Last night I launched an ad campaign for HartzVictims.org on Facebook. If you’re not on Facebook, you should be. It’s today’s tight-rolled pant leg; the new slap bracelet. As of April 1, Facebook officially replaced mimeograph AND microfiche.
Since launching my own ad campaign, which is money out of my pocket (albeit for a great cause to raise awareness about over-the-counter flea & tick products for pets), I’ve really started focusing on ads that are served on Facebook. There are lots of great ads on Facebook. One that I see frequently is for OtherInBox. OIB is a fantastic email service that I use and that I recommend you use, too. How’s that for an unsolicited ad?! But really, I use OIB a lot and it’s helped almost eliminate spam that I receive to my personal inbox.
However, there are also a lot of bad ads that Facebook approves. There are a ton of “Get Rich Fast” ads…
Take this one for example:
That ad takes you to JasonGetsRich.com. Cool! Jason will show you how to get rich fast for “posting links on Google”. What does that mean? How do you post links on Google? I don’t know how to “post links on Google” and I’ve been a “Web guy” for 15 years. I know how to get my websites to show up on Google, but couldn’t tell you how to post links on Google. So, for $2.95 to cover shipping (of what?), you can get your “Google Kit” and start earning $5,000 per month! If 1,000 people per month send Jason $2.95, that would probably make him very happy. Hell, I’d be very happy. And that’s a conservative number. In one day, my very-targeted ad for HartzVictims.org hit 20,000 people today, and only 19 people clicked my ad.
The majority of the ads you see on social networking sites and in email are Bullshit.
Jason tells us that he was an account manager for a pipe manufacturing company. He’s recently married. He and his wife are beautiful – and now they’re rich, granted they were planning on postponing their wedding until Jason found out how to get rich online. They now have a Range Rover!
Check out ‘his’ site. Read it carefully. Would you buy into it? Think hard about it. Be scrutinizing. It’s tempting. Times are tough. Lots of people make a ton of money via the Web.
Take a look at how ‘Jason’ wants to make his site strike a personal chord:
The code basically says, “This is Jason from [insert city based on your computer’s IP address]” Makes you think you can trust him, right? He’s in the same city as you.
Be scrutinizing, folks. If you ever have a question about what’s online, exercise your right to be humble and unknowing. Ask me or your resident geek.