Slashdot Mirror
Building Better Spam
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?"
The return of Yoko Ono?
It is not our abilities that show what we truly are... it is our choices.
"Building Better Spam"
Less pork fat.
Coarser grinding.
More spices.
...aren't they making good money on carpet bombing? Why bother to target when you can reach all for pennies anyway. Of course, assuming you don't care about how many you piss off, which they normally don't.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
After reading the article I realized that I must be doing something wrong. I always click on every link in every email I get but still my penis hasn't gotten bigger, I don't have a horde of horny teens after me and I'm not rich.
What gives?
M
Did anybody RTFA? What does this have to do with spam? This is a originally a way of improving processes, primarily in engineering and/or manufacturing. Now, it's been applied to marketing. Since when is all spam considered marketing? I give this article a -1, Troll.
...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
What could be worse than a method which increases the returns on spam?
Set someone's desktop picture and home page to be the goatse.cx guy. Truly evil, but it helped me train people to log off their machines when they weren't at their desks.
Trolling is a art,
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Would be the advent of Interactive TV that works so Joe Sixpack can make the old WebTV crowd look smart, who in turn made us appreciate the AOLers.
SPAM is an issue, don't get me wrong. But that is why I have an address on the internet and an address my mates use. SPAM on one is high, SPAM on the other is zero.
This smacks as another "How to get rich like me" book where the real book should have only one page
"Write book to sell to suckers who believe this is special"
And finally, worse than SPAM would be the ability of goverments or companies to monitor your email to check you out and profile you.... but then that already happens, but as we don't see it we don't complain.
SPAM is a pain in the arse, its getting worse, but its still easier to do email now than it was 15 years ago, when SPAM didn't really exist.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
What could be worse than a method which increases the returns on spam?
The choice is yours...
Because if they do, they'll figure out quickly that sending me spam won't increase their returns.
Spam isn't hated because it is targetted advertising; precisely the opposite - SPAM is hated because it is untargetted. That is, people get spam for things that they would never buy. Personally, I do get targetted emails - I've given my address to local retailers, and I get their specials via email. I'm not annoyed at them. I'm annoyed at the folks who spam me with stuff that I would never even remotely be interested in.
If making spammers more effective means that I won't get 50 emails a day for stuff I'll never buy, I'm all for it. If it means that I'll get discounts for stuff I do buy, then I won't mind too much.
For those of you interested on learning Taguchi method. Here's a good intro.
--
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Let's face it, spam with higher resposne rate is better than spam with little to no response rate. This could be the result of several things: better targetting (more likely to get to an interested audience), less offensive, more legit, etc. If all spammers tried to improve their response rates by simply cleaning their lists with people they know might be interested, and with products or services that were legit and of economic value, then the situation wouldn't be bad at all. I do tolerate spam from reputable companies I have done business with in the past or am actively looking to buy those sorts of products.
But that's just wishful thinking.
If everyone was committed to hitting a high enough rate of return with spam that could be great with users. Imagine spam with a 100% success rate. That would mean it was only mailed to people who actually wanted to buy the product or service. I'd say that would be a win for everyone.
.0002% to .0004%. Still not enough to cut down on the amount of spam we recieve.
Remember how back in the early days of internet advertising the starry eyed utopians talked about how you could use advanced techniques to send email advertisements only to those who were probably interested? Of course these were utopians we're talking about so they didn't bother doing even a back of the envelope calculation of the cost of finding the right 300 people to send your ad to versus just sending it to 10 million.
Unfortunately my understanding is the software referenced in cringely's article doesn't find the "right" people to spam, it just helps you punch up your ad copy. Which might double a spammers response rate from
The poster also slightly misrepresents cringely's article since cringely's not advocating the use of the software for spam but rather for auction listings.
Cringley points out how standard engineering tools, in this case Taguchi's Design of Experiments (DOE) methods, can be used to increase the effectiveness of advertising. Claiming that he "plugs spam" is a complete mis-reading of the article. He points out the original study used "spam" in order to prove it's effectiveness; the study isn't dated.
DOE is how engineers make complex design decisions with as few experiments as possible. Mostly, he uses eBay as an example. He slightly mis-reads what Taguchi's DOE is about when he says that the old eBay data can be mined to re-create an orthogonal array. The whole point of DOE is a priori deciding what experiments to run, instead of the shot-gun approach used in the past. If you're gonna use data mining, then you don't really need Taguchi excpet for data reduction.
Personally, I recommended this approach to a high-volume eBay seller a couple years ago. He sells widgets with 3-4 different features (style, size, color), and uses a variety of terms to describe them (i.e. [stunning|beautiful|awesome] [rare|unique|one-of-a-kind]). Basically, he could run 16 or so tests using these various terms in the right combination, and determine which combinations were likely to work best. Ultimately, he didn't go down that route, but I'm pretty sure this is what Cringley was getting to before he got it confused w/ data mining.
