dev tool blog call to action that is somewhat underused these days.

Was going through Martin Gontovnikas blog and found a post from a couple of years back.

He called this "Aside CTA" and the idea is this:

  • You write an article about a problem X
  • You don't mention your tool much (or anything) in the article
  • But your product helps solve that problem
  • So you add an "Aside" at the end where you say that you could also solve it with your tool

Why this can work well with devs is:

  • You write a genuinely helpful article
  • You don't "pollute" the article with your product
  • You add value first with content
  • You let people "upgrade" their solution experience with your tool
  • You are explicit about what your tool does and what the content does.

Definitely a classic that is worth trying.

Read Gonto's article.

video
landing page

Streamlit explainer video

Streamlit has an amazing explainer.

They show how to go from:

  • Writing your first line of code
  • To creating data dashboard
  • To deploying it across the web

In 42 seconds.

No audio, just code and a simplified result window.

Amazing stuff.

developer experience
call to action
blog

Great article in-text CTA from DigitalOcean

Adding CTA in dev-focused articles is hard.

You don't want to be too pushy, but you do want to get conversions.

DigitalOcean strikes a great balance with its in-text article CTA design.

They make this CTA look like an info box that you'd typically see in the documentation.

It is clear that it is a Digital Ocean CTA but it doesn't feel pushy.

It feels like a piece of potentially useful information.

Love it.

copy
blog
call to action

ShiftMag Newsletter CTA copy

Funny dev newsletter CTA. From shiftmag .dev by Infobip.

It starts with a chuckle-worthy:

"Sarcastic headline, but funny enough for engineers to sign up"

Then they follow up by disarming the "is that spam" and building more rapport with:

  • "Written by people, not robots - at least not yet."
  • "May or may not contain traces of sarcasm, but never spam."

They end with an alternative call to action. RSS feed.

Most newsletters don't do RSS.

But for many devs RSS feed is the preferred content subscription.

Great job!

campaigns

Vercel templates gallery

Well done templates gallery from Vercel.

For developer-focused products, having an examples/templates/code samples gallery can be a powerful growth lever.

✅ It helps people:

  • understand what you do
  • see if anyone did what they want
  • get started with something real-life(ish)
  • get a feel for a product without committing to it yet

Just a great touchpoint in the developer journey.

💚 And Vercel does this one really well IMHO.

They start with an easy-to-find CTA in the navbar resources section. Bonus points for adding one-liner descriptions that make it clear what is on the other side of the click.

On the templates library page, they give you solid use case navigation with tags. And each template tile has a result thumbnail and a one-liner description. The beauty of this is in the simplicity and what they didn't put in here.

Each template page shows the result, gives you a tutorial on how to use this, and clear CTAs to either see this live or deploy yourself. Bonus points for the "Deploy" action copy (instead of "Sign up").

Kudos to the Vercel team. They are one of my favorite inspirations.

developer experience
call to action
blog

Developer-focused blog slide-in CTA from Snyk

An interesting option to push people to read the next article.

You use a slide-in triggered on a 75% scroll with a "read next" CTA in the bottom left.

On the aggressive side for sure but when the article you propose is clearly technical it could work.

And if your articles are not connected to the product explicitly you do need some ways to keep people reading and see more of your brand.

campaigns
github
product led growth

GitHub PR growth loop from Snyk

Beautiful growth loop that uses GitHub PRs to spread awareness even internally in the org.

And just one dev needs to sign up for the product to start it.

Works like this:

  • New user signs up for Snyk
  • they connect their GitHub account
  • Snyk finds vulnerabilities in their repositories
  • Snyk-bot creates Snyk-branded PR to fix them
  • other devs in the org see and interact with the PR
  • some follow links to check out Snyk
  • some of them sign up for Snyk

Heard about it on Lenny's podcast episode with Ben Williams (the story starts at 20:53)

... and then signed up to see the actual PR.

I really love this one as it allows you to spread inside the organization even if everything is on-prem and you never get to see it.

Those PRs are just working behind the scenes doing marketing for you.

Brilliant!

copy
developer experience
call to action
landing page
hero section

Header content CTA from Plaid

Sometimes you have an article, report, or event you want to drive people to.

And it is important that they read it.

What Plaid did here is an interesting way of putting it right in the hero section without making it overwhelming or distracting.

I like it.

campaigns

GitHub Skyline campaign

Very cool project.

You type in your GitHub name and see your history in 3d.

  • engaging 3d viz
  • cool music
  • button to share it on Twitter

And Voila!

You have an intrinsically viral brand awareness campaign.

Just brilliant.

social posts
twitter

Product release post format for Twitter from Supabase

Using memes in the product release.

If you understand your ICP (in this case open-source backend devs) it may be a great idea.

An additional benefit is that people may share a meme... that actually has a link to your announcement.

swag
conferences

Swag with CTAs from Union.ai

How to get more ROI from your dev conference booth? -> Add obvious CTAs.

Yes, giveaway stuff.

Yes, make it nice and branded.

Yes, make it funny, shareable, and cool.

But give people an easy and obvious option to give back and support you and your goals.

I really liked how Union.ai approached it at the recent MLOps World conference:

  • A simple folded paper info with CTAs right next to your giveaway
  • CTAs to GitHub stars, Linkedin, and Slack community

Just a nice little tactic but I bet it squeezed a bit more of that ROI juice that we all need in 2023 ;)

navbar
developer experience
blog
copy

Snyk navbar resources tab design

The "Resources" tab is the most loved and hated tab for developer marketers.

Ok so the common problem is that you have lots of different resources:

  • docs
  • product videos
  • meetup videos
  • recorded webinars
  • learning center guides
  • blog articles that don't talk about your product
  • and so much more stuff

You want to showcase them in the navbar but where do you put them?

Under product? Company? Docs?

How to make sure that people don't go to your blog to read about your product just to find out that you talk about the industry problems there?

Enter the "Resources" tab. The "Miscellaneous" of the navbar world.

And typically it is just crammed with all stuff that doesn't fit anywhere. Just like any respectable misc folder would.  

How do you deal with that?

Snyk approached it in a clear and logical way:

  • Add sub-navigation
  • Make it clear to devs which parts are about the product and which ones are not
  • They use "Using Snyk" and "Learn & Connect" that could be extended to "Using {Product} and "Learning {Category/Problem}"

I love this (and already stole the idea for our site).

ads
developer experience
youtube
video

CircleCI code and UI presentation in video ad

Showing code and UI in an explainer video is always a dance and rarely ends well.

You want to show the code to make it devy.
But you don't want to show everything not to overwhelm.

The same goes for UI which should look like your UI.
But show only what is necessary.

It's a struggle but CircleCI does it really nicely in this explainer:

  • They blur out all code
  • But use colors to make it really look like code
  • And the file sits clearly in a text editor (as it should)

They do the same for the UI later in the video.Just a really clean way of explaining things. Nice!

developer experience
pricing

Pricing plans structure from Postman

When selling dev tools you typically have 3 "buyer" levels:

Individual dev:

  • wants to experience your value prop
  • ideally wants to play/test/use the free tool
  • doesn't buy tools but strongly influences buying decisions
  • wants to use it right now, not talk to his boss to get a credit card, not talk to sales

Team lead:

  • wants to improve teams productivity
  • collaboration, developer experience, and happiness are important
  • buys tools at a team-level budget
  • doesn't want to go through a lengthy sales process but  swipes the card and gets the team on this week

Org lead:

  • wants to improve the security and compliance of the entire eng org
  • security, control, governance
  • buys tools for the entire organization/enterprise
  • expects a longer sales process with a lot of moving parts and needs to discuss and negotiate

How does Postman solve it?:

  • packages their plans in a way that aligns with those buyers
  • different plans have features needed for Dev/Team lead/Org lead
  • CTAs are exactly what each buyer wants: Use > Buy > Talk

They even go the extra mile. Something I didn't see too often.

