Professional marketer here, all of the unsub rates in this thread look nominal (0.1-0.2%).

Also, when we run third party distribution campaigns, a large amount of people, I can look at their hotjar journey and watch in real time their mouse movements as they download a whitepaper, then we call them and they say they never downloaded it.

It’s a mix of lying to the annoying marketing company (I get it), and just plain forgetting you did it.

I switched from Hearthstone Deck Tracker to Firestone Deck Tracker yesterday, I’m not entirely sure if I checked to see I wasn’t signing up for marketing emails, it’s that easy.

Not to mention, I can buy just about any non-EU email address i want on demand.

Also, when we run third party distribution campaigns, a large amount of people, I can look at their hotjar journey and watch in real time their mouse movements as they download a whitepaper, then we call them and they say they never downloaded it.

Can you elaborate a bit on this?

If I’m understanding you correctly, you send out marketing stuff via email, and then you call the ones who clicked through to the landing page did whatever?

yes. Some of the data is anonymized but there are ways around it (i.e. someone downloaded something at 2am and they were the only user, I can work out it’s you from the time stamps)

But I can watch your mouse move around the screen as if I was filming you with my phone (obviously only your mouse pointer, I can’t see your other windows or into your bedroom etc)

I understand how it works, I’m really just surprised that you’re talking about it the way you are - like this is some amazing skill set employed by “professional marketers”.

I can watch your mouse move around the screen as if I was filming you with my phone

Not my mouse obviously because hotjar will obey “do not track” flags from browsers, but ublock will prevent the hotjar script from loading, and prevent sending any telemetry.

I dont know what you mean by “the way i’m talking about it” I’m just describing the function to someone who was unfamiliar with the technology.

Yes, if you deliberately block a piece of software it doesn’t work. I was using “I can see your” to mean “I can see any given person’s” with the caveat of that person not deliberately blocking it, I figured that was taken as read.

There’s more to building out this kind of functionality, including dynamic IDs on clickable elements, A/B testing colors, CTA text, dynamic personalization, client mini-sites, first- and last- click attribution, full funnel attribution, lead scoring and so on…

None of it is crazy if you know how to do it, same with fixing a car, building a cabinet, coding an app or cooking a meal.

However, it’s interesting to me that you scorn how obvious this technology is and easy to use, and then close that most people don’t know about email pixels, cookies (or cookieless server side tracking), and lead scoring. But to call it “scammy” like I’m doing something that literally every business does, including mom and pop stores and amateur dramatic societies, is a little unfair.

Don’t shoot the messenger, I’m just talking about what happens in general terms.

None of it is crazy if you know how to do it, same with fixing a car, building a cabinet, coding an app or cooking a meal.

I personally know how most of that works, but as a software developer I would refuse or tone it waaaaaay down if someone wanted me to code something like that. Most of that is unnecessary and evil, and probably illegal in some countries.

If I had to code something like this I would have a call to action button with a signup for more info and possibly a personalised email with a personalised landing page. You don’t need to surveil someone to know if they are interested in your product.

Thank you for the insights into your industry.

I really think a lot of people here are blowing this out of proportion. I don’t see how whether testing if red or green is better is “evil.”

Or knowing if people click on the button on the top level menu, or the hero banner is “evil.”

I think that’s a touch hyperbolic.

But also, you say “personalized landing page” as if that’s different. But you just designated “tracking” as “evil” - that’s what personalization is. What you proposed as an alternative is just as “evil” as the general functions of a website.