Using data mining to do the Taguchi stuff is tough, b/c there are too many uncontrolled factors. I'm sure he'll get 100 letters on the topic from DOE experts and write a follow-up column next week.
As for spammers, I bet they start using DOE techniques, as they'll have to as fewe & fewer emails are getting through, making it a less profitable venture. Of course, legitimate advertisiers should be using the same techniques, and maybe they do. But DOE can be applied to any process, whether it is building cars, designing rockets, baking cookies, selling on eBay and, yes, sending spam.
From the article:
;)
They claim their work can be applied to any product or service and any advertising medium. And what presently requires sitting for those couple of sessions with Kowalick and Fantoni (at a cost of about $8,800) will soon be reduced to a $499 interactive software program that will run on a PC, bringing all the benefits of Taguchi without requiring that a nerd be enclosed to make it work.
The vanilla wafer recipe, however, will remain a secret.
Now where have I seen THAT before?
When men used to be men
be a good thing if it increases the quality of targeting. The more targeted a spam message is ...the less spam that sender sends out.
That "last paragraph" was the only paragraph in the article the really talked about how this super black magic miracle method works. The article sounds like it was written by an MBA salesman trying to sell a product he doesn't really understand.
a spam itself? The description of the Taguichi method and how amazing it is all sounded too good to be true. In reality, it sounds like an application of linear algebra to business. But the description- like reducing the time to develop a new sandwich to one month made me wonder if my spam filters would label it as spam.
"I hate quotations. Tell me what you know." -Ralph Waldo Emerson
If Taguchi works as well on spam we can just about forget another spam control methods!
(This sig intentionally left blank)
We forget sometimes that advertising, when done right, plays a crucial information role in our economy. The quick and accurate dissemination of information is vital to keeping prices low and efficiency high -- not just advertising products to consumers, but to corporations, as well as advertising for jobs and soliciting services. (*ahem* Not those services)
The problem with spam is that it is bad advertising, and advertisers have not yet really caught on about how much it infuriates their potential customer base. I think you'll find that companies really paying attention to what works will eventually de-emphasize spam in favor of less-intrusive methods.
Taguchi did not develop this method for advertizing. He developed for engineering, and it was never used for advertizing till extremely recently. It is a general method for determining a handfull of tests which can be used to find the empericall tradeoffs between a whole slew of various factors. Taguchi used it to improve the quality of japanese cars while keeping costs down.
Giving him full credit for the quality of japanese cars, as Cringly did, was definately an overstatement though.
And here I thought rancid pork WAS spam...
more returns == buckets more spam
From a supply/demand standpoint, a larger pie will mean more people trying for it. All we need is one spammer out there who decided to get in because of the higher rates, and the total spam increases. I doubt any of the others will simply be happy with their current levels of penis pump sales; there could always be more.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
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
If spam is illegal is certain jurisdictions, wouldn't sale of this book in those jurisdictions be akin to inciting criminal behavior? What would be the financial liabilities of this? (Obviously IANAL.)
1. Don't ever buy anything from SPAM no matter how attractive the offer is. You must not reward their behavior.
2. Don't ever buy anything from telemarketers no matter how attractive the offer is. You must not reward their behavior.
3. Don't ever buy anything from door-to-door salesmen now matter how attractive the offer is. You must not reward their behavior.
MORTAR COMBAT!
Yeah, yeah, all advertising is bad, spam is bad, commercials are bad (or so I think, YMMV).
But I haven't really thought about the Taguchi method in non-lab settings before I read this article. How about applying it to user interface design? Gnome guys, are you listening?
(Maybe then we would find something better than "tabs" implemented in every single app...)
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
You haven't sent me the $19.95 the e-mail requested, of course! Send me the money, and I promise I'll deliver the possiblity of perhaps maybe getting all your desires.*
(*note: "all your desires" is defined as "an e-mailed receipt** showing you paid $19.95 for penis enlargement.)
(**note: by "e-mailed receipt", we mean e-mailed to all your friends, relatives, and co-workers.)
Only problem is that a business can Spam on behalf of it's rival to get the rival in trouble...
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
Not so fast. It is my understanding that telemarketers and spammers often exploit those are not making rational decisions for themselves and are unable to say no. This is the legal version of taking candy from a baby.
Just because it is happening to someone else's addled grandmother or retarded cousin, shouldn't absolve any of us from our responsibility to protect the weak (and kill spammers dead).
What could be worse than a method which increases the returns on spam?
Plugging the book for free on Slashdot by pretending it's a news item.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I read through the article and I don't think it's reasonable to automatically assume this will lead to better spam. What if the most effective advertising rate is to not spam? Supposedly this Taguchi method rapidly takes thousands of variables into consideration and through a few experiments, comes up with the most effective method. If experimenters include the method of delivery as a variable, they may find that another technique works better than spam.
From where I stand, I see the possibility that spam will decrease significantly. The Taguchi method could be the next big buzzword (or buzzphrase) and every spammer who wants to make more money (which would be all of them - why else would they sacrifice their ethics) might determine that there is some better method than bulk mailing to *@*.* with deceptive subject lines and random strings everywhere.
