“Kicktraq is like Google Analytics for Kickstarter,” raves Joe Flaherty, a frequent contributor for Wired, and the man behind the design of the first FDA-cleared medical device that connects to the iPhone. In singing Kicktraq’s praise, Flaherty is not alone. Crowdfunding experts at Rainfactory can attest that Kicktraq has been a powerful asset; a wonderful tool for maximizing precious early adopter backing toward our clients’ Kickstarter campaigns.
So how is it leveraged? What makes Kicktraq worthy of its place within our arsenal of tools—tools with which we reify the visions of innovators, and realize the potential of entrepreneurs?
What is Kicktraq?
Kicktraq is essentially a hub of data visualizations for all active and completed projects on Kickstarter. Each campaign gets its own dashboard, displaying key real-time info. Once you’re on kicktraq.com, use the website’s search function to find the campaign you would like to study. Below you’ll see the dashboard for Rainfactory client Sensorwake Trio: [The] Smell-Based Alarm Clock to Improve Your Day:
For this campaign, the “Projection” and “Trend” tabs may not be as relevant, as these are forecasting tools and the crowdfunding period has ended. But if you click “Daily Data,” you’ll find three charts displaying information that can still be useful:
As you can see, Kicktraq generates bar graphs to show daily pledges, backers, and comments throughout the entire lifecycle of the campaign. But what about when crowdfunding experts, creators, or early adopters want to see how an active campaign is performing?
Let’s take a look at Kicktraq’s page for Keychron K8: A Tenkeyless Mechanical Keyboard:
By default, we are shown the chart from the “Funding Progress” tab. As you see, there is a data point for each day since the campaign launched. However, this isn’t what makes Kicktraq such a good secret weapon to have at your fingertips.
Notice the green bar at the top of the chart. This is the amount of funding the campaign is trending towards, which in this case is $1,515,222. Kicktraq’s algorithm can make extremely accurate predictions by analyzing data generated for the campaign so far, data from similar completed campaigns, and more. If we knew the specifics, we’d have made a tool like this ourselves a long time ago. But only the Kicktraq team knows how it really works, which is what makes the tool so special.
You can see the trendline more in-depth in the “Trend” category:
And in the “Projection” tab, crowdfunding experts can see the range of total funding to realistically expect:
Kicktraq is a really neat tool, and whether you’re a maker, an early adopter, or a marketing professional, we hope you’ll find this post helpful.
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