- AI SaaS
- SEO
- UGC
Blainy case study: 0 to 85K+ signups, zero paid ads.
This Blainy case study shows how an AI research paper writer went from launch to 85K+ signups and 1M+ website visitors in about 14 months, without spending a dollar on ads.
- signups in about 14 months
- 0 to 85K+
- website visitors
- 1M+
- search impressions in 12 months
- ~30M
Sources: Blainy signup dashboard, Google Analytics, Google Search Console.
From the founder
“I can confidently say he played a key role in driving our product Blainy from 0 to 80,000 users organically. His ability to craft smart growth strategies and execute them effectively made a real difference in our journey.”
Khalid BashirFounder, BlainyThe 30 second version
The problem
Students wouldn't trust an AI tool for schoolwork. AI had a cheating reputation.
What I did
SEO for the foundation, Reddit to earn trust, UGC creators to grow social.
The result
85K+ signups and 1M+ visitors in about 14 months. Zero paid ads.
An AI research paper writer, launched from zero
Blainy helps students research, outline and write essays, research papers and other academic documents with AI.
I joined as the founding marketing hire, after working on Hify, another product from the same company. My job was traffic and signups. Along the way I also designed the graphics and wrote the user guides for every major feature, because someone had to and I was already there.
Selling AI to studentswhen AI was the villain.
At the time, using AI for schoolwork had a reputation problem. Students heard it was cheating. Teachers said it was cheating. Plenty of students wouldn't touch an AI tool, even a legitimate one.
Blainy didn't write fake papers. It helped students find and organize research faster, the same research they could dig up online themselves, just without six hours of tabs.
So the job wasn't just getting attention. It was getting students to trust an AI tool in a space where AI was the bad guy.
Three phases.One compounding system.
- Phase 01 · SEO
Build the foundation first
I started with SEO, because it compounds and a new product needs something that keeps working while you sleep.
- Authority first. I built backlinks to raise the domain rating, so new pages could actually rank.
- Directories for early users. I listed Blainy on Product Hunt, Trustpilot and other directories. Our first signup spikes came from there.
- High intent content. I wrote 70 to 80 articles myself, aimed at what students were already searching for, alongside Blainy's free tools.
Search Console · 297K clicks · 25.3M impressions Bing Webmaster Tools - Phase 02 · Reddit
The turning point
Students were already on Reddit asking how to use AI for research without getting in trouble. So that's where we went.
I ran the whole campaign: picked the communities, wrote the content and managed the posting. We focused on r/ChatGPT plus student, AI for students and research paper communities.
- A normal post did 25K to 30K views. The viral ones went past 100K.
- We showed up in Reddit Answers, Reddit's own AI search, for research paper questions.
- The community started talking about us on its own. People recommended Blainy without being asked and used it regularly.
- The campaign ran for 3 to 4 months. Signups kept coming long after we stopped posting.
Link tracker · 7,209 clicks from linked Reddit posts Traffic sources · 4,210 clicks from reddit.com Traffic by country · USA 2,421 · UK 513 · Germany 374 Clicks from Reddit posts that carried a link. Most posts didn't.
Why the dashboard undercounts Reddit
Roughly three times as many posts had no link at all. They just helped. So the signups we could track from Reddit links were only about a fifth of what Reddit actually drove. The rest saw a post, searched "Blainy" on Google and signed up from there. Your attribution dashboard will never tell you that part.
Tracked from links: about 1 in 5Searched Blainy on Google instead: about 4 in 5 - Phase 03 · UGC and creators
Then we fixed social
Social wasn't growing. We were posting into the void. So I suggested UGC creators.
I found creators who fit the budget, then came up with the video ideas and hooks myself. Some videos hit millions of views. I also reached out to YouTubers and influencers, which got us free videos and shoutouts.
Instagram · 3.95M views · 612K interactions · 90 days YouTube · 78,267 views in 28 days Pinterest pin · 225.75K impressions · 8.41K clicks Threads · 338K views · 11.9K interactions Pinterest · 479K impressions in 90 days · up 410% TikTok · 103K video views Views, impressions and interactions, not signups.
One channel workingmade every channel work.
Reddit was the spark. Once students trusted Blainy there, everything else picked up.
Reddit posts
Instagram reels
Instagram and PinterestWhere users came from, in order: Reddit, then Google, then Instagram.
What went in
- articles written by me
- 70 to 80
- of Reddit campaign
- 3 to 4 months
- spent on ads
- $0
- marketer (me)
- 1
14 months later,here's what moved.
- signups in about 14 months (signups, not visitors)
- 85K+
- website visitors
- 1M+
- search impressions in 12 months
- ~30M
- Paid conversion and cost per user
- Locked. Private. Happy to walk you through it on a call.
What I'd tell anyonemarketing an AI tool.
- 01
Traffic isn't users.
SEO brought readers. Reddit brought believers.
- 02
Trust beats reach.
If your category has a reputation problem, go where people talk honestly, not where they scroll.
- 03
Don't trust your attribution dashboard.
Your best channel is probably getting credit for half of what it does.
- 04
One working channel feeds the rest.
Fix the right one first and the others get easier.
Services used here
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