Facebook: When Good Ad Space Goes to Bad Advertisers

Ah if only the internet could talk. The stories of bad ads it could tell. Lose 20 lbs of belly fat, reduce your mortgage, get free prescription meds, hit the monkey.

I'd like to believe that in most cases the advertisers behind these ads have no way of knowing who is seeing them (no cookies, no user profiling, etc) and that they are just using a wide network of anonymous ad space, so I may extend a special pardon for those instances (a pardon for being irrelevant to me, but not for promoting horrible products).

Facebook is another beast. Having used facebook as an advertiser I know how the ad setup works, and let me tell you, I can target some pretty specific users. Almost anything you put in your facebook profile has the potential to be used by advertisers, school attended, major, age, location, marital status, even things you write down as interests. Advertisers can create specific combos of those factors as well (ex. only 19 year old men who graduated from yale and are listed as married).

Social networks have the potential to be an advertisers dream. It is an amazing way for advertisers to target very specific (and potentially very likely) customers. Any girl listed on facebook as "in a relationship" can attest that they get wedding ring ads on a semi-daily basis. And while not all of us are looking for wedding rings, there are probably a good number who are (or at least who aren't opposed to browsing every once in a while).

For this targeted ad system you do pay a premium, I've noticed that my ads on facebook cost me quite a bit more than the ads I've placed on search or content based ad servers. But I've also found that the right ads put in front of the right users can bring me much better results, so I'm willing to pay more.

So when I see those generic ads show up on facebook I have to wonder, what idiot is wasting his/her money on this? Are the acai berry diet people rolling in so much dough that they just want to throw it at facebook ads that probably wont deliver? Or are these advertisers just flooding the web space with ads in hopes that someone will accidentally click on them and get sucked into buying whatever useless product they are selling? (free laptop ad that means you) Or, the worst possible reason, are the ads actually working?

I've been trying to vote against these ads with my wallet - er - mouse, and not click on anything with a disco-dancing, poorly-illustrated, sort-of-3D person or any mention of a miracle diet, way to work at home and earn millions, or offer of a free this or that. But since the ads keep appearing, I have to feel like perhaps I'm the only one "voting" this way - is everyone else is refinancing their mortgage and getting free viagra like there's no tomorrow.

Anywho, in case you were wondering, It was actually Richard Branson who inspired this post tonight

Don't wait by the phone richie, I'm keeping my million dollar idea to myself, you can take your billions and advertise to someone who cares.

Did Apple Take Over Facebook This Morning?

when I went to check on my usual facebook stats and post an interesting new article this morning, I was greeted with the apple snow leopard (see below) - thinking I'd done something wrong I clicked again on facebook.com, and the leopard came again.


Just so you know I'm not crazy - here is a screenshot of another page after I clicked around on my "facebook" page this morning - check out the URL - facebook.com/itunes? that was the same situation for "mac," "iphone," "downloads," and "support."
Weird indeed, very weird.


Is this a very expensive marketing ploy by apple for the release of snow leopard? A wacky computer glitch on my end? A major slip up on renewing a domain by Zuckerberg? I've scoured the web and seem to be the only one experiencing this at the time - so who knows - maybe it is just me.

Error Pages, The Fail Whale, and why even when things go wrong you can make right

I use the web. A lot. So, in my surfing I often come across error pages, page not found, server not found, etc. messages. Often I find these to be very annoying. First, something has gone wrong, and since I am not going to blame myself I am going to blame your website.

Now although you, as a website owner, have little control over certain error messages that will reach your audience, such as can't reach the server (if the browser can't reach your server, there is no way your server can send a cute error message), there are pages that you can control, and by all means, control them.

This is important so I'm going to give it its own line:

Any message your users get from your site should let them know how important they are to you.

Any message, even those on your error pages, especially your error pages. Something went wrong and the user is going to assume it was your fault (I know, sometimes it really wasn't your fault, sometimes the user typed something in wrong, but they are going to assume it is your fault so just let them, remember the customer is always right).

So in the midst of telling them "oops" give them something else fun to look at (think of the fail whale or this cat)- suggest another page for them to try or simply give them another page to look at. Whatever you do, make sure it just overflows with your voice, your brand, your mission. Are you a news site? Say whoops and then include a feed of the latest or most popular news of the day. Are you a recipe site? give them a picture of a delicious chocolate cake with a link to that recipe instead. Selling something? Show them your best sellers. Make them forget that what you are giving them isn't what they thought they wanted.

Divert their attention from the fact that your site isn't quite working the way they want, and put your best foot forward.