Confessions: Annoying habits of an overly-conscientious marketer

With great internet knowledge, comes great internet responsibility. A hyper-awareness of how I use the internet for marketing makes me do some weird things.

Psst! These are my secrets. (Marketing-related secrets, at least.) Can I hear some of yours?

Confession #1: I never click on AdWords or pay-per-click ad links

Scenario: I google “San Antonio web design” and the following results are returned.

There’s a paid search result (in yellow at the top) for another shop in San Antonio. But look below! The first organic, non-paid result (in white) is for the same company.

Now, I know if I click on the paid ad I’m going to cost Boss money. And I can’t do it! I’m not legitimate business for them; I’m not who they’re really looking for with their AdWords campaign. Plus, I’d appreciate it if they didn’t click on a Digett ad and somehow, some way, I’m sure their thought process will be similar to mine.

So hey, companies with AdWords campaigns, I’m reading your ads and then finding you in organic results. I’m saving you pennies!

You’re welcome.

Confession #2: I always use “unsubscribe” links instead of the “mark as spam” button.

I want to stand on a mountain with a yodel-horn-style megaphone and educate the world about the difference between the “mark as spam’ button and the “unsubscribe” feature included in any legitimate email.

Please, friends! Don’t click the spam button on my email campaign! I am legitimately emailing you because you gave me permission! If you’ve changed your mind, please just unsubscribe.

Because I worry about clean subscriber lists and good opt-in practices to avoid any kind of blacklisting, I don’t want to bring that same pain to fellow marketers by clicking the “spam” button. Thus, my confession that I always unsubscribe.

Confession #2b: I will totally use the “mark as spam” button if you annoy me.

My goodwill has boundaries, of course. Know what will make me click the “spam” button every time? An inconvenient unsubscribe process.

There are too many email marketing solutions that make it easy to implement a one-click unsubscribe link or one-click access to a subscription preferences screen. If you make it harder than that, I’ll ruthlessly mark you as spam.

I imagine somewhere there’s a big bucket of marketer-to-marketer karma filling up as a result of my over-conscientiousness. ...Right?

We’re a quirky profession. Come on, fess up. What weird thing do you do?

[Image credt: Hans_van_Rijnberk]