Digital Thoughts: Dear Microsoft, where’s my free Xbox?
by Jay Weintraub
What a
time to be a publisher, especially for those who have had
success running email address only promotional offers. As
highlighted in the Digital Trends article, these
offers pay out more than they ever have, and a larger
variety of them exist. Always versatile, the current slew of
offers makes them truly functional, becoming not just a last
resort but a first choice.
https://www.lynxtrack.com/signup.php
Happy as
those of us in publishing positions are, I don’t know if
those creating the offers feel the same sense of enthusiasm.
Having had first hand experience in running such a site and
given the total market size, I don’t know if now I’d want to
jump into the fray. For the marketers, inventory is now a
constraint with competition for it getting fierce.
Much like
the search market, email only sites find themselves having
to constantly one up the competition, both in the promotion
and the payout. Again, great for the publishers, but what
does it mean in a broader context.
Generally, competition leads to market efficiencies and a
better user experience, but this isn’t always the case.
Competition in isolation and without perspective can lead to
a worse user experience and a diminished market. For an
example of the latter, think of the email space. Once it
became apparent that sizeable money could be made from
sending ad-only emails to a general list, more people
entered the market. Earlier on, after this type of email
established itself as a viable medium, having more people in
the market brought more advertisers, more networks, and
higher yields. Soon though, to keep up, people went from
sending sporadically to daily, then from daily to multiple
times daily. After a while it seemed that in order to succeed, a mailer
had to try and get out as many messages as possible as
quickly as possible. Not long after, the government stepped
in, consumer technology became more effective, and true spam
still exists arguably more so.
It is
easy to point fingers, though, and say so-and-so started the
whole list pounding trend that without them the market
wouldn’t have gone the way it did. The nature of competition
though leads to others trying to keep up and not always
seeing or sticking to the long-term picture. The world of
email no longer attracts new people and many who once
thrived now look elsewhere. I think it’s safe to say that
the rush to capture a piece and stay competitive in the
email space played a role in its demise, leading to the
worst of both worlds happening – few improvements and less
money to be made.
Is the
same trend that happened to email and is to some degree
happening to adware seeing itself starting to repeat in the
email address only space? To insure it doesn’t, let’s not
lose focus on the end user experience. This may sound ironic
coming from someone that has built his fair share of
mousetraps, but I think experience proves that we must
insure that in our growth we aren’t the only ones
benefiting, which was certainly the case in email. The users
need to get more too. The rise in offers should lead to more
items being sent not less. If less fulfillment occurs but
registrations continue to skyrocket and if that trend
continues without improvement, we may find ourselves killing
off the model that has lead to such success.
Most
marketers are probably so wrapped up in getting distribution
and thinking about ways to improve their flow that they
might easily be forgetting about the consequences. Anyone
that has bought hosted leads on these sites will tell you
that it still seems like people secretly believe filling out
an offer is necessary. A sweeps may say “No purchase
necessary,” but deep down inside do you really think you
have a chance of seeing Ed McMahon at your door if you
didn’t order some magazines? Thus, the more offers we show
them, the lower the quality, the greater the user discontent
- meaning our short-term gain in revenue per user can
ultimately lead to a long-term loss in a business model. We
still need to make money. I’m not arguing against
improvements to the process or a decrease in our marketing.
I have
immense respect for those that have enabled the signup to be
marketed in a new way and reach once unimaginable feats in
payouts. I wish I had executed it. Read this article as
anything but a bashing. This is an attempt to ask us if the
caution flag needs to be waived so that someone else doesn’t
wave the checkered flag. To do the signup right takes a lot
of creativity. I want to make sure we continue to use our
creativity but continue to add value. Let’s make sure that
we monitor user feedback and quantify the impact of each
promotion so that tweaks can be made to maintain a healthy
ratio. Let’s prove that this model won’t need regulation.
Let’s prove that we can grow but not by feeding off our
future. Email only sites have already defied those that
predicted its death before the end of 2002. Do a search on
Google for certain items, and you’ll see reason to think
that we can continue to defy them further.
Jay Weintraub