They understand their customer's reality and identified one more level between Org and Team.

Basically a department-level unit that probably has multiple teams but is not at the organization/enterprise level.

I really like what they did hear. Solid.

copy
developer experience
landing page
hero section

The header copy of Auth0 developers portal

I love this copy. It answers:

  • what it does -> "authentication and authorization"
  • how is it different -> "simple to implement, easy to extend"

It doesn't talk about the value as it is obvious to devs.

Obviously, it will save time and make things safer.

Don't talk about it.

developer experience
landing page

Before / After design from AhoyConnect

Very nice design solution on the homepage.

Classic communication of the world before using your tool and the world after.

Really liked how it felt messy before.

And is nice and clean after.

call to action
landing page
developer experience

Header with tabs from Appsmith

What to put in the header when your dev tool does a lot?

I like how Appsmith approaches it.

In their case, they have multiple use cases they want to showcase.

But you could use the same idea for many features or products.

Show multiple clickable tabs:

  • It invites the user to click and see.
  • It hints at all of those different use cases
  • It doesn't overwhelm your audience with too much info

A bonus idea is the "Try cloud" | "Self-hosted" CTA.

It communicates right away that you can deploy that dev tool anywhere.

If the self-hosted deployment is important to your customers let them know.

You don't want them to look for it and drop from the page trying to find the FAQ.

navbar

Supabase product navbar tab design

Really good product navbar tab from Supabase.

The product tab in your navbar is likely the most visited one on your site.

And there are a million ways of organizing information in there.

But ultimately, you want to help people understand what this product is about at a glance.

Even before they click. Even if they never click.

And how do you explain your product to devs?
By answering common questions:

  • "What are the capabilities/features, specifically?"
  • "What do people use it for in producution, specifically?"
  • "Ok, so how is it different than ... I used before/use now?"

Supabase does it really nicely:

  • They show features + give a one-liner explanation
  • They show customer logos + a one-liner on what they got from it
  • They list the most common competitors with links to deeper comparisons

Very solid pattern imho.

What I'd improve:

  • Make the third testimonial copy more dev-centric, more specific -> It reads "... to become top 10 mortgage broker"
  • I'd add a link to a page with all comparisons -> what if I don't see mine?
blog
call to action
seo

JTBD blog post from WorkOS

This is how you write dev tool JTBD blog posts.

Masterclass of writing this type of content from @WorkOS imho.

Deep 2000 word guide that explains how to add webhooks the your application.

Goes into examples, best practices, everything.

One thing it doesn't do?

It doesn't push the product left right and center.

In fact, the only CTA is hidden in the very last sentence of the very last section.

Why?

Because most likely, the reader's intent is around understanding the problem at this point.

They want to understand what adding webhooks to their app really means from the practitioner's standpoint.

And they did that beautifully.

Could you have pushed the product a bit more? Sure.

But by answering the actual questions devs came here for they managed to build trust.

And I am sure got their fair share of click-throughs and signups anyway.

navbar

Great navbar design from Auth0

Navbar is a hugely important conversion lever on the dev-facing website. I saw it move the needle by x times in some cases/conversion events.

So, what does a good one look like?

Auth0 did a great job on their developer portal. But the learnings can be applied to your marketing website too.

What I like:

  • They have an explicit division between docs and resources (you can do without it but I like it)
  • Community (with all the events, forums, support etc) is clearly emphasized and discoverable
  • When you click on the navbar tab you get an extensive mega menu with many options
  • Each item in the mega menu gets a one-sentence description of what you'll find there

That makes it easy for devs to explore. Without having to click out to see what each tab/item means. And when devs know what you mean they are more likely to actually click out. And convert.

video
youtube
vs competitor

Save time video format from Stoplight

How do you show "save time" to devs?

It is often hard as it is not objective.

But there are options.

Spotlight does it beautifully by showing two implementations next to each other solving the same task.
It is obvious which is faster and saves time.
Great stuff!

video
brand

General audience explainer video from Auth0

Handing #1 dev obstacle: "We can do it ourselves".

Check it out from second 0:35:

"I bet you're like
We can do it ourselves, it's not that hard.
We know what we're doing.

First, I hear you.
Second, are you sure?"

This is mastery.
Pointing out ignorance without alienating people.

call to action
landing page

Posthog funny CTA

Beautiful mockery of classic conversion tactics from PostHog website.

So what do we have here:

  • "3 people would have..."
  • "Not endorsed by Kim K"
  • "Eco-Friendly"
  • "$0 FREE"
  • ">1 left at this price"
  • "Act now and get $0 off your first order"

I have to admit I chuckled ;)

And I bet many devs who don't think of marketing very highly chucked too.

That builds rapport. (hopefully) makes you one of the tribe rather than another faceless corpo.

BTW, they used it as a bottom of the homepage call to action.

I like it.

Most of the people who scrolled there are not going to buy anyway.

But they may share the website with someone who will.

developer experience
social proof
landing page

Social proof from TailwindCSS homepage

Understand who is reading. Add social proof that speaks to them.

Social proof is about showing people/companies who are similar to the reader that they got success with the tool.

Company logos can be good if your reader knows and likes those companies.
But if those are random companies, I am not sure how much value does it bring.

Devs care what other devs who use your product have to say about it.
That's why I like testimonials.

Not the crafted, clean ones with features and values.
But the real stuff. Real devs sharing real stories.

Bonus points for "Okay, I get the point" button copy.
It changes from "Show more" when you click.

Nice!

blog
copy
campaigns
hacker news
seo

Great "What is {my core keyword}" article from Planetscale

How to write a "What is {MY CORE KEYWORD}" article that gets to the top of HackerNews? 👇

First of all, almost no one succeeds at that as you write those articles for SEO distribution, not HN distribution.

To get an SEO-first article on HN your content quality bar needs to be super high.

But you can do it.

PlanetScale managed to get their "What is database sharding and how does it work?" on the orange page (kudos to Justin Gage!).

Here is what was interesting about that article:

𝗦𝘂𝗽𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗼𝗶𝗻𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗼.

• ❌ No "In today's fast-paced data-driven world enterprises work with data" stuff.
• ✅ Just  "Learn what database sharding is, how sharding works, and some common sharding frameworks and tools."

𝗛𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗸𝗲𝘆𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝘃 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿.

💚 Speaking peer to peer, not authority-student:

• "You’ve probably seen this table before, about how scaling out helps you take this users table, all stored on a single server:"
• "And turn it into this users table, stored across 2 (or 1,000) servers:"
• "But that’s only one type of sharding (row level, or horizontal). "

𝗨𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗷𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗼𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗮𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲

Things like:

• "Partitioning has existed – especially in OLAP setups"
• "Sifting through HDFS partitions to find the missing snapshot "

𝗔𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸

🔥 Look at the section "How database sharding works under the hood" with subsections:

• Sharding schemes and algorithms
• Deciding on what servers to use
• Routing your sharded queries to the right databases
• Planning and executing your migration to a sharded solution

🎁 𝗕𝗼𝗻𝘂𝘀: 𝗽𝗹𝘂𝗴 𝗶𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗹𝘆

Section "Sharding frameworks and tools" shares open-source tools (every dev, but HN devs in particular like OS projects).

And there as an info box, you have the info that Planetscale comes with one of those OS projects deployed.

