Online Advertising: You're doing it wrong
Nov. 9th, 2011 05:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
missroseroseA couple of times now, I've noticed Facebook ads for a gift company. As near as I can tell, they're along the lines of Spencer's Gifts - the ads tout themselves as the Best Design Gifts Under $100, but are universally ridiculous things like a hipster-moustache ring or colored toilet paper. So that's kind of a FAIL right there.
What really pushes it over the top, however, is what happens when you click the ad (or go to the website) - it immediately fades out the actual page and demands that you "request membership" from them (by entering your personal information, of course) before you're allowed to see their products or buy anything from them.
...I'm going to go out on a limb and assume these folks are on the level, so that said, I'd like to address a note to them. Look guys, I get the whole "cashing in on cachet" thing, but you're breaking the fundamental rule of sales - namely, you are making it more difficult for me to give you money. Not that I would have bought any of the products you were advertising, but I would have linked to them in this post, and who knows? Maybe someone reading this would've thought that'd be a perfect gift, and bought it. But I can't link to them, because I'm not going to fill in my email address and God knows what else to request membership to a gag-gift store when there are roughly 100,000 competitors online.
What really pushes it over the top, however, is what happens when you click the ad (or go to the website) - it immediately fades out the actual page and demands that you "request membership" from them (by entering your personal information, of course) before you're allowed to see their products or buy anything from them.
...I'm going to go out on a limb and assume these folks are on the level, so that said, I'd like to address a note to them. Look guys, I get the whole "cashing in on cachet" thing, but you're breaking the fundamental rule of sales - namely, you are making it more difficult for me to give you money. Not that I would have bought any of the products you were advertising, but I would have linked to them in this post, and who knows? Maybe someone reading this would've thought that'd be a perfect gift, and bought it. But I can't link to them, because I'm not going to fill in my email address and God knows what else to request membership to a gag-gift store when there are roughly 100,000 competitors online.
