Results

Imagine the following scenario: you’re browsing a new website such as RedEnvelope.com looking for new gift ideas. After browsing through their selection, you decide that you don’t like anything you see, and you leave the website without buying anything. Over the next month, you notice that you keep seeing ads for this site, each time with an increasingly better offer, discount, or featured item.

A coincidence, perhaps? Not likely. This is the new marketing strategy being offered by Fetchback, the new Phoenix-based marketing firm that caters specifically to web advertisements. Business 2.0 Magazine recently published an article about Fetchback which equated the company’s tactics with that of cyberstalking. The process involves repeatedly generating ads on your favorite websites in hopes that you’ll return and buy something from one of their clients. Is this company really getting away with a new form of cyberstalking?

Not exactly. According to Chad Little, CEO of Fetchback, this form of re-targeted advertising enables companies “to reconnect with a lost customer. You’re much more likely to convert customers if you’re consistently in front of them.” He goes on to say that the first 30 days after the initial “browsing” are crucial to customer retention, because during this time, the idea is the freshest in the customer’s mind. Therefore, a company’s best chance at gaining a new client is during this time frame. At the same time, however, he realizes that there is the possibility for overkill. After all, if you see the same ad ten times per day, you’re more likely to be annoyed with whatever is being marketed to you, and will be less likely to want to buy it. As the article goes on to say, that is exactly why the potential customer will only be exposed to a max of five ads during that 30-day period. However, each ad may offer an increasingly better deal or special to entice the customer to reconsider.

Fetchback’s website also features a short video demonstrating how the process works. Always up for an adventure, I decided to test the validity of this process. I went to the website in the video (the aforementioned RedEnvelope.com) and browsed through their selections. Having spent a few minutes looking through the available merchandise, I left the website without making a purchase. I waited a few minutes, and then navigated to the MySpace home page (just as the girl in the video did). I logged into my account, and…nothing. No ads from that particular website popped up. Over the next half hour, I navigated to a bunch of different websites listed by Fetchback, but still no ads popped up. Does this mean the ads will never show up? Probably not, as it could simply be that the process takes longer than half an hour. I will most likely see one in the next few days. But the fact that I was not bombarded with ads leads me to believe that this process is most likely a valid means of web marketing and not simply a new form of cyberstalking.

While it may be unconventional, Fetchback’s approach to marketing to the online community has proven very successful, both to the company itself and to their clients. Despite the controversy surrounding this strategy, it is easy to understand why this process would have success with truly interested buyers.

Wednesday, March 26th, 2008 You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

By Michael Gorvin