Just a beautifully executed piece of content marketing.

copy
developer experience
landing page
hero section

Header design from Alpaca

This is a simple but great header imho:

  • they explain what it is clearly: Stock trading API
  • they show the result: trading stocks
  • they show the code to drive the "it is for devs" point

Love it.

copy
developer experience
landing page
hero section

Header design from Mux

Mux does a few things beautifully in this header.

Value proposition:

  • The "what" is explained right away: "Video API", "live and on-demand experiences"
  • Super clear on persona "developers" and job to be done "build online video"

Animated visual that is really good for dev tools:

  • that have an API/SDK
  • that have a UI where the results of that API calls go
navbar
landing page
call to action
product tour

Playground CTA in the navbar resources section from Prisma

Simple yet powerful CTA in the navbar resources section.

The resources section in the navbar is mostly navigational. Well, the entire navbar is ;)

But you always have that one action that is more impactful than others.  

💚 And I think that a Plauground  is a great option. You get people to see how your product works. You let people play with it and see for themselves.

Not many next actions can be as impactful as getting people to experience the product.

Especially if you are a heavier infra tool that people cannot really test out in that first session. I mean, you won't really create a realistic example of your core database in 15 minutes to see how that new tool that you just saw works.

🔥 Making this CTA "big and shiny" and showing a glimpse of what will happen after clicking is great too.

🤔 2 changes I'd test out:

  • Making the copy more descriptive performs better.  Like "Launch playground", "Play with Sandbox", or something around "Run an example project/app/environment".
  • Showing something more exciting about the product (or playground/tour) on that visual

But the core idea behind making the playground your core navbar resource section CTA is just great.

social posts
linkedin

Toolstack diagram for Linkedin post

People want to be valued by their tribe.

One of the ways to do that is by being helpful.

So they want to share things that have a "smell" of insight.

Tool stack/workflow/pipeline chart makes them feel that way.

landing page
social proof

Modal Community section

The main message you want to land on your homepage community section is:

"We have a big community of devs who love using the product"

🚧 That helps you tackle obstacles your dev reader has:

  • "is this tool any good"  
  • "do real companies use it in production"
  • "are there people who can help me when I hit roadblocks"
  • "where would I find others using the tool when I have questions"

💚 Modal solves it beautifully by going simple but smart:

  • Join our community header and a call to action to join Slack makes it obvious where users are
  • Wall of love style testimonials give a feel that there are so many users and they love it enough to share that with others
  • They all look like Tweets even though (I presume) some of them aren't. That is a nice trick to boost social proof. People give more value to social post testimonials.
  • They show a face, name, role, and company which builds trust and makes it obvious those are other devs (like me)

It lands the message that this section should land for sure. I really like it.

social posts
twitter

Good Twitter thread format: nice hook

Good format of the tweet copy.

Start with the hook.

Then validate it with more story.

Then open a knowledge gap with a thread.

billboards
ads
copy

Funny competitive campaign billboard

Funny and memorable competitive billboard ad from @Statsig 👇

You have a big incumbent, everyone knows them. Use it to anchor your brand.

And tell the story of how you do things differently.

👀 But first, make people see you. And remember you in the next conversation when the big known brand or a category comes up.

And being funny is one of the best ways of getting attention and being remembered.

💚 I love how folks from Statsig did it here. Such a playful pun on the feature flag category incumbent Launch Darkly. Job well done.

Btw, this was shared by Oleksii Klochai in the Developer Marketing Community (you joined yet?).

copy
campaigns
vs competitor
blog

Convex vs Firebase blog

This is one of my favorite our dev tool vs competitor blog posts.

With these pages, you want to explain when you are better.

But you don't want to berate your competitor.

And above all, you want to help people make a decision.

Chances are (almost 100% ;)) that you are not better for every use case. And your developer audience knows it.

But there should be use cases, tool stacks, or situations when you are the best option.

Talk about those. Dev to dev.

@Convex did a great job in this post that I think can be a template for how to write these:

  • They start by saying what is the same. That sets the context.
  • Then they say good things about their competitor. Shows respect and understanding
  • They follow by listing 3 key differences/situations when you should consider them
  • And they go ahead and explain each of these differences deeply

After reading that post you are fairly convinced that if your situation matches the one described and if it makes sense to use it.

Love it.

developer experience
pricing
docs

Pricing in the docs from fly.io

Pricing in your docs? That is how @Fly.io does it.

You click a pricing page link on their homepage and you go to the docs!

No 3 boxes with the "most popular" being the middle paid plan ;)

They just give it to you how it is. Exactly what you'd expect from the docs.

There are tables, explanations, and links to other docs pages.

Very bold decision imho. It definitely makes them feel super developer focused.

Plus if you do want a more standard, enterprise stuff you see:

"If you need more support or compliance options, you can choose one of our paid plans. These come with usage included and additional support options."

And that page looks like a classic pricing page.

But they focus on the developer buying experience here. Super interesting.

ads
linkedin

Run.ai Linkedin ad

𝗔𝘁𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗮𝗱 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗮𝗻 𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗿𝗮 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗿𝘂𝗻𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗮 𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗹?

Hard, but Run.ai did that.

Infra products are not "obviously cool".

There is no shiny UI, no happy people wearing your sneakers,

So what do you show on your ads?

First off, the rules still apply:

• Catch your audience's attention
• Say what you do in their language
• Better yet, show how it actually does it

And Run.ai ai and MLOps infra tool managed to create a beautiful Linkedin ad IMHO:

• They catch attention with the code visual
• They say what they do quickly with "Dynamic Fractional GPU using One Command"
• They extend on that in the post copy with an action-driven "Open Terminal -> Run Command -> Boom"
• The code shows what it feels like to use the tool
• And it shows you the result -> fractional GPUs

Job well done!

ads
social posts
linkedin
social proof

G2 quote Linkedin Ad format from Algolia

A great example of a quote-style ad.

I like it because:

  • Trust: it builds trust via G2 crowd reference and an actual person mentioned
  • Value/benefit: the quote talks about what the tool does and what is good about it
  • More trust: links to G2 crowd profile, NOT your page -> more trust especially when I don't know the brand yet

Great stuff.

landing page
hero section

Great product header visual from Deepgram

If you have an API product presenting it in an exciting visual way is hard.

But Deepgram managed to do just that.

They go for an autoplay presentation that has four acts:

  1. Context: playing an audio file showing a spectrogram -> sets the context that this is something audio
  2. Code: They show the code from one of the SDKs being typed. And they show tabs at the top with other important SDKs to convey that this is not Python-only.
  3. Result: Shows the output of running the code, a transcript, and an AI-generated summary and topics.  
  4. Layers: Takes the points above and layers them in one viz to communicate that this is all part of one product, just different "views" of it.

And the delivery is just slick and elegant. Kudos team!

btw, Mux, the video API has a similar design of their visual. I think it is just a great visual element for API products.

developer experience
hero section

Pricing page header from Mux

Many dev tools have complex pricing and packaging.

Say your dev tool/platform has many product offerings.

And you offer usage-based pricing but also enterprise plans but also per-product options, and additional customizations.

But you want to present it in a way that is manageable for the developer reading your pricing page.

Mux solves it this way:

  • they direct people to the proper parts of the page in the header
  • they give self-served prospects a link to the calculator and metering
  • they give enterprise/high volume people a "talk to us" CTA
  • they give people who want just a single tool (not the whole platform) a CTA to a dedicated pricing page
  • they squeeze in a "start free" CTA + info about free credits
  • they give navigation to FAQ, features table, and the calculator

Extended headers on pricing pages are not common as they add friction.

But sometimes adding friction is exactly what you need to do.

