Ah, Zyrtec 5mg, thanks for dropping by!

Last week, I was in the San Francisco Bay Area for much for much of the time, and despite the fact that they do have telecommunications equipment there, including the Internet, I am using my trip as an excuse for not writing anything for the back half of the week.

So there.

BUT just because I wasn’t contributing doesn’t mean others didn’t fill in.  In fact, there was a pretty massive deluge of spam comments to various posts on the site.  I’m talking dozens and dozens of automated bits of jibberish full of links for just about anything that a low-grade spammer scumbag could make a dime on.

I think it’s funny how this has evolved.  In the old days, spam was a heart-felt, if unsolicited and often times obscene, missive designed to pitch you a product.  I mean, they were spammers, but at least they sent a coherent message.  I remember that there were people who even used to LIKE getting spam emails for the entertainment value.

Now though, spam seems to operated by the 1,000,000 monkeys who, over the span of eternity, are supposed to be creating the works of Shakespeare by random chance.  It’s really and truly non-sense.

My favorite “commenter” this weekend was a spambot who called itself “Zyrtec 5mg.”  As a person who occasionally takes a Zyrtec to combat allergies, I’m inclined to be favorable toward the drug.  But even I’m creeped out by having the actual drug itself drop by Live 2.0 and make a few comments.

Oddly enough, the post Zyrtec 5mg wrote wasn’t even about Zyrtec.  It was good old-fashioned non-sense interspersed with links to web pages that looked like ransom notes created by a dyslexic with only a passing knowledge of English.  I could hardly have bought some of whatever it was they were selling if I tried.

I ask you, Is this any way to run a Russian spam operation?

But although these clowns are comically inept (and I do mean comical.  Some of the random strings of babble that come out of these spambots crack me up, like a recent comment that simply said, “Thank you, with pleasure.”), they do make me think.

No, not that they’ll crowd out legitimate advertising and make it harder for publishers to make an honest buck selling advertising, but that all too often, those same “legitimate advertisers” sound about as relevant as the spammers.  With an industry average of about .1% click through on web-based placements, it’s hard to make a strong argument that the average consumer really and truly sees a big difference between ING Direct’s below the fold text ad on Yahoo’s home page.

I mean, there’s a difference, but really, is it even significant enough to talk about?

And remember this whenever you hear someone talk about the wonders of their ad network.  We’ve been hearing for a decade about behavioral targeting of just about every kind, and the only thing that keeps happening is that response rates drop to levels that would have been horrifyingly unthinkable just a few years before.

And by the way, do you think numbers stop dropping at .1%?

I remember people saying the same thing about 1%.  In fact, I had a saying back in about 2000 when people were talking about their online marketing campaigns: “Numbers go lower than 1%, you know.”

Now 1% CTR would mean that media sellers would be living in golden houses, but it ain’t gonna happen.

And for giving me a reminder of that, I just want to say to my good friend, Zyrtec 5mg:

Thank you, with pleasure.

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