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"Spam King" leads new trend in annoying promotions
By Stefanie Olsen
Self-professed "Spam King" Sanford Wallace, whose very name
once provoked bilious protests across the Internet, is again finding ways
to irritate people in the name of marketing.
"Because control of content is in the hands of the viewer on the Net
If, that is, they ever come back.
"This is a game to juice the Web traffic numbers," said Laura Mitrovich,
program manager in Internet market strategies for The Yankee Group. "In an
era where we're not sure what the sustainable model will be, they're
probably thinking this is better than nothing."
This is hardly the first idea aimed at keeping visitors on a site. But
programs such as those used by PassThisOn and JobsOnline take online
marketing to an aggressive new level for mainstream, heavily trafficked Web
sites. When viewers type in a new address to leave JobsOnline, for example,
another Web browser interrupts the attempt with a job registration page
that includes a "Stop" sign and a message that reads: "One minute could
change your life." After clicking this window away, the viewer gets yet
another registration page for a site such as The Motley Fool.
Although this may be one of the more extreme examples, other popular sites
are increasing their efforts to retain visitors. Ask Jeeves, LookSmart and
others use frames to hold consumers captive as they surf the Web. Another
tactic used with increasing frequency is "mousetrapping," which renders a
browser's forward and back buttons useless so visitors are forced to stay
on the sites.
Advertisers find these promotions more appealing because they are larger
than the usual banners and are thought to encourage consumers to click
through them more often.
"Pop-up promotions are slipping into the mainstream because banner ad rates
have dropped through the floor and people are migrating to a number of
techniques to get the consumer's attention," said Craig Nathan, chief
technology officer for privacy start-up MEconomy.
The practice of corralling people with browsers was raised to an art form
in the porn industry years ago, said Jay Kopita, a spokesman for
Seattle-based Flying
Crocodile, which operates an Internet audience tracker for porn sites.
Sites began using software scripts that essentially take control of the
visitor's browser by continually launching another page when visitors try
to leave the site.
The question, of course, is how much mainstream patrons will put up with.
Wallace and others have shown in their spam initiatives that they are more
than willing to experiment with a relatively new medium--and their
customers--for the chance to strike gold.
"We've been doing this practice for the last 12 months, and we're still in
the top 100 (of measured Web sites). And we've been profitable for 12
months," Wallace said.
Unlike pop-up ads, which are not Web pages, full browser pages served by
JobsOnline and PassThisOn can be counted as "impressions"
"Marketers are like dogs: They jump up on top of you and try to lick you
everywhere, and it's just painful to have to ward them off at every
corner," said Jason Catlett, a privacy advocate with anti-spam group
Junkbusters. "Surfers are an individually minded lot, so the marketers are
using browser technology to extend and exploit that attention in ways that
really annoy the consumer."
The issue also underscores the long-standing debate over how to count and
use online traffic. Internet measurement companies often base their
rankings on projections from a limited number of Web site visitors. The
methodology, which is used to determine traffic on the entire Web, is
frequently called into question
but remains the closest thing to an accepted standard used by the industry.
According to PC Data, JobsOnline garners the most of its traffic, about 13
percent, from PassThisOn, which attracted 7.1 million unique visitors in
December
PassThisOn, which encourages visitors to share such tidbits as dog
animations and cow pictures, boasts of its own standing with several media
measurement companies. It touts such recognition as "the fastest growing
site on the Web" from PC Data and "top newcomer" from Jupiter Media Metrix
on the top of its site.
"There's good publicity in having large traffic numbers," The Yankee
Group's Mitrovich said. "What lies behind that is the implicit assumption
that you'll sell more advertising."
That principle has critics questioning the validity of multiple windows
counted as impressions, calling them the online equivalent of empty
calories because they do not necessarily measure a potential consumer's
interest. They point to such statistics as the average time visitors spent
on JobsOnline in December: about 2.6 minutes, according to Jupiter Media
Metrix. That stands in marked contrast to the 22.9 minutes reported by
second-place career site Monster.com.
