3 ms·

>> 1. Don't capture more information than is absolutely necessary for the transaction. >> 2. Don't force the user to sign up or join anything if they just want

>> 1. Don't capture more information than is absolutely necessary for the transaction. >> 2. Don't force the user to sign up or join anything if they just want to buy something. >> 3. Don't automatically add the user to your newsletter and send their details to your ad network. Be very explicit that you won't do this. >> 4. Tell the user up front how much postage will most likely cost and expected delivery time before you capture all their details. You can guess their general location from their IP address of have them select a city. Yeah, alright, because marketing and the higher-ups will be totally a-ok with all of those missed opportunities...not? >> Don't force the user to sign up or join anything if they just want to buy something Especially isn't going to happen. The marketing team is honestly stupid if they don't do this. If a customer has purchased something, companies do everything they can to encourage a repeat purchase. Part of that is offering newsletters on updates for new products or sales.

ryguytilidie 7y ago
>Yeah, alright, because marketing and the higher-ups will be totally a-ok with all of those missed opportunities...not? I've definitely just aborted out of a purchase flow for pretty much all of these things. You're supposed to be making profits, not happiness for your marketing team.
- compiler-guy 7y ago
  > You're supposed to be making profits, not happiness for your marketing team. These two things have a strong positive correlation. Marketing teams don't become happy just because you get a newsletter. They become happy because you engage with the brand and the brand makes more sales. Which in turn makes for more profits.
  - inferiorhuman 7y ago
    These two things have a strong positive correlation. Marketing teams don't become happy just because you get a newsletter. They become happy because you engage with the brand and the brand makes more sales. Which in turn makes for more profits. Making people jump through hoops to stop the barrage of spam certainly means your users will be engaged. But it also means they'll be unhappy. Which in turn makes for fewer profits.
    - compiler-guy 7y ago
      If that were true, businesses would notice and stop the behavior. The unfortunate fact is that spam works, reengagement marketing works, lots of things that are annoying work, for definitions of work that mean, "works for the business using the tactic".
      - inferiorhuman 7y ago
        reengagement marketing works That sort of shit works because the utility is being measured incorrectly. All those hoops to opt out really juice the engagement metrics but don't determine if someone is interested in using your product or flailing about trying to escape the clutches of unwanted spam. Take for instance Western Digital. In order to provide feedback on their (lousy) customer support you have to opt into all sorts of marketing surveys. If nobody opts in, nobody's complaining and so everything must be fine, right? lol
dhimes 7y ago
It's something akin to "don't sell past the close." Just get the info you need for the sale, and offer the user an opportunity to sign up for more info/etc after getting their payment.
autoexec 7y ago
> the marketing team is honestly stupid if they don't do this. If a customer has purchased something, companies do everything they can to encourage a repeat purchase. Part of that is offering newsletters on updates for new products or sales. Everyone unchecks those boxes anyway. The ones that don't and actually want that crap are engaged enough in the product/company that they'd gladly sign up for the spam if you asked right on the front page or anywhere else but the checkout screen. Why annoy the crap out of 99% of your customers so that you can catch that 1%?
inferiorhuman 7y ago
Yeah, alright, because marketing and the higher-ups will be totally a-ok with all of those missed opportunities...not? And what does the spam cost in terms of lost sales? Especially isn't going to happen. The marketing team is honestly stupid if they don't do this. If a customer has purchased something, companies do everything they can to encourage a repeat purchase. Part of that is offering newsletters on updates for new products or sales. You know how to encourage repeat business? By not spamming me. I've got a list of companies that continue to spam me that I'll refuse to patronize. I'd say the marketing team is honestly stupid if they annoy paying customers. A recent example in my life was signing up for a warehouse club type membership. It's a company that's well known for treating their employees and customers well. I signed up online and went to the local store to complete the process. As I was completing the in-person part of the process the employee helping me kept pushing the store credit card (annoying but not a deal breaker). By the time I got home a couple hours later I'd gotten multiple emails from the company. No problem, right? Welp the server(s) handling the unsubscribe requests was offline. I could get the unsubscribe landing page but nothing else. Online chat support was a 10-15 minute wait. A phone call was similar. Eventually I found some corporate email addresses and fired off a few missives. End result? Someone in corporate support managed to unsubscribe me but I'm deciding between outright cancelling the membership or purchasing a few loss leaders and then cancelling the membership. How's that for a missed opportunity? Another great example is Newegg. They had a promo a couple years ago that required me to sign up for their spam mailing list. I subscribed, used the discount, and unsubscribed after a constant barrage of irrelevant crap. They've also started allowing third-party sellers. As a result of both of those behaviors Newegg went from one of the first places I looked for computer components to one of the last just like that. It's death by a thousand paper cuts really. If your company insists on opting me into more noise I'll shop elsewhere.
chc 7y ago
It depends. A marketing team worth their salt won't do things that substantially increase bounce rate just to capture a few emails.