Mux managed to make this page (and their offering) easy to navigate by adding a little bit of friction at the beginning.

Maybe you don't browse plans right away but at least you don't waste energy (and attention) on the parts of the page that doesn't matter to you.

Good stuff.

blog

How to tell a debugging story from GitLab

One of the best types of developer content is a debugging story.

"What is X" or "How to solve Y" work in some situations, especially when you focus on SEO distribution. But a good debugging story is something that even senior devs want to read.

This is an old article from the GitLab and is such a good example of thos format:

  • Set the scene: Say what happened, what results you managed to get, and introduce the problem. Skip the fluffy intro and invite devs into the story
  • Go deep into the problem: show what happened and go into technical details. Address the obvious solution that unfortunately didn't solve the problem. Showing profilers, charts, UIs. Make the problem more concrete.
  • The journey: explain what you tried, how it failed, and what you learned, go technical and detailed. Take people on that journey
  • Close the loop: Close with a win, show the improvements/results, summarize what you learned

The downside of using this format is the same as with most good developer content. You need a real situation, explained by an actual dev in a technical language.

reddit
ads

Promoted full-article post on Reddit

What if you not only posted entire articles on Reddit but also promoted them?

This is what WarpStream did and I like it.

A few weeks back I shared an example of a company posting not a link with a snippet but an entire article on Reddit.

WarpStream is taking it to the next level by promoting it as an in-feed Reddit ad.

I love this trend 100%:

  • Platform first: don't force you to click out, read the content here
  • Ads as distribution: treating paid options as a distribution channel

By doing that you assume that if your piece of content gets read by the right people it will lead to business outcomes. People don't need to go to your site to be retargeted by ads and attacked by popup banners.

That is a very fair assumption, especially with devs.

But even generally in B2B SaaS and social channels like here on LinkedIn that concept of zero-click content, coined by Amanda Natividad, is gaining traction and I'm glad that it does.

developer experience
copy
call to action
landing page
hero section

Auth0 developers portal header

Great above the fold

The subheader explains the value proposition.

Header handles major objections:

  • is it easy to implement?
  • can I extend it?

Then we have 3 CTAs but they are super focused on devs: 

  • Signup (using action-focused copy)
  • See docs which is exactly what many devs want to do before signing up
  • See examples, again exactly what most devs want to see before signing up

Then it goes on to explain how it works with a simple, static graphic.

This whole thing makes me feel peaceful.

hero section
landing page

Amazing homepage header from Modal

The homepage header is about landing your core product message.

For Modal it is basically LLM infrastructure with great developer experience.  

And they do a great job delivering it:

  • Input/output visual: I think for infra products this is a great choice.  Show what code you run, show how to run it, show what you get. Ideally, this all looks nice and easy.
  • Headline/subheadline: They explain "what is it" and "for whom is it" (or what use case): "what": Serverless infra platform, "whom" ML teams.
  • Great calls to action: If you don't know what to put this is the best baseline imho. Get started (Signup) and Docs.
  • Social proof: devs want to know if others like them and/or respectable companies use it in production. While dev testimonials do that better, logos is what people expect to see here. Don't have them and you raise flags, especially if you are unknown.
  • Branding: if you can make your page/company memorable on top of landing  that message -> great. And with that green gradient and uncommon colours they definitely do.

Top job on that header folks!

docs
hero section

Stripe docs starts with one product

What to say when you have many products? 

Dev tool companies over time grow from one product to suite of products to platforms with products built on top of the core one.

The result is that it is harder to communicate without going full-on fluff mode (my fav "built better software faster").

But for most companies, there is this core capability/product where people start.  The entry product. Why not use that?

I really liked what Stripe did on their docs page here:

  • They have maaaany products: billing, tax, radar, identity etc.  
  • But all of them are built on top of their core payments product
  • So they focus on getting folks to start with the payments
  • And make it clear that there are many other products

Even though this is docs, the same applies to homepages and other dev comms.

If you have many products, figure out what is the most important one, the one where most people enter. Focus on that. "Upsell" to other products later.

landing page
hero section

Clickhouse header design

This has to be one of the better dev-focused headers I've seen in a while.

Headers should deliver your core product message and get people interested. That is true at any stage but early stage especially.

💡You want everyone, even those folks who just take a look and leave to remember. You want them to recall it in their next conversation around this topic.

There may be supporting messages for sure but there is always that one core thing. Make sure it lands.

In the case of Clickhouse, that core message is that they are a database that is fast at a huge scale.

Their supporting messages are:

  • they are best at analytics and real-time apps use cases (where speed/scale matters)
  • they are a very popular open-source project

💚And they deliver that beautifully with:

Headline

Clear as day headline speaking to value delivered at a level that builds rapport with their audience.

Not "Give users seamless web experience at scale" but "Query billions of rows in milliseconds". I like that little touch with "rows" which makes who they speak to obvious

Subhead

Subhead supporting it with "fastest and most resource-efficient DB"

+ talking about the use cases "real time apps and analytics" and it being open-source

Calls to action

These CTAs make the audience feel at home. There are docs in there + clear "we are open-source" CTA

Visual

That supporting visual is just amazing.

It shows the value in the most believable way you could deliver it here imho. Query and an Output that shows the size of the database and speed of the query

Social proof

Social proof in the navbar, almost 34k stars and a GitHub icon.

+ a way to get people to that repository, check it out and leave a star.

There is more social proof below the fold with big logos and stuff but the GitHub icon and stars make it immediately clear that this is a project that people care about.

It is remarkable how brilliantly simple it is all presented.  Just a fantastic work IMHO.

social posts
ads
linkedin

Funny With/Without Linkedin ad format

With/without is a classic marketing campaign theme.

AhoyConnect does it nicely in this ad.

Obviously, not everyone loves memes.

But many devs do.

Those who do may smirk -> smirk builds brand affinity.

developer experience
call to action
blog

Auth0 blog sidebar CTA

I like those sidebar CTAs from Auth0.

They go with a sticky Table of Contents which gives a better reading experience.

They put two CTAs below that TOC:

  • "See docs" presented in a very subtle, very developer-friendly way
  • They put a more aggressive banner but it is still on the tasteful side.

Solid job.

copy
call to action
landing page
hero section

Great developer-focused CTAs from Plaid

Action-focused copy is usually better than "sign up".

But sometimes it is hard to find a good copy for this.

Some teams like Vercel or Auth0  do "Start building "  

But that doesn't always work.

I really like this "Get API keys" CTA copy.

Now for the Hero section I really like those two CTAs:

  • Main CTA: Sign up, again expressed with action-focused "Get API keys" copy
  • Secondary CTA: See docs, I like how "See API docs" makes it even more concrete.

Really great job imho.

developer experience
landing page

1-2-3 how-to section from Appsmith

How easy it is to get started is a big conversion factor for any dev tool.

Devs want to test things out and if it is hard to do they will be gone testing a competitor that made it easy.

And so a good how-to section on your homepage can make a big difference in getting devs to that first experience.

Appsmith does it beautifully with their 1-2-3 How-to section:

  • 1-2-3 format: Connect data -> Drag and drop -> Customize with code
  • Interactive GIFs with code snippets and UI elements
  • CTAs to integrations, widget library, and docs
  • Dev testimonial at the end to make it real

It is so engaging and just beautifully designed. And the CTA to additional resources like integrations, widget library, and docs make the message land. I do believe it is easy to set this up.

Great pattern to copy-paste imho.

ads
reddit

Stack trace ad from Sentry.io

I really like this Reddit ad from Sentry.

Powerful simplicity.

