(Seth’s Blog: Cannibalism and spam)

aka why I think Facebook Ads, Google AdWords, buying email lists etc etc are complete bullshit.

That’s nice that advertisers can pay very little to send a “targeted message” at a segment of people who meet their needs. What I ask of you dear advertisers is to start thinking about yourself as a “target” and remember how you like to be communicated with. Remember what makes a lasting impression. Remember what sticks.

Fast, easy and cheap is not sustainable. In fact, those who focus on fast, easy and cheap become just that.

Desperation is not attractive.

(via heyamberrae)

It’s clear that you’re good intentioned, but you’re wrong about two things. 

The first is that you’re grouping spam messages with contextual advertising. They’re not the same. You forfeit the right to avoid marketing messages as soon as you visit Facebook or Google. The attention is yours, until you come to my site - at which point I no longer need to ask you for permission to show you advertising. If you value your attention over Google’s search results or Facebook’s social networking, you’re free to finds alternatives or not use them at all.

The second is that you’re drawing the wrong conclusion about cost/difficulty of marketing and the sustainability of a business. That sounds overly nitpicky, but I’ll explain:

A company’s marketing isn’t unsustainable by virtue of being fast/easy/cheap, in fact the complete opposite is true. It’s sustainable only to the extent that it’s fast/easy/cheap. If the cost of a conversion exceeds the margins earned from the sale, the marketing becomes unsustainable. 

Using Google and Facebook as an example: If the cost per click is $1, and my conversion rate is 5%, I will need to spend $20 per sale. If my profit is $20, that’s not terribly sustainable. The $1 CPC figure is reasonable too, even cheap, so you can see that advertisers aren’t paying “very little” to send you targetted messages.

If it is slower, harder, and more expensive to promote my product or service, there are three effects: 1. My profit margin shrinks unless and until 2. the price increases because the cost of sale increases, resulting in 3. Fewer people who can afford my goods. No one benefits, the customer least of which. 

The nice thing about advertising with super-measurable advertising platforms is that it’s data-driven. I know exactly how much each sale costs, where it came from, and then I can optimize or stop using the service if it’s not effective. With talk about social marketing, word of mouth marketing, or any kind of “pull” based marketing, data is either tossed to the wind or complete nonsense. Success is not reproducible, there’s no way to link an advertisement with a conversion, and the whole thing just gets really expensive. Not to mention that effectiveness is questionable (it’s comparatively ineffective).