ryguytilidie 7y ago

>Yeah, alright, because marketing and the higher-ups will be totally a-ok with all of those missed opportunities...not? I've definitely just aborted out of a purchase flow for pretty much all of these things. You're supposed to be making profits, not happiness for your marketing team.

compiler-guy 7y ago
> You're supposed to be making profits, not happiness for your marketing team. These two things have a strong positive correlation. Marketing teams don't become happy just because you get a newsletter. They become happy because you engage with the brand and the brand makes more sales. Which in turn makes for more profits.
- inferiorhuman 7y ago
  These two things have a strong positive correlation. Marketing teams don't become happy just because you get a newsletter. They become happy because you engage with the brand and the brand makes more sales. Which in turn makes for more profits. Making people jump through hoops to stop the barrage of spam certainly means your users will be engaged. But it also means they'll be unhappy. Which in turn makes for fewer profits.
  - compiler-guy 7y ago
    If that were true, businesses would notice and stop the behavior. The unfortunate fact is that spam works, reengagement marketing works, lots of things that are annoying work, for definitions of work that mean, "works for the business using the tactic".
    - inferiorhuman 7y ago
      reengagement marketing works That sort of shit works because the utility is being measured incorrectly. All those hoops to opt out really juice the engagement metrics but don't determine if someone is interested in using your product or flailing about trying to escape the clutches of unwanted spam. Take for instance Western Digital. In order to provide feedback on their (lousy) customer support you have to opt into all sorts of marketing surveys. If nobody opts in, nobody's complaining and so everything must be fine, right? lol

dhimes 7y ago

It's something akin to "don't sell past the close." Just get the info you need for the sale, and offer the user an opportunity to sign up for more info/etc after getting their payment.

autoexec 7y ago

> the marketing team is honestly stupid if they don't do this. If a customer has purchased something, companies do everything they can to encourage a repeat purchase. Part of that is offering newsletters on updates for new products or sales. Everyone unchecks those boxes anyway. The ones that don't and actually want that crap are engaged enough in the product/company that they'd gladly sign up for the spam if you asked right on the front page or anywhere else but the checkout screen. Why annoy the crap out of 99% of your customers so that you can catch that 1%?

inferiorhuman 7y ago

Yeah, alright, because marketing and the higher-ups will be totally a-ok with all of those missed opportunities...not? And what does the spam cost in terms of lost sales? Especially isn't going to happen. The marketing team is honestly stupid if they don't do this. If a customer has purchased something, companies do everything they can to encourage a repeat purchase. Part of that is offering newsletters on updates for new products or sales. You know how to encourage repeat business? By not spamming me. I've got a list of companies that continue to spam me that I'll refuse to patronize. I'd say the marketing team is honestly stupid if they annoy paying customers. A recent example in my life was signing up for a warehouse club type membership. It's a company that's well known for treating their employees and customers well. I signed up online and went to the local store to complete the process. As I was completing the in-person part of the process the employee helping me kept pushing the store credit card (annoying but not a deal breaker). By the time I got home a couple hours later I'd gotten multiple emails from the company. No problem, right? Welp the server(s) handling the unsubscribe requests was offline. I could get the unsubscribe landing page but nothing else. Online chat support was a 10-15 minute wait. A phone call was similar. Eventually I found some corporate email addresses and fired off a few missives. End result? Someone in corporate support managed to unsubscribe me but I'm deciding between outright cancelling the membership or purchasing a few loss leaders and then cancelling the membership. How's that for a missed opportunity? Another great example is Newegg. They had a promo a couple years ago that required me to sign up for their spam mailing list. I subscribed, used the discount, and unsubscribed after a constant barrage of irrelevant crap. They've also started allowing third-party sellers. As a result of both of those behaviors Newegg went from one of the first places I looked for computer components to one of the last just like that. It's death by a thousand paper cuts really. If your company insists on opting me into more noise I'll shop elsewhere.

chc 7y ago

It depends. A marketing team worth their salt won't do things that substantially increase bounce rate just to capture a few emails.