They don't do:

• long value-based copy
• fancy, in-your-face CTAs
• creative that feels "professional

They go for:

• focus on the pain
• creative that speaks to that pain
• low-key CTA ", get Sentry" rather than "Get Sentry Free!"
• building rapport with the dev with copy "If seeing this in React makes you 🤮"

And through simplicity and focus they deliver a message:

• Stack traces in React are not much fun
• They seem to understand that
• Sentry helps you solve that

Good format.

swag
copy
brand

"It doesn't suck" shirt from Bare Bones

A classic "It doesn't suck" campaign.

Afaik, Barebones ran the first version of this campaign 20 years ago and it was a huge success.

It is so simple, it just speaks to that inner skeptic.

It doesn't say we are the best, we revolutionize software.

It says it doesn't suck.

That is way more believable and makes me think that there is a dev on the other side of that copy.

And there is something cool about this message that makes me want to wear it to the next conference.

Good stuff.

copy
campaigns
brand

"There are two types of companies" from Fly.io round announcement

"There are two types of companies": Just a beautiful piece of copy from Fly.io

Doing us vs them doesn't always play out well.

But folks from Fly made it snarky and playful and fun.

And they basically said that they are:

  • are developer-centric in the way they sell (self-served)
  • are actually easy to use
  • are great at the developer experience

And this is just such a nice brand play as well.

You just show personality and confidence in this devy snarky way.

I dig it.

developer experience
docs
hero section

Docs header diagram from Hopsworks

A docs header worth a thousand words.

For a dev platform or infrastructure tool it is hard to explain where you fit, what you do quickly, and how you connect to existing components quickly.  

Hopsworks docs team does a great job here.

So instead of using words, they use a diagram:

  • You get a solid overview of where your tool/platform fits larger context
  • It shows you which part of the workflow/infra the platform solves
  • Every part of the diagram is a clickable docs link
  • Shows where you can deploy it
  • Shows what backend you can use.

All of that in a single diagram.

Now that is a dev-focused header visual.

ads
reddit
social posts

Meme Reddit ad from Featureform

How to run developer-focused Reddit ads that get upvoted?

Reddit is well known for anti-promotional sentiments.

Just post something along the lines "you can solve that with our dev tool" and see.

So running ads on Reddit feels even more like a no-no.

Especially if you add problems with bot clicks and attribution as most devs will have some sort of blocks.

But you know your audience is on Reddit.

And for some of us, it may very well be the only social platform they are on.

So what do you do?

This is how @Featureform approached it to get almost 100 upvotes on an ad:

  • They start with a simple conversational copy pointing at their target users pains
  • They agitate target users pains in their language (lots of jargony terms, tools and problems)
  • They use very devy language, likely rooted in deep user understanding (voice of customer)
  • They don't talk about their product in the meme
  • They show clear branding so that you can connect the dots.

If you are going for brand awareness rather than a direct conversion those types of ads can work very well.

I liked it for sure.

developer experience
landing page
hero section

Algolia developer portal design

Devs are builders.

Make your home page for builders.
Go directly into the "how" instead of the way.
Many devs when they land on your home page, already know the "why".

I love that it:

  • shows the step-by-step right away in the hero
  • CTAs are links to integrations with particular frameworks and libraries
  • the hero copy is very toned-down
developer experience
copy
vs competitor
landing page
pricing

Competitor comparison page from New Relic

Sometimes your product just wins on price.

I like how New Relic owns it on this page:

  • They show you price comparison graphs
  • The CTAs are focused on helping you compare the prices
  • They use jargon specific to the category to drive the price argument: "peak usage", "overages and penalties", "SKUs"

After reading this I'd trust them to give me a solid price estimate and that it will likely be cheaper than Datadog.

Obviously price is not the only reason why we choose tools, but if that was a problem I had with Datadog, they have my attention.

landing page
developer experience

Interactive feature tiles from clerk.dev

How to present many features at once?

Sometimes your dev tool has many features/products that you want to show.

❌ Showing all of them as separate sections doesn't work with more than 3. It just gets too long very quickly.

✅ You can go with the tabs pattern where each tab has copy+visual for a feature.

💡 But there is another option that makes a ton of sense when you have many features to show.

Interactive tiles of different sizes.

💚 I like the implementation of that pattern coming from Clerk:

  • Each tile is a combo of feature name + one-liner description + an interactive visual
  • When you hover over each tile it starts playing the visualization explaining the feature even more
  • Some of the tiles are bigger which makes the entire section more interesting. It could be one (core feature or differentiator) or a few if you present many.

That pattern can work really well on blogs or learning centers too but I think we're going to see more of it on dev tool websites.

copy
landing page
hero section

Header copy from Supabase

Say what you do and how you do it.

What:

  • Supabase owns it with an "open-source firebase alternative"
  • They don't streamline project delivery or anything. 

How:

  • Value proposition around speed of set up
  • Then jargon that hits the spot with your ideal developers
  • Short, and to the point. 

CTA (bonus):

  • "Start your project" action-focused
  • Documentation. With devs, this is always a good alternative CTA
developer experience
pricing

Cost calculator from Mux

Sometimes your pricing is just complex. But you can still make it work.

If you want devs to convert, make it possible for them to estimate the cost.

@Mux does it nicely with a calculator:

  • They give sliders for dimensions that are obvious to the dev
  • They give (pre) select boxes for things that are a bit less obvious
  • They show additional costs
  • They give you a clear final price estimate

What is crucial is that the calculator dimensions need to be understandable and familiar to the reader.:

  • If you use expected industry concepts (view count, upload, users) you should be fine.
  • If you use weird obscure concepts the best calculator will not help.

The goal of this is to make it possible for a person to get an estimate right here right now.

Not have to setup a meeting with half the team to figure your pricing out.

brand
youtube

What is Segment video

Came across this classic What is Segment brand video while watching an interview with one of the folks behind it, Maya Spivak (she is awesome btw).

What I like about it is that:

• it is fun, not formal, builds rapport
• it introduces the core problem the tool solves
• it shows the tech and explains it in a way that is simple but not simplistic

And it follows a flavor of the classic AIDA format:

  • Introduce problem
  • Agitate it, make the viewer feel it
  • Explain obvious solutions + problems with it
  • Show how your product solves it
  • Tell people how to start

Putting all that in 90 seconds is hard.

And even though this video is 4 years old it could easily still work today IMHO.

Really solid baseline to s̶t̶e̶a̶l̶ get inspired by ;)

campaigns
seo
product led growth

Product-led SEO tactic from Cronjob

Great SEO tactic.

What folks from Cronitor did is:

  • For every combination of "cron +" they created a website
  • Those simple websites rank for particular keywords like "cron every 11 minutes"
  • When you land on the page you get a command you need that solves your problem
  • And you get a nice explanation of their paid tool for monitoring cron jobs

This can be used for many dev-focused tools as by definition they use commands which can be templated.

I've heard about it originally from Harry Dry over at https://marketingexamples.com/seo/cronitor

call to action
landing page
developer experience
hero section

Header with benchmarks from Bun

If your dev tool's USP is that it is faster -> Show it in the header

I like how folks from Bun focus on the fact that they are a faster library.

They show the benchmark as the key visual on the homepage header.

I love it.

If you think about it how else do you really want to show that you are faster?

This is believable, especially with a link to the benchmark so that I can dig deeper.

They show competitors, they don't pretend they don't exist.

And they talk about being faster left right and center.

I mean, they drive this "we are faster" home for me.

If that was important to me, I'd check it out.

youtube
video
ads

Pattern-breaking pre-roll ad from Sentry

Pre-roll ads are obviously invasive and annoying, especially to devs. But they are also prime real estate in the ad ecosystem.