"The online advertising and marketing business so far has been built on
getting very large, very quickly. This mind-set is ingrained in Web
entrepreneurs that bigger is better, so you can claim king of the mountain,
make more money, and get more funding," Mitrovich said. "But the traffic
seems unqualified."
Wallace countered that PassThisOn's traffic has grown purely from what's
known as "viral marketing," a term used to describe the swift spread of
information online
PassThisOn has "earned its traffic," Wallace said
Wallace said his site is being victimized by a "typo squatter," a person or
company that has registered various misspellings of Web addresses. In
Wallace's case, a company called Pointcom.com has registered the name
"PassThiOn.com" (missing an "s") that also launches multiple windows when
someone tries to exit the site.
"Usually these are not reputable companies...I'm about to start taking
legal action," Wallace said.
Pointcom did not return phone calls for this article.
Like Wallace, JobsOnline President Tony Priore defends the browser tactics
and says the company is already profitable.
"We may use hooks as promotions, but I don't think that's a bad thing,"
said Priore, a former executive at e-mail marketing service Yesmail.com.
Chicago-based JobsOnline, which does not disclose any of its affiliate
relationships, has a business model that differs markedly from those of
other employment-focused Web sites. Unlike Monster.com and HotJobs, the
site doesn't charge listing fees but makes money through advertising and
marketing to its job seekers. When visitors sign up with the service, they
must opt in to receive third-party promotions.
"You can run a Super Bowl ad and that can add up to nothing," Priore said.
"These are legitimate tactics that are used in marketing."
Still, Priore said that evaluating the technique of multiple-window
launching is one of his charters as president.
"If enough people find it annoying, we'll probably find a different way to
generate revenue," he said.
At least some design professionals think that would be a wise idea. Those
like Joshua Ulm, director of interactive design studio IoResearch in San Francisco, say that
launching multiple windows won't catch on because consumers' desire for
privacy will eventually prevail.
"Throwing something up there that the visitor didn't ask for is
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 Q&A After holding the title of most reviled businessman on the Net for years "Spamford," Sanford Wallace has abandoned his throne. Now he runs PassThisOn.com, a popular entertainment Web site that encourages visitors to send e-mails of jokes and short animation clips to their friends. But there's more up Wallace's sleeve than "viral marketing" and the voluntary, word-of-mouth promotion that implies. His bag of tricks includes forcing multiple browser windows on visitors as they try to leave the site. The practice peppers Web surfers with annoying pop-up ads and creates artificial page "hits" that boost traffic numbers for PassThisOn and various affiliates. Say what you will, those tactics have helped make PassThisOn a success, says Wallace, who says the site has been profitable since its inception in October 1999 despite a downturn in the market. In an interview with CNET News.com, the former "Spam King" discussed his controversial marketing strategies.
CNET News.com: Some view the use of multiple browser pop-ups as
controversial. What do you say to them?
My vision is if I watch TV, I would much rather get an ad during the break and not during the show. So I'm not going to advertise during the show; I'm going to wait for the break. Some people will complain that (CNET has) an ad in the middle of (some pages). They would prefer the ad to come after it. But we can't stay in business without ads or without charging people; that's the whole key to the dot-com failure. The next version of our site will allow users to turn off the pop-ups if they wish. However, in that case, it will be a paid subscription or they will have to accept more ads in their e-mail. We are going to figure out how much money we will lose by not having the pop-ups. We haven't made any final decisions.
What happened to Smartbot.net? (The business-to-business communications
service, founded by Wallace in 1998, had a stringent anti-spam policy
posted to its site.)
How much money do you make on your sponsorship deals?
That's the best-case scenario for the advertiser because we take all the risk.
Are these leads you send to sponsors quality ones?
What about privacy?
Some would say that launching multiple browsers mimics what porn site
operators have done.
We made a determination that after three or four ads people will get
annoyed. So we limited it.
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