Building Better Spam 298
henbane writes "Cringely is plugging a new method of advertising from Dr. Jim Kowalick and Mario Fantoni. Their book entitled 'E-Mailing Your Way to Sales With
the Taguchi Approach' is out in the autumn. What could be worse than a method which increases the returns on spam?"
What could be worse? (Score:1, Insightful)
A stick dipped in rancid pork and shoved into my left eye. That would be worse. But not by a lot.
With the current cost of SPAM (Score:5, Insightful)
Kjella
Worse than a return on SPAM... (Score:3, Insightful)
Would be the advent of Interactive TV that works so Joe Sixpack can make the old WebTV crowd look smart, who in turn made us appreciate the AOLers.
SPAM is an issue, don't get me wrong. But that is why I have an address on the internet and an address my mates use. SPAM on one is high, SPAM on the other is zero.
This smacks as another "How to get rich like me" book where the real book should have only one page
"Write book to sell to suckers who believe this is special"
And finally, worse than SPAM would be the ability of goverments or companies to monitor your email to check you out and profile you.... but then that already happens, but as we don't see it we don't complain.
SPAM is a pain in the arse, its getting worse, but its still easier to do email now than it was 15 years ago, when SPAM didn't really exist.
Re:What does this have to do with spam? (Score:5, Insightful)
Thank you. That's exactly what I was about to say. I'll be the first to pull the trigger when we get the spammers against the wall, but just because it's email marketing doesn't make it spam. I get plenty of marketing mail for games, telescope equipment, and other stuff I'm actually interested in because I opted in to the lists after reviewing their policies on sharing my address and confirming that they wouldn't. This prevailing idea that every commercial use of email is spam is raving nonsense. It is sad that the spammers have managed to so thoroughly hijack people's perception of what can be a useful marketing vector.
I hope spammers read this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because if they do, they'll figure out quickly that sending me spam won't increase their returns.
Spam isn't hated because it is targetted advertising; precisely the opposite - SPAM is hated because it is untargetted. That is, people get spam for things that they would never buy. Personally, I do get targetted emails - I've given my address to local retailers, and I get their specials via email. I'm not annoyed at them. I'm annoyed at the folks who spam me with stuff that I would never even remotely be interested in.
If making spammers more effective means that I won't get 50 emails a day for stuff I'll never buy, I'm all for it. If it means that I'll get discounts for stuff I do buy, then I won't mind too much.
Higher response rate is good for everyone (Score:3, Insightful)
But that's just wishful thinking.
at the limit it actually would be a good thing... (Score:4, Insightful)
Remember how back in the early days of internet advertising the starry eyed utopians talked about how you could use advanced techniques to send email advertisements only to those who were probably interested? Of course these were utopians we're talking about so they didn't bother doing even a back of the envelope calculation of the cost of finding the right 300 people to send your ad to versus just sending it to 10 million.
Unfortunately my understanding is the software referenced in cringely's article doesn't find the "right" people to spam, it just helps you punch up your ad copy. Which might double a spammers response rate from
The poster also slightly misrepresents cringely's article since cringely's not advocating the use of the software for spam but rather for auction listings.
He doesn't plug spamming (Score:5, Insightful)
DOE is how engineers make complex design decisions with as few experiments as possible. Mostly, he uses eBay as an example. He slightly mis-reads what Taguchi's DOE is about when he says that the old eBay data can be mined to re-create an orthogonal array. The whole point of DOE is a priori deciding what experiments to run, instead of the shot-gun approach used in the past. If you're gonna use data mining, then you don't really need Taguchi excpet for data reduction.
Personally, I recommended this approach to a high-volume eBay seller a couple years ago. He sells widgets with 3-4 different features (style, size, color), and uses a variety of terms to describe them (i.e. [stunning|beautiful|awesome] [rare|unique|one-of-a-kind]). Basically, he could run 16 or so tests using these various terms in the right combination, and determine which combinations were likely to work best. Ultimately, he didn't go down that route, but I'm pretty sure this is what Cringley was getting to before he got it confused w/ data mining.
Using data mining to do the Taguchi stuff is tough, b/c there are too many uncontrolled factors. I'm sure he'll get 100 letters on the topic from DOE experts and write a follow-up column next week.
As for spammers, I bet they start using DOE techniques, as they'll have to as fewe & fewer emails are getting through, making it a less profitable venture. Of course, legitimate advertisiers should be using the same techniques, and maybe they do. But DOE can be applied to any process, whether it is building cars, designing rockets, baking cookies, selling on eBay and, yes, sending spam.
Get rich quick! (Score:5, Insightful)
They claim their work can be applied to any product or service and any advertising medium. And what presently requires sitting for those couple of sessions with Kowalick and Fantoni (at a cost of about $8,800) will soon be reduced to a $499 interactive software program that will run on a PC, bringing all the benefits of Taguchi without requiring that a nerd be enclosed to make it work.
The vanilla wafer recipe, however, will remain a secret.
Now where have I seen THAT before?
A method that increases the return on spam may.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Short on the details, long on the BS (Score:3, Insightful)
That "last paragraph" was the only paragraph in the article the really talked about how this super black magic miracle method works. The article sounds like it was written by an MBA salesman trying to sell a product he doesn't really understand.
Did anyone else think this article sounded like... (Score:4, Insightful)
Good Advertising is a Good Thing (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with spam is that it is bad advertising, and advertisers have not yet really caught on about how much it infuriates their potential customer base. I think you'll find that companies really paying attention to what works will eventually de-emphasize spam in favor of less-intrusive methods.
wishful thinking (Score:3, Insightful)
more returns == buckets more spam
From a supply/demand standpoint, a larger pie will mean more people trying for it. All we need is one spammer out there who decided to get in because of the higher rates, and the total spam increases. I doubt any of the others will simply be happy with their current levels of penis pump sales; there could always be more.
Some simple rules to live buy (Score:5, Insightful)
2. Don't ever buy anything from telemarketers no matter how attractive the offer is. You must not reward their behavior.
3. Don't ever buy anything from door-to-door salesmen now matter how attractive the offer is. You must not reward their behavior.
The Taguchi method in user interface design? (Score:3, Insightful)
But I haven't really thought about the Taguchi method in non-lab settings before I read this article. How about applying it to user interface design? Gnome guys, are you listening?
(Maybe then we would find something better than "tabs" implemented in every single app...)
Re:Sue Advertisers (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:at the limit it actually would be a good thing. (Score:2, Insightful)
Not so fast. It is my understanding that telemarketers and spammers often exploit those are not making rational decisions for themselves and are unable to say no. This is the legal version of taking candy from a baby.
Just because it is happening to someone else's addled grandmother or retarded cousin, shouldn't absolve any of us from our responsibility to protect the weak (and kill spammers dead).
Re:Liability? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll tell you what's worse (Score:5, Insightful)
What could be worse than a method which increases the returns on spam?
Plugging the book for free on Slashdot by pretending it's a news item.
A bit trigger happy? (Score:5, Insightful)
From where I stand, I see the possibility that spam will decrease significantly. The Taguchi method could be the next big buzzword (or buzzphrase) and every spammer who wants to make more money (which would be all of them - why else would they sacrifice their ethics) might determine that there is some better method than bulk mailing to *@*.* with deceptive subject lines and random strings everywhere.
And even if that doesn't happen, the end result would be spam that isn't quite such a nuisance. Something that we might not mind as much. And if we're going to keep getting spam, I'd rather it not be the kind that offends, insults and annoys us.