You can choose not to do them at all (fair option). Or try and make them more fun and less annoying ;)

I like how Sentry handled it in this 16-second video:

  • They start with a funny, disarming hook. A pic of a cat pic ;). It catches my attention and stops me from clicking "skip ad" as I want to understand what it is about.
  • They show how those pics didn't come off well and introduce the company saying "Sentry can't fix that". That keeps me interested enough to see what it does.
  • They show a straightforward, short product video with the actual application screenshots and zoom-ins to show pieces of the product for the rest of the video.

Basically they managed to "buy" 11 seconds of attention with 5 seconds of a pattern-breaking hook.  In the world of pre-roll YouTube dev-focused ads, I'd say this is a win.

Also, I don't know the results of the "Sentry can't fix that " campaign, but I like how this builds curiosity. Even with that slogan alone.

ads
linkedin
social proof

V7 "testimonial" ad on Linkedin

It's a nice template for ads on socials.

So you have:

  • Value
  • Testimonial about the value/benefit
  • Person
  • CTA

Ideally, I'd make it dark to stand out in the feed and make the CTA about that value as well.

But still, great ad imho.

copy
developer experience
social proof
landing page
hero section

Landing page header from MedusaJS

There are many things that I like about it.

  • A clear value proposition: Explains what it is: an open-source alternative to a well-known product Shopify.
  • Shows code and what the code does visually. Great product explanation.
  • Adds a social proof with "#1 JS ecom platform on GitHub:". When you have 16k stars you should use it!

Overall with very little effort, I understand what it is, and what it does.

And I can go and dig deeper for myself or spread the word with my circles.

ads
video
youtube

YouTube shorts ad from Digital Ocean

Digital Ocean went for an ad for the Hactoberfest in a tricky place.

To keep it in the medium that fits YouTube shorts they:

  • made it into an actual short vid
  • used a comic book story

I think doing YouTube shorts is an interesting opportunity in a yet unsaturated market (as of 2022).

And doing ads that fit that medium so nicely is an art.

Good job DO!

ads
copy

Trieve newsletter sponsorship ad

Awesome sponsorship ad from Trieve in the Cassidy Williams newsletter.

Not sure who wrote it but it must have been a dev ;) It is just so refreshingly to the point.

💚 What I like:

  • "What is it": A product description gives you no fluff "what it is". Feels like something from "Hacker News launch"  almost.
  • "What it compares to" | "Why should I care" : They compare vs a well-known dev tool in the space. And this is great, helps the dev anchor with something they know. Helps them understand why this could be valuable. They even give you a life app where you can see for yourself.
  • "How can I test it for myself": They offer free credits to play with in a cloud version.

This ad does it so gracefully and quickly it is just hard not to love.  

developer experience
github
call to action
social proof

Sticky "star us on GitHub" from Posthog

OK, the best way of getting GitHub stars is by creating a project that solves real developer problems well.

I assume you have done that already and the metric that people love to hate ⭐ is growing organically.

What do you do now?

I mean you got to ask people in one way or another.

Many companies put it in their navbars or hello bars.

Posthog adds a sticky banner at the bottom of the page that follows you as you scroll.

It also shows a start count which at their size (11k + stars) acts as social proof.

You can close it and the next time you visit the page it will be off not to push too much.

I like the concept makes sense to test it out this way imho.

copy
hero section
landing page

Landing value proposition from fly.io header

I love how simple this delivery is. But this is what makes it powerful:

  • What it does (benefit): "Launch Apps Near Users" just tells you right away what is in it for you
  • How it does it (features): some specifics in the header that make you understand the how
  • Visual: doubles down on that "near users" by showing which locations they support
  • Joke: that little joke "6 continents -> * Antarctica coming soon" makes it more memorable and adds one more point of emphasis to that "near users" story

Bonus points for showing those regions with their balloon logo.

Just loved how they focused their message to the very core and used all of those elements to land it right away. Great job.

ads
video
youtube
social proof

CircleCI video testimonial ad

Testimonial ads are a format that helps you move people from "I know what you are doing" to "I trust you enough to do business with you".

Video testimonials are even better.

You see the person who has a similar role that you do saying things about the product you are considering.

CircleCI did a solid job here.

And so if you are running remarketing to people who went to pricing but didn't sign up, or signed up to a free trial but haven't converted yet this is a good format candidate.

Just watch it.

ads
brand
billboards

vercel billboard ad

Just an awesome billboard/ad format for a dev too company coming from Vercel.

What I like about it is:

  • you catch attention with something different
  • those who are in your audience get it, maybe they feel more seen
  • you reinforce that your brand is very developer-focused
  • you don't forget to put the "obvious" branding in there
  • and there is a CTA to get people to do something

Simple and beautiful.

Btw, they actually run similar ads on Reddit and it makes a lot of sense IMHO.

ads
youtube

Hygraph "bad reviews" YouTube short ad

I love this video ad format from Hygraph.

They are reading and reacting to bad reviews.

I saw this in B2C but not in the dev tool B2B. Love it!

So basically how they did that campaign is:

  • The marketing team finds bad product reviews.
  • Most of the reviews are technical and speak about some features.
  • Their employees (at least some devs in there) read them out loud on their phones.
  • They react to the reviews, typically explaining what the product does and why.
  • They serve it as YouTube short ads and link to the whole 5-minute video on their channel.

Through all that, you get entertained and learn something about their product. This is such a fun format to test out!

developer experience
github
hero section

GitHub Repository Readme.md design from Prisma

I like how it has a proper "hero section" feel to it but it adds a developer-focused twist:

  • Explains in simple words what the tool is
  • Adds a lot of navigational links (website, docs, examples, blog)
  • Then it goes into detail about what it does

The rest of the Readme is great as well but the hero section is gold imho.

free tools
seo

JSON Web Tokens from Auth0

Marketing through free tools is powerful. And Auth0 implemented it beautifully.

In an old article from Gonto I read about some free tools that Auth0 created years ago.

And those tools are still generating traffic and leads today.

And they are helpful to developers and make the Auht0 brand even more appreciated by the community.

One of those tools is JSON Web Token Debugger.

So how this works for them is this:

  • You understand that your target dev audience has a problem
  • You realize that helpful blog posts can only do so much
  • You create a small tool that helps solve that problem
  • You create content that explain the concept to help build SEO
  • You link out to that content on the home
  • You add links to your core product/events or other offers in the navbar
  • You wait for devs to come ;)

Now, Gonto suggested that is important to do it on a separate domain to make it less promotional.

I am not sold on that especially when I know there are companies like @VEED.IO that build "SEO tool clusters" in the /tools/ subfolder of their page and crush it in search.

But either way, if you can solve a real problem your target devs have, no matter how small, you should be able to get some developer love (and $) from the value you created.

blog
developer experience
call to action

Blog CTA from v7

Interesting dev blog CTA idea from V7.

CTAs in technical articles is a tricky subject:

  • Go too aggressive and "obviously an ad" and devs ignore it or get angry
  • Go too subtle and you may not get the readers attention at all

I like how V7 approached it here:

  • They add a separate (aside) section but it is subtle, feels like a part of the article
  • They use a GIF image creative that catches my attention and simply shows the product
  • They used various  anchor link CTAs. Interestingly these often get more clicks than buttons

What I'd change/test is making this CTA not a generic value prop but something closely connected to the rest of the article.

campaigns
product led growth
free tools

Hacker News search by Algolia

Algolia gets over 80% of referral traffic from a single free tool they created called Search Hacker News.

But why does it work so well for them?

