I stumbled into some weird data as to how startups may be able to use this kind of technique without exploiting people. Yeah, it sounds hard to believe. But you have to understand that every technique out there can be used for good. Anyhow, turns out that there are some tricks that these type of advertisers use to increase their response. One just needs to carefully read the source of their pages (specially the Javascript), and you will find lots of interesting stuff in it. Just beware. Once you dig into this type of advertising your view on the subject might change dramatically. You can learn more about it here: <a href="http://bit.ly/13wOrj2" rel="nofollow">http://bit.ly/13wOrj2</a><p><i>Edit:</i><p>16 clicks on 2 minutes. This sort of technique works on everybody, including <i>smart hackers.</i> Its mostly about talking about what you want. Some people want to lose weight, others control their diabetes. Apparently, lots of people want to learn of <i>a little known advertising secrets for startups.</i> I should make a Copy as a Service startup. (:<p>See how many are suckered into clicking: <a href="http://bit.ly/13wOrj2+" rel="nofollow">http://bit.ly/13wOrj2+</a>
I would feel a lot better about Slate (and everyone else) if they didn't run those "SPONSORED FROM AROUND THE WEB" pseudo-article links at the bottom of each page with this <i>exact same kind</i> of manipulative ads in them.<p>Come on Slate. You think better of your audience than this, right?
When we launched Perfect Audience, we wanted to make things easy to use and as open as possible to marketers looking to get into retargeting.<p>Yes, we were a bit naive.<p>The sheer multitude of bad actors participating in the ad/marketing world is bewildering. It tooks us a solid month after launch to get processes in place that let us weed out the bozos swiftly without tying up the whole team.<p>We have many many of these "one trick" people sign up and try to use our tools. We'll keep turning them away and staying vigilant for the next ruse.
The article doesn't seem to mention this, but there is another trick in these guys arsenals - fake news articles about their products.<p>They build entire webpages, along with side-stories and article comments that support their product. They look SO real that once I (and I consider myself pretty tech-savvy, having access to Internet for 15 years) fell for it briefly, and then had to explain it to my wife who stumbled upon them as well. I was truly impressed by amount of work these guys went through not only to write a pretty long science-looking article, but to build a whole (albeit pretty static) webpage and write realistic comment sections. Sadly, this whole effort is done to deceive other people.
This is the same as the 'Nigerian 419' fraud concept. They fill the email with spelling and grammar mistakes and in doing so, they filter out the marginally intelligent, resulting in a pre-filter to attract the most gullible.<p>The crappy, hand drawn ads, the dire videos, and the bad production have the same effect. The punter needs to be a gullible fool, since a fool and his money are soon parted.
I work with a dozen or so people who are involved in this sort of work. I think it is very interesting to see how they rationalize and deal with their moral compass internally.<p>One of the guys is the most caring, liberal, loving person you'd ever meet; he justifies being involved in this sort of skeezy marketing work as "I can take a small amount from a lot of people and amplify the result to do good with a lot of money."<p>He genuinely believes this. A lot of the other guys simply try not to see the "punters" (potential customers [1]) as real people, they are disconnected through the impersonal nature of the internet.<p>[1] <a href="http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/punter_2" rel="nofollow">http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/punter_2</a>
> “Research on persuasion shows the more arguments you list in favor of something, regardless of the quality of those arguments, the more that people tend to believe it,”<p>[1] has some different research which claims that people average the arguments made, rather than summing them up, which most expect. It won't make any difference if you have a whole bunch of low value arguments, but will if there a combination of strong points and weaker ones.<p>[1] <a href="http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/10/the_presentation_mistake_you_d.html" rel="nofollow">http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/10/the_presentation_mistake_you...</a>
I'm sorry if this is trivial, but “what’s holding you back from the big penis you deserve" has to be one of the greatest phrases ever written.
>Why are the illustrations done by small children using MS Paint?<p>None of those images look like the were drawn by a small child. The ones in the screen cap vary from "kind of crappy, but obviously done by an adult" to "probably the work of professional illustrator".
