A new marketing trend is being developed in front of our eyes. I’m sure that some of you already noticed it and even got upset with it. But maybe you didn’t take the time to really analyze what’s going on, so that’s what we’re doing today.
The musim I’m talking about wasn’t named yet, but I would safely suggest that we call it the term ‘frustration’ in Digital Marketing aka frustration marketing. And I do so for a simple reason: in one way or another, this musim ends up getting users just… frustrated.
There are two types of frustration marketing: conversion and clickbait. Let’s start with examples of the first one.
# Click here – or you will be the guy who doesn’t want more website traffic
When this pop-up popped up, I was given two options: or I click on the “Yes” button and download the guide or I click on the “No” button and don’t download the guide. Pretty straightforward, right? I wouldn’t say so. As the statements in each of the buttons (Send me / I have) are written in the first person, clicking on them is taking a stand – it’s as if I was saying one of those sentences.
From a UX point of view, the pop-up leaved me without options – any action I would take would correspond to my intentions and expectations when navigating the website. If I was making an usability test, I would say that 1) I don’t have enough traffic, 2) I want more website traffic BUT 3) for several reasons I don’t want to download the Free Monster Traffic Generation Guide in this moment. Still, for a contamination effect, closing the pop-up in any way would be as if I was stating “I have enough traffic”.
Being frustrated was the only option left.
# Click here – or you will be the rejector
The need of belonging is one of the most basic needs of human beings, therefore nobody wants to be the one who prevents the others from belonging – the one who rejects. The two options the pop-up above gave me sounded something like “good guys, click here”; “bad guys, click there”.
In that case, although the rejected object was a thing, not a person, we know that a person needed to put time and effort into crafting that thing, so it’s still a strange feeling in the end.
Could the denial sentence be another one? Some might argue that “I don’t want the ebook” and “I reject the ebook” mean the same thing. Although their literal meanings might be close, their emotional impacts are fairly distant from each other. In this sense I don’t “really” reject the ebook, I just don’t want to download it now. A button like “I’m good for now, maybe later” would be much better.
# Click here – or you will be the guy who doesn’t want to help the environment
Unfortunately I don’t have an image to illustrate this one – it happened a couple years ago when I was buying tickets to attend to the Transmediale event in Berlin. I chose the kind of tickets I wanted and entered my credit card info, but I couldn’t complete the order before marking one last checkbox.
Again, I was given two options and needed to choose between one of them. It was an upselling attempt: the first checkbox contained something similar to “I want to donate €15 to that institution that will help the environment”, and the second…
“No, I don’t want to help the environment.”
Of course I want to help the environment. Who in the 21st century (except crazy politicians) doesn’t want to help the environment? I just didn’t want to do so in that moment, in that way. But still, again, I had no other choice than to be frustrated. It’s worth noting that years passed – and I still remember that situation.
In the light of those examples, the main elements of conversion frustration marketing are:
- It gives you two options (one related to acceptance, the other to denial) and you must choose between one of them
- These options contain sentences written in the first person in a way that your reaction becomes not only about accepting or denying, but also about something else
- The denial option labels you in a way that you don’t want to be labeled
- Even if you don’t click exactly on the denial option (by for example clicking on the “X” button of a pop-up), for a contamination effect it’s still as you if you were stating the denial sentence
- For all the elements mentioned above, if your choice is accepting, great; if it’s not, you end up being uncomfortable or frustrated
I would say, in this sense, that “conversion frustration marketing” is a marketing tactic focused on increasing conversions by making users avoid being labeled in a way they don’t want to. The assumption here is: if users don’t like to classify themselves in a certain fashion, they will go for the converting option.
Conversion rate optimization experts: I would love to hear from you. Do you agree with the term and its definition? Even if you don’t, what would you say about this sort of tactic? Is it effective? Is it desirable?
Now let’s take a look at the “clickbait frustration marketing”. It’s presumably less contrkelewat / oversial than the conversion one, since it’s deceitful – I think we all agree that referral spam (that’s what we’re talking about) is just REALLY bad.
# Click here to see that great marketing opportunity – oh, wait…
You open your analytics dashboard and see a huge amount of traffic coming from some websites. You get excited and don’t thinking twice before checking them out: what opportunities you might find? How are people reacting to your brand, page or content?
Nevertheless, that excitement rapidly (and proportionally) transforms into frustration – there’s no real people visiting your site. It’s just spam. Over time, we learn how to identify referral spam with the blink of an eye. But until it doesn’t happen…
Referral spam remembers me of one of the most abstrak offline marketing tactics that exists. It’s very common in Brazil and I saw that in other countries too: it’s the tactic of spreading fake currency promotional notes on the streets. Who doesn’t like to find unexpected money? Who wouldn’t take a currency note if it was ownerless on a boardwalk? Everyone would go for it. With the same excitement that we would go to check out a new traffic source – just to end up feeling stupid. Maybe someone really ends up being curious and therefore trying out the offer on the promotional note or website, but I find it hard to believe.
“Clickbait frustration marketing” consists of a marketing tactic that tries to get users’ curiosity by putting in front of them a message or element which makes them believe that they found an opportunity, but, in the end, what these users find is an advertiser trying to sell its stuff.
It’s the typical “throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks.”
Is frustration marketing an ethical issue?
That’s a question for us to discuss.
Is it acceptable for marketers to put users in a situation where if they don’t convert they’re forced to label themselves as something that they want to be labeled?
What about making users believe that they received real traffic when in fact it’s just spam?
I’m looking forward to hearing your opinions.
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