Hacker News doesn't really have a native search experience.

Algolia gives devs an amazing search experience out of the box.

So folks from Algolia created their own website where you can search Hackernews... with Algolia search engine.

Of course, when you click on "Search by Algolia" you get directed to the website and can learn how to set up a similar search, which you have just used yourself.

What I love about this:

  • solves a real problem for the audience Algolia is after (many software devs read hacker news)
  • it shows rather than tells how Algolia's search works. And it works amazingly.
  • it feels almost like an extension of HackerNews with the same brand colors and design.

And looking at the results it delivers.

call to action
blog

Aside CTA from ExportSDK

One of the top-performing conversion flows in dev-focused articles.

"Aside CTA" in the "How to do {jobs to be done}" article.

You know the drill:

  • Explain how to X without your tool
  • Add an "Aside" CTA showing that it can be done with your tool

And Export SDK executes it (almost) perfectly:

  • They subtly move you from article to CTA but show that the article ended
  • They explain what the tool does and what the offer is
  • They show a visual of how the tool solves it
  • And they give you a clear link to click

One thing that could be tested and changed is putting this "Aside CTA" mid-article and not at the end (tip from Martin Gontovnikas).

A good thing to try if you are running the "How to do {jbtd}" article strategy.

pricing
developer experience

Presenting flexible self-served plan from Resend

How to communicate the flexible part of your plan?

Many dev tools have 3 plans:

  • Free
  • Team
  • Enterprise

Especially the ones doing some flavor of product-led-sales or open-source go-to-market.

Now, the Team plan is often a self-served version.

And for many dev tools, this part is partially or entirely usage-based.

So how do you present it?

You can just have "+ what you use" and explain it in the big table below.

But if you have just one usage dimension then why not do it here?

Resend does it beautifully communicating right away that it starts at 20$ / month and grows with the amount of emails you send.

Very clear. Very nice.

developer experience
navbar

Navbar product tab design from Posthog

How to design the navbar product tab? This is what @PostHog does 👇

Figuring out what to put in the navbar is tricky:

  • How should you name tabs
  • What should go where
  • Should you have "resources" or divide it

The "Product" tab is especially tricky.

It can get overloaded with a ton of content.

  • Some teams put docs, and product videos there.
  • Some show features, integrations, and code examples.
  • Some go with solutions and per person per industry pages.
  • Some just put everything in there ;)

I like how Posthog approached it:

  • They use the word "features". Most devs like it more than other options.
  • They show the data stack with which the tools integrate. That is an important obstacle handler pretty much always.
  • They include customers in the product tab. Most devs want to see the product and may not go to the "customers" tab. This is a nice way to add social proof and increase conversion to user stories pages.
  • They show customer logos and the results they got from the product. Again more social proof without clicking out.
  • They use "customer stories" rather than "case studies" which again feels more devy .

I like it.

campaigns
developer experience
copy
vs competitor
landing page

VS page format from Ably

Vs pages are a classic SaaS marketing.

But I like how Ably adjusts them to the developer audience:

  • For each criterion, they say why it matters
  • They link to their resources to extend further why Ably works great there
  • They use a lot of developer jargon to make it feel like a dev wrote it for devs
  • They go over a lot of different categories to make this comparison deep enough to be valuable for the buyer
copy
call to action
product tour
product led growth
landing page

Axiom "Playground" CTA

With infrastructure tools, it is notoriously difficult to show people the value quickly.

To really see it they would need to set up everything at their company infra, create dashboards for their use case, and so on. 

A lot of work.

That is why creating a sandbox experience is a good way of giving people a taste.

I like the way Axiom calls it a playground and says "Play with Axiom" and "Launch playground".

This copy is good because:

  • they acknowledge it isn't a real thing (but a playground)
  • it conveys that it will be interactive and you'll be able to click around
  • it makes it feel like less work and more, well play :)
developer experience
blog
call to action

Article header from Teleport

There are a few developer experience gems here:

  • RSS feed: many devs love rss, let them consume your blog that way
  • Search: some devs will immediately know this article is not for them. Let them search and stay.
  • Clear branding: Some devs will read the article and leave. Make sure they at least remember your brand.

Also, their design is super clean, non-invasive, and simple which makes for easy content consumption and more developer love.

copy
developer experience
landing page

How fast you ship your roadmap?

"How fast do you ship?"

Not many dev tools answer that on their homepage. PostHog does.

In a typical (enterprise) sales process, people often ask:

  • what is on your roadmap?
  • how fast do you deliver new features?
  • what has your product progress been like last year?

And you show them the roadmap or get someone from the product on the next call.

But I haven't yet seen dev tools talk about it on their homepage.

But why not?

Devs who want to buy self-serve want to know it almost just as much.

After all, they won't be able to twist your arm to build that custom feature cause "we are your biggest client and we need it".

I like it, it builds trust, it shows me you are transparent,

And it shows me that those features I can see on the public roadmap will come true.

ads
campaigns
video
youtube
brand

"I'm gonna push some buttons" video campaign from Postman

How to do a dev-focused brand video and get 10M+ views?

Making a memorable brand video is hard.

Doing that for a boring tech product is harder.

Doing that to the developer audience is next level.

Postman managed to create not one but three of those brand videos that got from 4M to 10M youtube views.

The videos I am talking about are:

  • "I am gonna push some buttons"
  • "Together"
  • "We did this"

So what did they do right?

  • They are all short playful stories touching on values coming from a centralized API platform.
  • They hint at the motif of space which is a clear part of Postman's branding
  • They do show the actual UI of the product

Honestly, I am not exactly sure what special sauce they added but those are just great videos that you watch.

And I definitely remember them and the company which is exactly what you want to achieve with brand ads.

brand
campaigns
ads
billboards

snowflake billboards

Ideating how to do dev tool billboards?

I like these from Snowflake.

Especially the customer showcase ones as the format can almost be copy-pasted ;)

One more interesting thing about those billboards though:

  • folks from Snowflake placed just a few of them strategically in the cities
  • And changed content of the billboard often

By doing that they seem to have billboards everywhere, fight ad fatigue, and stay top of mind.

Love it.

reddit

Dev audience research on Reddit

Not sure how to find developers for audience research interviews?

Sometimes all you need is ask.

I really liked what the founders of this startup did:

  • Found relevant subreddits where folks working in MLOps/DevOps and ML are (for example r/mlops)
  • Clearly explained why they wanted it: building a startup and doing exploratory analysis
  • Clearly explained what they wanted: interviews with mlops/devop/data scientists
  • Clearly explained what they will give for it: cash, as simple as that

Sometimes you don't need to overthink it and can just ask.

video
linkedin
social posts

GitHub event promo video

7k likes on an event promo post to the dev audience.

I don't think I've ever seen 7k likes on a developer company post on Linkedin.

Ok, this is Github, but still.

This is a 26sec video where they go:

  • "What happens when a CEO..."
  • "... builds an app LIVE in 18 minutes ..."
  • "... in front of 15000 people..."
  • "... with Copilot X for the first time?"
  • "What could go wrong?"
  • "What it Live"

This is a job well done:

  • Super slick but minimal design. Feels a bit like that famous nextjs prisma conference tickets.
  • Offers a live coding session which is one of the event types that devs like cause it is real.
  • Plays powerful music, but no voiceover that would make it feel more corporate.
  • Dev to dev, conversational copy. + this final snarkiness appeals to devs.

And they could have done:

  • Copy: "We are happy to announce our CEO streamlining business value for the enterprise"
  • Design: Show people at previous events and stuff that you saw a million times
  • Offer: Talks from industry leaders (that  are customers using your product)
  • Voiceover and music: Boring corporate classic.

