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Building Better Spam

Posted by michael on from the for-great-profit dept.

henbane writes "Cringely is plugging a new method of advertising from Dr. Jim Kowalick and Mario Fantoni. Their book entitled 'E-Mailing Your Way to Sales With the Taguchi Approach' is out in the autumn. What could be worse than a method which increases the returns on spam?"

4 of 298 comments (clear)

  1. At the least... by AltGrendel · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...this would give anti-spam developers insight as to how to improve spam blocking techniques.

    --
    The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination

    - Douglas Adams

  2. Re:With the current cost of SPAM by pavon · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This improvement isn't about targeting specific gullible who are more likely to respond. It is about an easy, rigorous way to fine tune what the spam says to better play on one's gullibility. And the analysis is quite cheap, so it is well worth the effort.

    Or in your analogy, they are still hitting as many people with their better carpet bomb, but sustain more fatalities.

  3. Slashdot a little shortsighted by esconsult1 · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I think /. was a little shortsighted as looking at this from just the spam perspective.

    As an advertiser in search engines and other mediums, this would be a great way for me in increase my conversion rate. With a tool like ConversionLogic Keyword Tracking one can now use the methods described, and accurately measure the worth of a search or affiliate campaign based on different versions of ad copy produced.

    But yes, spammers will be reading this with interest as well :-)

    --

    Newsfollow.com

  4. Taguchi, eh? by Wansu · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Bob Pease wrote a detailed refutation of a voltage
    regulator circuit design which was optimized with
    the Taguchi method and published in Electronic
    Design magazine in the late 80s. The resistance
    values in the circuit just looked fishy and his
    analysis revealed that the circuit would not work.
    The input voltage would track the output voltage.
    The author had made certain the performance was
    independent of the quality of the parts alright. A
    fair argument could be made that the author did
    not properly apply the Taguchi method. Bob's point was
    the output has to depend on something. In this case, it
    depended on a zener diode. The author thought he was
    accomplishing something by making the output
    independednt of the components. He didn't consider
    that the circuit wouldn't work then. So be very
    careful with this Taguchi stuff.

    --
    Wansu, th' chinese sailor