Internet Marketing in the Public Eye

This is a multiple series article attempting to point out all of the worst aspects of internet marketing in an attempt to improve the industry as a whole.

I don’t think it’s any secret to anyone in this industry that the public opinion of internet marketing is one of either disinterest or disrespect. Few people really know the ins and outs of internet marketing and most only see those marketers who are so appalling that they stick in their minds as slimy spammers just trying to scam an innocent old lady with a brand new AOL subscription out of a few bucks.

Sadly many of the stereotypes are true.

The lack of ethics in internet marketing is not a result of the industry itself but rather the channel it operates on – the internet. The internet is infamous for being filled with callous, anti-social individuals with little empathy for their fellow man or how their actions affect them.

Am I being too harsh? Maybe. Am I being too general? Certainly. But this is how people outside of the industry view it on the whole.

Rather than bash my own industry anymore I’d like to take a look into it and offer up some possible answers as to why internet marketers are looked down upon and often times not taken seriously or even hated by the general public.

1) Everybody with Internet Has Had a Bad Experience with an Internet Marketer

Notice I put no qualifier infront of “everybody”. Yes I am being so bold as to say that every single person online has had a direct bad experience with some sort of internet marketer. Everyone. No exceptions.

Just look at your own experience online. No matter how hard you try to protect your email address by using those [at] [dot] things or by only posting it as an image you *still* manage to get at least some spam in your inbox. When browsing YouTube for interesting videos you are barraded with sleazy marketers pushing their get rich quick schemes. At least once every one of you has registered for something online only to find out later that you have submitted your email address to an “opt-in” mailing list.

We can distinguish between this crap and legitimate marketers. The public can’t.

All John Doe Browser sees is the same slimy guys trying to sign him up for a $50 Wendy’s gift card that he has no interest in or “affordable” loan consolidation. How can we expect him to then have a positive opinion of the “good” internet marketers? We can’t.

But the “good” internet marketers turn their backs shouting, as they rest comfortably on their high horse, that they are not one of those sleazeball marketers. They’re better. They run legitimite websites and only run ads relevant to their users. Sure they push those 15 ringtones for “free” scam offers that wind up costing the victim’s mommy or daddy a couple hundred by the time they realize their 12 year old accidentally signed up for a subscription service, but hey we have to make a living right?

We then have the actual legitimite internet marketers following all of the rules, playing fair, and doing their best to keep the user’s interests in mind. But by the time the user comes across the few, the proud, the legit their opinions of marketers are already tainted by the get rich quickers, the “opt-in” mailing listers, and the arbitragers.

There are tons and tons of legit internet marketers out there. Unfortunately, however, they are far outweighed by the bad.

So What Do We Do About it?

Well step one to me would be to stop giving out bad advice. There are so many bloggers now trying to gain attention by showing little “tips and tricks” on how to weasel more money out of their visitors. Sure monetizing your website is well and good, and the more money one brings in the better, but when it gets to the point where you are actually taking advantage of your users then there is something seriously wrong.

Not naming names, but just take for example a recent post about cookie stuffing on another popular blog. The post did nothing more than to completely mislead a huge amount of up-and-coming internet marketers thus dilluting the rising pool of online businessmen and sending them one step closer to the dark side.

We’re creating the sleazy marketers we claim to hate.

Am I totally clean in this? Probably not entirely, but I like to think I try my best to keep my visitors from getting scammed or learning how to scam their visitors.

Everybody on the internet has had at least one bad experience with an internet marketer – are you the one they’re cursing?

Not a bad start eh? Stay tuned for the next rant in this series where I go after gooroos.