This is how to promote an event. LOVED IT!

campaigns
product led growth

Algolia search widget in fontawesome

Classic widget PLG loop.

Algolia really crashed it with these. Here is how they made it so successful.

Some time ago I did some research on Algolia marketing looking for gems. Found quite a few as they are truly amazing at this.

One angle that is bringing a lot of traffic to their site is that classic PLG widget.

So what they did is:

  • They gave away their search box for free (under conditions)
  • They made sure that folks who do get it for free have some (ideally a lot of) overlap with their target audience.
  • People who added that search box got the branded "Powered by Algolia" version of it
  • Some devs who used the sites with the Algolia search box liked the search and went to their site
  • Some of them started using it and spreading the word further

And the sites that brought the most traffic were:

  • Hacker News search (that is not exactly the widget but a standalone site)
  • Fontawesome (site with fonts for devs)
  • Open-source documentation sites (they give away free docsearch to OS projects)
  • SteamDB (gaming site)

I love this tactic as it aligns:

  • the value their product provides
  • the value that site users get
  • the value that the company gets from developers finding out about it

Win Win Win

When you find those "Win Win Win" tactics/strategies you are golden.

copy

"CI" vs "Build" A/B test from Earthly

Copy that lands makes a huge difference in dev tool website conversion.

Earthly proved it with this "tiny" change.

So I am a huge believer in good copy.

Not the clever one but the one that is written with words that your customers use.

That is rooted in product and research.

But I often hear devs or founders say things like "it's just copy".

It is not "just copy" it is your message, it is your positioning.

It is the difference between  "cool, let's try it" and "now for me, whatever".

So some time ago I came across this article from the Earthly CEO Vlad Ionescu.

He shared that at some point they decided to run this A/B test with just a "tiny" change.

They changed the word "CI" -> "Build" across the homepage.

  • Control -> "Earhly makes CI super simple"
  • Test -> "Earhly makes builds super simple"

And their core website conversion doubled.

So next time you work on website copy give it some more thought and you may be surprised that "just copy" made a huge difference.

ads
reddit
social posts

Meme Reddit ad from Zesty

Developer-focused Reddit ad. 33 upvotes, 30 comments.

So @Zesty is a company that targets devops folks and helps with cloud cost optimization.

And they decided to run Reddit ads.

So they:

  • Chose the format that works with devs on (some) subreddits
  • The funny message that connects to their main value prop
  • Made it clear that they solve that problem in the copy
  • Added clear(ish) branding

And they got 33 upvotes and 30 comments.

Some of the comments were technical.

One comment that got 67 upvotes was actually

"Okay, this ad is pretty funny"

And I agree, this is a pretty funny ad that I am sure brought them some brand awareness and clicks.

developer experience
landing page

Auth0 developer portal: How it works diagram

Show how product components fit together.

A good diagram is such a good solution to that.

They use the same colors and eyebrow copy that was used for body sections.
It all clicks now, I get the full picture.

developer experience
copy
docs
landing page
hero section

Header search docs CTA from TailwindCSS

"See docs" is one of my favorite secondary CTA on dev-focused pages.

TailwindCSS takes it to the next level by inserting docs search right into the header CTA.

This takes devs directly to the page they are interested in rather than have them try and find things for themselves.

They could have searched the docs in the docs, of course.

But this is just this slightly more delightful developer experience that TailwindCSS is known for.

developer experience
blog
call to action
social proof

Devy blog design from Bun

This is one of the more devy blog designs I've seen in a while.

It has this docs-like feel.

But is just a bit more fun and loose than most docs would allow.

Here is what I like:

  • smells like there could be value with code all over the place
  • shows visuals taken from another devy channel, Twitter/X
  • hints at social proof through Twitter/X engagement

And if your posts are code-heavy, then a docs-like experience is where you want to be anyway.

But you can spice it up with things that wouldn't fit the docs.

Like a Twitter/X embed or a meme.

social posts
product launch

Vercel product announcement on Linkedin

I like the simplicity of this announcement.

What: "Vercel Edge Middleware"

Why: "Start delivering dynamic, personalized content without sacrificing end-user performance."

Visual supports this but is super minimal.

brand
campaigns
billboards
ads

"Ask your developer" billboards from Twillio

Just wanted to share this classic dev tool branding campaign.

There is even a book about this from Jeff Lawson at Twilio.

But I recently saw someone share on HN that it got changed to "How can I reduce acquisition costs by 65%". Made me a bit sad.

But perhaps after years and years of working it stopped delivering any additional brand awareness/affinity.

Could they have come up with another flavor of "Ask your developer."?

Maybe. But maybe at their levels of mind share you are playing a different game.

The good thing is, you are not at that stage ;)

And f you pull off something that is 1% of the success of that famous Twilio campaign you can make your brand noticed and remembered.

I know we are in the year of doing what brings results right now. And branding campaigns may not make the cut.

But maybe we can (and should) afford to do something that helps us deliver that pipeline next year or a year after that?

brand
campaigns
ads
billboards

"What good is bad data" from Segment

This is a really clever billboard campaign.

Show don't tell they say.

And Segment did exactly that by putting billboards with the wrong location printed on them (LA in SF etc).

The theme/message was "What good is bad data?" which was exactly what they wanted to convey.

What I like about is the alignment between:

  • campaign creative
  • campaign theme
  • product value

This is hard to do imho so big kudos to them 🎉!

Downside?

Reportedly many folks who saw billboards didn't get that it was intentional and Tweeted at them about the error.

Or maybe they were next-level jokers...

social proof
landing page
developer experience

Showing testimonials related to features from Appsmith

How to bring attention and trust to a feature section?

Add a testimonial.

Ideally, it should talk about that feature to make your message even stronger.

I like how Appsmith made it animated and it just makes you look.

And you read the testimonial and look at the feature above it.

Good stuff.

social posts
linkedin
developer experience

Code + UI Linkedin post format

A great example of a dev-focused Linkedin post format from Khuyen Tran 👇

What I like about this:

  • It stands out in the feed with a pink background
  • It is helpful and visual. Shows the code and result of the code in one view.
  • I know right away what the post is about and why I should "... see more"
  • It is a format that can be reused for many scenarios

Just great job!

copy
campaigns
hacker news
product launch

fly.io Hacker News launch description

Hacker News developer audience doesn't love promotion to put it mildly.

But some dev tool companies manage to make this audience their biggest ally.

Fly.io is one of those companies.

And they had a super successful product launch a few years back.  

So how did they do it?

  • "Who"
  • "Problem"
  • "What" and "How"
  • *Speak "dev to dev". Spec no fluff.

Let's go through these in detail.

Who are you? Why should I listen?

  • show your face
  • Say who are you and
  • hint at why should I trust you

What is the problem really?

  • Describe how you discovered the problem
  • Agitate that pain, explain technicalities deeply
  • Share your stories dealing with that problem (ideally obvious solutions that didn't work)

What does your product do and how does it work?

  • Say what it is, like a technical spec.
  • Say what it does, like really, low-level job to be done
  • Explain how you solve it, be deeply technical

Speak "dev to dev"

  • use technical jargon and relevant terms: "docker image", "global router", "VMs", "root filesystem"
  • don't explain like I am 5, explain like I am 5 years in my dev journey "we convert docker images into a root filesystem, boot tiny VMs..."
  • Don't use words that don't really mean anything and just take space. Speak MECE (mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive)

By doing it this way you have a chance of gaining love from the prolific HN crowd.

Fly.io definitely did, and is still reaping rewards with constant HN exposure.