LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

NO ALTERNATIVE

In “Wineries Scrub E-mail Addresses” (Newsline, Oct. 15), Ken Magill describes a method of suppressing e-mail addresses of Utah or Michigan residents instead of using the scrubbing mechanism provided by the states.

This in no way protects a company from criminal or civil liability if it’s found to have accidentally contacted someone on the registry. The correct approach for companies that cannot afford to comply with the registry would be to discontinue any e-mail marketing whatsoever until the situation is resolved.

Although Direct doesn’t explicitly endorse the method described in the article, the mention of it at all as an alternative to the state-sanctioned scrubs gives it credibility where it shouldn’t have any. Direct is potentially leading its readers down a very costly road.

As someone who has looked into this and has to jump through many hoops to protect my clients, I would recommend accurately describing the risks Bryan St. Amant [CEO of Windsor, CA marketing agency VinterActive] is taking with his [winery] clients. His attempt to create his own suppression list is in fact in direct violation of the laws and punishable by heavy fines. I’m surprised he doesn’t know this, and would allow Direct to publish a story describing these actions.

I wonder how many others will consider this a viable alternative to registry compliance.
Chris DiBenedetto
Endustrial Inc.

BUZZ OFF, PLEASE

Ken Magill’s column cracked me up (“Sunset Your Modality, Please,” Oct. 15). Very funny and true. Thanks for the good laugh.
Win Ross

I laughed all the way through Ken Magill’s Oct. 15 column on marketing buzzwords (i.e., modality, paradigm, commenced piloting, episodic).

Sometimes I wonder if I’m the only one who thinks such terms are odd. Now I know I’m not.
Arnold Howard
Paragon Industries L.P.
Mesquite, TX

WHAT ABOUT THE PARTNERS?

“Losing Track” by Brian Quinton (Oct. 15) hit on the problem of consumers deleting cookies, which ruins tracking as well as attribution of sales from search ads. But the story missed a huge issue — crediting partners for sales they generated.

Affiliate partners are Web sites that promote a given site in return for a piece of the sale. They get paid nothing if there’s no tracking, as was mentioned in the explanation of how cookie deletion hurts paid search analysis. However, marketers should be feverishly working with firms like LinkShare and Commission Junction to come up with alternate tracking methodologies so their partners receive credit for sales generated despite the use of cookie deletion products. Yet I hear no discussion of this.

Is it because marketers get the sale and then don’t have to pay the commission? Is it because firms like LinkShare and Commission Junction might be getting credit for all traffic going through their sites even though the originator of the traffic gets no credit? Or are these firms not making a big deal about it because of pressure from marketers to not tell the affiliates about these issues?

I don’t know, and I make no accusations. But I keep wondering why it’s so quiet out there. People who send marketers traffic are not being fairly compensated. And so marketers need to remedy this situation. Otherwise, when their partners notice the drop-off in their commission checks, they’re going to switch to other sites to promote, perhaps wrongly assuming that they’ll be better compensated. In the end, marketers will lose traffic and no one will win.

The article also mentioned educating the consumer about cookies. Waste of time. Ninety-nine percent of users who barely know what words like “virus” and “spyware” mean are terrified of their systems being infected or their behavior being tracked. They use software like LavaSoft’s AdAware, Microsoft’s AntiSpyware and Patrick Kolla’s SpyBot Search and Destroy to delete everything the programs find. You can’t educate them.

What you have to do is focus your energies on the companies and individuals that make these products to place these cookies into a “safe” category that explains to users that there’s a big benefit to not deleting them. Hard thing to do, but that’s the place to focus.

In the meantime, we need a new way to track sales through the channel so that everyone is fairly compensated for their efforts.
Rick Isenberg
President
RBI Direct Marketing Consulting
Chadds Ford, PA

KATIE, PRO AND CON

I just read Katie Muldoon’s Oct. 1 column (“Is Brand Marketing Dead?”), and boy, can I relate.

When talking to new clients I’m constantly repeating the mantra, “It’s not about you or your company — it’s about your customers! And your customers listen to only one radio station — WIIFM (What’s in It for Me). Ignore that truth at your peril!”

Now if we can only get them to subscribe to Direct, maybe our jobs would be a lot easier. So here’s to Katie. Well said and well done!
Barry A. Densa
Marketing and Sales Copywriter

I disagree with the premise of Katie Muldoon’s Oct. 15 column (“News Item: USPS Buys FedEx”).

In 2010 President Condoleezza Rice will place the pension responsibility for the U.S. Postal Service’s veterans back where it belongs — the U.S. Treasury.
Frank R. Cadicamo
President/COO
N.W. Coughlin & Co.
Livonia, MI

I concur fully with the analogies Katie Muldoon drew in her Oct. 15 column. Extremely well done and subtly effective.
Theodore R. Scherck
President
The Colography Group Inc.
Atlanta