I built a custom app for myself to do link tracking and now Im thinking about offering it as a service to others. My question is would it be the same approach as running a web hosting company from a marketing standpoint? I just dont know where to start, obviously it takes users to grow but how to do advertise without people thinking its spam? Just looking for suggestions.

Silly

Make a website make it show up on google - MUST have a demo. Im not interested in things like this unless it has a online demo. Then just word of mouth it around till it gets popular.

Good luck :)

try some affilliate forums where people have long urls with codes in them. find the top 10 affiliate niches and then find their sub-niches and target them. like Amazon: Books: How to get rich quick. That market should be packed full of impatient people ready to pay $5/month for a solution to their free business.

the question is, will you be able to take a "free" service and find customers to pay you for it?

ANSWER: Yes, it is possible if you target the right "level". The mid-range and big "guys" know that it can be had for free. Target the "beginner" market.

get a domain name, website and a decent host that allows you to edit dns and provides a bunch of subdomains to start. then you can host clientX.your-domain.com and point it to the free account.

then find out where your market is "hanging out" and post some messages and include a "Free Trial" link in your signature.