Another "weird trick" sites use is to include numbers in headlines. The sidebar of this very Slate article lists headlines for <i>"7 of John Adams' greatest insults"</i> and <i>"'A Different World': 12 Things We Learned"</i>. There must some psychological lure that makes readers think "oh, that is such a specific number that it must be a very important and definitive list!" :\
If you have to watch the video for 15-30 minutes, I think it's not the persuasion aspect but probably loading different sites in an iframe to defraud advertisers: <a href="http://www.behind-the-enemy-lines.com/2011/03/uncovering-advertising-fraud-scheme.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.behind-the-enemy-lines.com/2011/03/uncovering-adv...</a>
Scams aside, it would be interesting to use some of these techniques on landing pages for <i>legitimate, valuable</i> SaaS apps.<p>"One weird trick to improve your SEO/conversions/customer satisfaction/whatver KPI" which links to a page with a crude, long-form, un-pausable video. After that, you could probably at least get them to create a trial account.<p>Has/would anyone try this?
<i>Conquered the internet?</i><p>I don't think so.
I've never clicked on any of those ads, and I'm sure that millions of other users of Ad Block, etc, have never even seen these ads.<p>Of interest to me was the author's reluctance to click on links due to malware threats.<p>Even when I used WinXP, years ago, I never have been infected with any malware, but then, I'm not the average PC user.
How this stay-at-home mom used one weird trick to conquer the internet! Click here!<p>(And yes, that's how I parsed the link title at first glance.)
Well... I excepted the article to go deeper. Investigate who actually pays these ads,,where does the money go, why are they allowed to basically lie in the ads.<p>Instead the author just clicked on the ads and watched the videos. Well, I can do that too.
I once worked for a company that operated along these lines. It wasn't quite as bad as those mentioned in the article due to the fact that the industry in question had several government agencies watching almost everything they do but it was an interesting learning experience.<p>There's likely two reasons why so many follow the same pattern. It's possible that many did enough A/B testing to determine the best direction that provided the best results. More likely one person came up with the pattern, the rest decided that it seemed a successive effort, and they all copied that one person's pattern.<p>I can't tell you how many times I created a landing page and/or email that was built in one specific way that originated with one guy that the rest perceived as the most successive guy in their type of marketing. If he said it, then it was gold. It was a tad disheartening as there was no real design involved. "Copy is king!" was the mantra and a nice design was not necessary. Even a decent design that made the copy easier to read was not considered worth the time. This was typically the type of landing page that uses the funnel method of long, sensational text with call-to-actions sprinkled down the page leading to a short order form at the bottom.<p>This insistence of copying everybody else because of perceived success, no data to support that perception of course, made for interesting conversations. "We're doing it this way." "Why?" "Because that's how they did it." "Why should we do it because they did?" "If they're doing it then it must work."<p>Although it was always fun to introduce a new kink to the marketing pattern and watch everybody else copy you. Especially when we hadn't yet decided if the new method even worked or not.<p>My favorite story that shows how locked into a pattern they would be until something shattered their illusions involved one sales email. For the longest time it was the rule to use as few images as possible in emails. The reasoning being because modern email clients do not automatically download images so you don't want things hidden from the potential customer before they interact with the email. I fought that quite a bit using legit companies like Apple and NewEgg as examples in that they successfully sell stuff and use images quite frequently through their emails. No dice. So one day I design a new email template that did use images heavily, our products were displayed in a grid that looked like stickers placed on the email. That meant that the copy listing details and pricing of the products were in the images, which was a no-no. I didn't tell anyone I did this knowing that all of them had their email clients downloading images automatically that came from us. The email was approved and sent out. A few weeks later I asked how that email did, "Best money-making email we've ever sent out!"<p>I then confessed to what I had done to their totally shocked confusion. After that I was able to actually design stuff that looked nice instead of the scammy look they insisted upon. And of course most of those newer designs, not all mind you, made more money. Interesting that I didn't see many other companies copying the new pattern. I guess it broke the mold enough to not be perceived as successful.<p>Anyway, even with the occasional moral problems, it was a good learning experience. Almost everything I know about SEO, ads, email, marketing, analytics, customer relations, and much more came from this company. Kind of gives me a somewhat unique perspective at my new job at a more traditional agency.