One of the crucial highly effective issues about generative AI is how rapidly you may flip concepts into actuality. After watching a video from my pal Shawn Kanungo, I used to be impressed to create a sequence of interactive advertising calculators designed to assist entrepreneurs rapidly calculate widespread marketing campaign metrics. Assume Bankrate mortgage calculators, however for entrepreneurs.
Preserve studying to learn the way I used a mix of spreadsheets and generative AI to create totally functioning calculators. On this article, I’ll stroll you thru making a Lead Gen Calculator for SaaS entrepreneurs.
Earlier than we leap in, it’s price noting that my background is in graphic design and advertising technique. I’m not a coder.
Creating the bottom advertising calculators
I began by constructing the calculators in a spreadsheet, simply to ensure the maths labored as a very good ol’ sanity examine. As soon as the calculators have been working, I pasted one into ChatGPT-4.0 mini to construct the baseline code. It’s price noting that I fairly actually pasted within the rows and columns. Yea… actually.
That’s when the actual enjoyable began.
Right here’s the a part of the spreadsheet for the lead gen calculator that I constructed to ensure the maths labored accurately and to get the formulation:
Dig deeper: use ChatGPT to simulate martech instruments and advertising technique
discuss to builders who aren’t human
It’s price saying that this train was not a single, easy immediate like, “Create a calculator.” I actually needed to lean into coaxing ChatGPT to get what I needed. I bumped into quite a lot of lifeless ends, token limits and many confusion. And sure, I might have completed this in Claude, which apparently is best at this form of factor, however right here we’re.
Right here’s one instance: I needed to study to offer the AI sufficient context and knowledge to get what I needed. When ChatGPT wasn’t giving me what I needed, I discovered myself chatting again with replies like this:
The purpose of this train is to create a easy PLG calculator designed for entrepreneurs to get a way of learn how to scale up their advertising efforts. Let’s begin once more contemporary and suppose by way of the advertising components and never fear about month-to-month churn charges or getting deep into retention since that is about advertising and driving trials.
I discovered chatting with the AI on this method each progressed the standard of the responses I used to be getting and compelled me to make clear my considering, exactly as I might with a human developer.
The AI offered stable suggestions, and thus started and continued my dance, backwards and forwards on necessities and coding, with every model giving me just a few steps ahead earlier than retreating many times.
At one level, the maths stopped mathing, and so, utilizing my spreadsheet as a reference, I used to be capable of get the AI again on monitor:
Clarify to me how if the churn price is 100% why doesn’t this go to 0?
The AI understood and glued the maths downside, although I’m not sure precisely why it made the error within the first place. Oh, foolish LLM.
It’s vital to keep in mind that chatbots have token limits, which is successfully how a lot the chatbot can keep in mind about your given dialog. An oversimplification: You possibly can inform whenever you hit token limits whenever you really feel that the bot is now not listening to you or can’t recall issues from earlier in your chat.
For me, the best way round this was to start out a contemporary chat to reset the token limits. I’d paste the newest working code and ask the bot for added adjustments and code checks.
By speedy iteration, testing and tons of trial and error, the calculator labored completely.
Quicker, higher, smarter LLM fashions enhance the code base
As I used to be finalizing and getting ready touchdown pages for every calculator, OpenAI launched the 01-preview mannequin, which gave me an thought. In a brand new chat window, I prompted:
Good morning! I had a distinct mannequin create this code for a lead technology calculator. I’d such as you to carry out the next duties: 1. assessment the code and enhance it. 2. recommend any enhancements that may make it simpler to make use of, or extra helpful for entrepreneurs to do every step individually, pausing between steps and giving me your responses and asking whether it is okay to proceed.
The brand new mannequin urged enhancements equivalent to higher error dealing with, code cleanup, verifying logic and design tweaks. It’s an instantaneous improve.
What’s thrilling right here isn’t simply the calculators — it’s the potential for mass customization, personalization and integration throughout different instruments. We’re simply scratching the floor of what’s potential.
For instance, ChatGPT urged including situation choices, multilingual help, permitting customers to export knowledge immediately from widespread CRM methods like Salesforce or HubSpot, an built-in suggestions mechanism and my favourite: dynamic charting with chart.js or Google Charts. I’ll depart these concepts within the backlog for now, so I can at the least get the preliminary variations reside so that you can play with!
All in all, over about two weeks, this mission took me someplace between 5 and 6 hours complete. That features creating the preliminary spreadsheets, messing with prompts making an attempt totally different configurations and finally taking the time to create the ultimate variations.
3-2-1… let’s calculate!
This train pushed me to determine learn how to create working code and to suppose by way of totally different use instances that entrepreneurs may discover helpful. Inside testing helped me carry further context and assets to every touchdown web page and, lastly, the boldness to launch!
Listed below are the 4 preliminary calculators we created and hyperlinks:
The Lead Gen Calculator is designed to assist SaaS entrepreneurs simulate the ROI of lead technology campaigns by calculating prices, conversions and potential income. By coming into variables just like the variety of leads, conversion charges and gross sales metrics, you’ll get instantaneous suggestions. Strive totally different mixtures to simulate the effectiveness of a given advertising tactic.
The CPM Calculator helps you maximize your advert budgets by estimating impressions, clicks and value per click on based mostly on price range, channel and click-through price (CTR). It’s a fast, important simulator for planning and optimizing advert campaigns to make sure you get essentially the most out of each greenback spent.
The PLG Calculator is a strategic simulator so that you can estimate the influence of your product-led progress (PLG) initiatives. By coming into key metrics like customers, conversion charges and churn price, this calculator will offer you person progress projections, income and total enterprise influence.
The Return on Advert Spend (ROAS) Calculator helps you rapidly consider the effectiveness of your advert campaigns by calculating the ratio of income generated to the quantity spent on promoting. With default values pre-set, this device permits you to effortlessly regulate inputs and immediately see the outcomes, making it simpler to optimize your advertising efforts.