And even if that doesn't happen, the end result would be spam that isn't quite such a nuisance. Something that we might not mind as much. And if we're going to keep getting spam, I'd rather it not be the kind that offends, insults and annoys us.
I really hate signatures, but go to my website.
...I was sure that the story was about the Tamagotchi method, and was wondering out little digital "pets" could possibly help ad return rates.
Then it hit me - what if all those little digital pets were WiFi enabled, and talking to each other? "Beep! Feed me! Beep! Go by a Ronco Turnip Twaddler!" Scary.
But consider the worm. There is some fairly cool technology in there to get them to work right. Right now that technology is being used mostly for evil. In the future the technology may mature to the point where we will wonder how we lived without it. As an example, instead of a slashdot web site, there could be slashdot worms that find you and deliver your content you want in real time to a computer or handheld device instead of you needing to query for it. It would simply be there on your computer. No more world-wide-wait. Don't laugh it could happen (or maybe not).
Similarly spam is using technologies in creative ways for evil. Yet the same techology is being used here on slash dot to notify me when one of you wonderful people comments on my comments. As the technology matures we may see new and wonderful things grow out of what we call spam; again maybe not.
However, both of these evils are responsible for a whole new set of technologies the thwart them. As the spam filters get better, the spam improves to overcome the latest improvements. The spam filters react and create new technologies which the spammers respond to and so forth. Worm and virus protection works the same way.
Each iteration requires using some existing techology in a new way or creating an altogether new techology. These technologies start to be applicable in other domains, thereby increasing and improving the general level of technology in the world at large.
As I gaze into the crytal ball, I see that the current war of spam and virus, like all other wars, will create new techology that was not considered and would not have been conceived had it not for the necessity of the times.
See James Burke "Connections" for a similar view of history, only much better.
Your friend and well-wisher
m0smithslash
http://www.ferociousflirting.com
Here is what companies need to do if they wany any positive return from me:
1. Make sure that I want to read e-mail that contains ads. For example, take $10 off my net bill every month and I'll opt-in to receive some offers that interest me. Limit the qunatity of such offers to a reasonable number.
2. Make professional e-mail ads. Please no heavy graphics, javascript, foreign characters, random subject lines that read "!!!!!!! Women will beg for more!!!!!!!," etc. Also, make sure that the companies that you represent are responsible for what they sell.
3. Provide effective methods for cancelling the service. If I want to unsubscribe, I must be able to do so without clicking through thousands of pages and user agreements.
This method has worked for me in the past. I was shopping for a leather jacket last fall and my girlfriend signed up for notifications from J.Crew. She received an ad about a hidden online sale, I went to the site and purchased a leather jacket for a reasobly low price (it was cheaper than anywhere I shopped in the area). I had no problems doing it because I knew that it was from a legid company that offered me a good price on what I wanted to buy.
Employ a fleet of people, working from their home like Google Answers or Expert Exchange experts, to browse usenet, blogs, web journals, forums, etc, and write individualized emails from personal accounts selling products. These people would have a product database of products from companies who are willing to pay for the promotion.
In other words:
- Jack blogs about this segway recall and comments that he isn't going to return his.
- Jill, a PersoSpam promoter reads this while browsing the web.
- Jill's PersoSpam Firebird extension automatically matches the text of Jack's blog with SegwayPaniers.com, a business in the product database that sells paniers for Segway HTs.
- Jill decipher's the Jack's obfuscated email address (jackDOESNTLIKESPAMrepressedanger.com) and writes an innocent sounding email to him about how she was just reading his weblog, and she just got these cool paniers, and Jack should totally check them out.
- Jill BCC's outgoing@persospam.com
- PersoSpam deposits $0.50 in Jill's account, bills SegwayPaniers.com for $0.60 and keeps the extra.
- ???
- Profit!
Might work, eh?Erik
The reason spam is so annoying is that we get so much of it, for things we aren't interested in. If we only got email about things we were actually interested in, not only would the senders get a much better response rate, we probably wouldn't even consider it to be spam.
Microsoft has a new product called the "Microsoft Accelerator for Six Sigma":
Microsoft Accelerator for Six Sigma is an integrated set of products and services customized for Six Sigma practitioners. The accelerator can help Six Sigma project teams more effectively manage a large number of projects, more easily track their financial impact, optimize and track resources, and electronically share knowledge gathered across the enterprise.
cpeterso
"Vectors" are a construct from linear algebra; if you're not familiar, please review an introductory text on linear algebra. "Orthogonal vectors" are vectors that are perpendicular in vector space. You can test whether two nonzero vectors in an inner product space are orthogonal by taking their dot product. (The dot product of two vectors is a scalar; to compute it, multiply them element-wise and then sum all the products.) If the sum is close to zero, the vectors are close to orthogonal.
You can learn more on Wikipedia.
Will I retire or break 10K?