this airline ad lands in the wrong place

I'm off to Athens [again] in the summer, so wanted to book a hotel - and as I knew the one I wanted to stay in, simply typed its name into Google - and this is the SERP, note the top ad [ie, the one that is the most expensive for the advertiser*]

So I clicked on that ad, and got this page:

Note that it is part of the 'holiday booking' page - and so I could only find the cost of the hotel if I put in flight details as well. That was no good to me as my flight was already booked on another airline, and anyway easyJet don't fly to Athens from my local airport.

So I clicked on the 'where to stay' link and got this page:

But I then had to search for the hotel I wanted. Guess what, I gave up and booked on the hotel's own website - which carried the claim 'guaranteed cheaper than any other website'. An ambitious claim and [obviously] part of  a wider strategy. Students of mine and readers of my book will recognise this issue in my Gilded Truffle Hotel case study.

* OK, I know there are other issues, but it does mean that easyJet are willing to pay to be the number one listing.

a not-so-clear call to action

This example has a double whammy  - a direct-marketing email without a call to action, and some invisible text. In chapter three of my book I raise what I think is the basic issue of putting dark text on a light background [as I do on all my sites] to make it easy to read. Indeed, I give my students a 'bad web page' exercise with an example of light text on a light background and they usually scoff at the idea of a commercial web developer making such an error - well, take a look at this:

Furthermore, the 'hidden' text is the call to action - arguably the most important words on the email. Ho hum. 

landing page[s] that land you on a different continent

Ironically, I came across this at the end of a week when I was delivering sessions on online advertising - which, of course, includes landing pages. I was looking for a small netbook, and came across this ad - note that I was searching on Google.co.uk:

Rather bizarrely, clicking on that ad took me to an American web page. I suspect it was a glitch somewhere along the line, but still one that shouldn't happen.

 

And then only a couple of days later I received an email from Amazon, promoting their new Kindle book reader

 ...and when I opened the email I got this - note the price

... and when I clicked on the link in the email I got this page

Ho hum. It seem that even one of the best in the business get it wrong sometimes.

football registration again grrrrrrr

Unlike a previous entry on this subject [see Register - just to check availability?] this time I was off to see my team, on this occasion playing at Middlesbrough. When I've been there before I just got there a bit early and stood in the queue at the ticket office before the match - but this time I was going straight from work, so thought pre-ordering the ticket would save time. Sadly, however, although I might never [ever, ever, ever] buy another ticket from them, Middlesborough Football Club decided that my credit card details were not enough and insisted I register to create an account.

In the event, just set off a bit earlier and stood in the line to buy a ticket. And guess what, they didn't insist that I create an account. 

Footnote, my team grabbed an undeserved equaliser in the 93rd minute to draw the match 1-1.

even for free - it's poor value

I was doing some research into integrated marketing and wanted to check the claim of offline ads against the advertiser's online offerings, and found myself on the website of whatsmycarworth.co.uk - so I decided to take up their offer of a free valuation of my car. But found myself stuck at this point:

You see, the system allowed me to select my car as being in a group made from '04 onwards, but then limited the exact year to '08 or '09 - mine was registered in 2004.

When I checked, there was another option before this page for my specific car, so in part is was my fault - but why did the system allow me to choose this option when it clearly isn't an option. As it was, I could choose the correct option because I knew the bhp of my car - I wonder how many other people would have been able to do so? [I suspect many don't even know bhp stands for 'brake horse power'].

hotel pricing small print

Over the years I have been a regular visitor to Athens - the one in Greece - and one of my favourite hotels is the Sol Melia [formerly the Hotel Georgio]. 

I am scheduled to go back this summer and I hope to stay there again - part of the reason why I signed up for their newsletter [it is actually a chain of hotels]. The newsletters are generally quite good, but in the one that came today, I noticed this in the small print:

Whilst the first four points are valid, why send out a newsletter which includes featured prices and yet says that the prices might not be valid? I can only assume that this is to cover the fact that some folk might take a while to open the email, but it does say on receipt, not when you read it. And if you are going to feature prices, why not fix those prices for a few days?  Just seems strange to me. 

credit where credit is due

I have had a PayPal account for [probably] longer than most people. I find it incredibly handy for online purchases, and tend to shop only on sites that take it [there's a marketing message in there] - in fact, I can't remember the last time I typed a credit card number onto a web page.

Anyhoo, as I have mentioned in earlier entries [see 1, 2]I have been switching my primary email address to my Gmail account [I've also had a Gmail account for longer than most - it comes of doing a lot of reading about the whole 'Internet' thing] but despite changing my address with PayPal, I still got a message at my 'old' address.

It is a bit more complicated than that as the message was about a credit to my account - it is easy to accept online payments via PayPal also - and the message was 'from' the company making the payment to me. As I had also informed that company of my change of address, it was not clear who was at fault.

So I put this onto PayPal's online form - and within 24 hours got a reply which included comprehensive instructions on how to sort the problem [by deleting the old address rather than simply letting it remain 'dormant' in my profile].

If I want to be picky; the email came from PayPal's office in Luxembourg and so the English was a bit, well ... 'second language' [eg "please be informed"] - making it border on the sycophantic rather than 'friendly'. But hey,  that really is being picky :) .

try doing something right today

Following a theme from previous entries [see 1, 2, 3] - here is online confirmation when I decided to unsubscribe from Sainsbury's email list.

So ... how much do you thing the retailer spent on the development of their logo? And how many hours went into deciding on the text and font for the 'try something new today' tag line? So who came up with the unsubscribe message, the cleaner? No, I retract that - it is unfair on cleaners. This looks like another example of a techie's handiwork. 

It is not only so wrong in marketing terms - it is also very poor grammar.

nice idea, poor execution

One of the elements of social media is product reviews. And an element of social media marketing is to generate reviews for any products you sell. Hence, this email from DIY outlet Homebase has been sent with the best of intentions.

Sadly, this email is the result [I assume] and an automated system - for the product I purchased was a light bulb.  Not really much I can say in a review other than: 'it lights up when connected to electricity'.  And would you look for reviews before buying a light bulb?

Hoseasons lose the [caravan] plot

I've covered this subject a number of times before - but it still amazes me how often organizations pay for advertising and then mess up the landing page ... and here is another example. 

South Shields is just down the road to me [actually, it is up the coast] and I often have a drive along the sea front there.  So when my sister was asked about caravan parks in the town, she got in touch with me. I knew the name of a site right on the sea front, so I put it into Google. And there at the top of the paid ads was this one for Hoseasons [note, it is not the caravan site I was looking for - so I suppose this is an advantage of buying ads on SERPS].

 When I clicked on that ad, I was taken to this page:

 You will note that not only was the page a 'home page' rather than the page for the South Shields camp site, but the page never downloaded fully. Furthermore, upon trying to use the page's search facility, I found that the county in which South Shields sits - Tyne and Wear - was not listed. 

So, being a switched-on online marketer, I went back to the SERP and copied the URL that was listed [hoseasons.co.uk/south_shields] and put it in the navigation box. And got this page:

Double whammy on this one; obviously there is the fact that the link is to a dead page, but check out the 404 message. Nothing along the lines of 'sorry, we have lost the page you are looking for, click here to go to the home page' - but the message refers to a 'resource'. What's that then? [see also 404 for the common people].

Oh yes, and as a footnote: Hoseasons don't have a holiday campsite in South Shields. Ho hum.