Guess what I Stumbled Upon?
It’s rare that I write a negative review for any service unless I stumble upon a case of significant errors, a gross lack of service, deplorable quality in a product, or a total uncaring display of professionalism.Also, when I do stumble upon a stumbling company, I always communicate with the provider or business to try and work it out through regular customer support channels first. This is fair and in 99% of cases, things are resolved without further stumbles.Today was one of those rare days when in my opinion, stumbling reached a new low. I’ll be brief, but here is my story in a nutshell and what I discovered when attempting to use StumbleUpons “Paid Discovery” advertisement service.I recently launched a new daily deal site called The Daily Gangster. A place where entrepreneurs, marketers and small business owners can save money on marketing tools, books, training programs and events. This is a site somewhat like Groupon, or Woot or even AppSumo.StumbleUpon emailed me an announcement (actually it was a ad disguised as a StumbleUpon Holiday thank you card) touting how they had reached their 75,000th advertiser. Like a lot of folks, I stumbled right over to see what they were up to.Of course, the email was thanking everyone and acting kind of full of themselves as is stumbled on and on and on. I kept reading thinking perhaps in the spirit of the Holidays and in celebration of their 75,000 stumbling advertisers they might have a little Christmas coupon or free trial (like Facebook, Google Adwords, Bing and Yahoo do). But no, nothing.Here’s the actual email:2011 has been an exciting year for all of the StumbleUpon community of marketers and consumers, beginning with the launch of Paid Discovery in March and continuing through the relaunch of the new StumbleUpon two weeks ago.Today, we reached a humbling milestone, welcoming our 75,000th advertiser, giving us even more reason to be thankful this holiday season.Thank you for your continued support of Paid Discovery! We look forward to 2012, growing our product and providing you with tools to meet all of your discovery marketing needs.
OK FAIR ENOUGH…
I decided to overlook StumbleUpon’s spammy, self indulgent, yuletide stumblings and check out what StumbleUpon’s “Paid Discovery” advertisement service was all about. After all, could 75,000 Stumblers be wrong?
I opened a “Paid Discovery” advertisers account, I entered all my information, I stepped through their “Paid Discovery” campaign setup and entered the URL to my site: dailygangster.comIt took 15 minutes on actual set-up and about 15 additional minutes reading the Stumble upon content rules and examples. Something I always do before SPENDING MONEY on any ad campaign I might want to test out. I may not be a top-tier expert in pay-per-click or pay-per-visitor advertising, but I’ve run extremely large campaigns (up to $5,000 per day) for other clients and projects in the past, all through StumbleUpon competitors. I’m also cited as an expert in Adwords For Dummies. My point is, I learned a long time ago… “READ THE RULES, THE POLICIES, FOLLOW THE EXAMPLES.” I did all this.Here are StumbleUpon’s Content Guidelines:
https://www.stumbleupon.com/pd/help/content_guidelines/But what I found VERY interesting was the official StumbleUpon examples. These are StumbleUpon’s examples for what they call a “Safe Landing Page.” From the URL below, look at what it shows as an example:
https://www.stumbleupon.com/ads/blog/your-guide-to-a-safe-landing/Your Guide to a Safe Landing (Page)Wednesday, July 13th, 2011One of the most frequent questions we get from advertisers looking to bring traffic to their site is: “What sort of pages should I submit?” When considering which page from your site you want to present to your targeted audience, try thinking of the page users land on as the opening scene of a film. Just like with a movie, if you want to sustain the viewer’s interest, you need to impress them with an engrossing opening.One of my favorite opening scenes of all time is from Alfred Hitchcock’s film “Vertigo.” Looks like Jimmy Stewart could use a safe landing…So… based on reading the rules and the examples, I submit my site: “The Daily Gangster” to Stumble Upon.The Daily Gangster “Safe Landing” page looks like this…
http://dailygangster.com/splash.phpA “mysterious” dark alley with a door marked “Enter” and a little placard next to the door that links to a couple of videos about the Daily Gangster. If you scroll down a bit, there is a video and content explaining what Daily Gangster is. Pretty straight forward and certainly in line with StumbleUpon’s policies.THE PLOT THICKENS I submit the Daily Gangster URL. I’m expecting to wake the next day and be engaged in the great Stumbleupon “Paid Discovery” bliss that 75,000 other web sites have stumbled upon before me. But… the email I receive the next day is a shocker?First off, I’m accused of being an affiliate marketer (as if that is one of the worlds 7 deadly sins). After all, my domain name, which is www.DailyGangster.com was judged by the evaluation team at StumbleUpon as an affiliate link? WOW… I guess it is the invisible affiliate ID at the end of my URL?Here are the sharped eyed members of the Stumbleupon team:
Ben H.
“DO target as many relevant topics as possible for your content to reach the most subscribers. When in doubt, select auto-targeting and we’ll do the choosing for you.”
“DON’T target based on your domain’s general content. Make sure to target based on the actual content of the submitted page.”
Bijal S.
“DO submit information-rich content above the fold, so users don’t have to scroll down to see what your site has to offer.”
“DON’T fill the top of your page with advertisements and banners so that users who stumble onto your page have to actively search to get to the main content.”Cyrus F.Favorite Topics: Cyrus loves the Photography interest the most, hands-down. He also likes discovering new music in the Alternative Rock interest and stumbles in Arts, Animation, and Movies.
“DO make sure a page with a call-to-action (like ‘Sign Up’) has a substantial amount of information regarding what a sign-up entails, as well as content available for those who don’t wish to sign up.”
“DON’T throw in a site that just has a call-to-action. Users in the mindset of discovery want to stumble onto actual content, not just a sign-up form.”Rishvika K.Favorite Topics: If you catch Rishvika stumbling, chances are she’ll be browsing Fashion, Interior Design, and Photography interests, where she turns to for creative inspiration and to broaden her tastes. When she needs “to indulge in cuteness,” she turns to the Dogs interest. “DO submit a site that loads reasonably fast, is compatible with major browsers, and whose content will not be altered after being approved.” “DON’T fill your site with intrusive pop-ups, interstitials, or large arrows indicating where to click or submit information. As a matter of principle, users should not have to work to get great content, you should be delivering it to them.”
What happened next?
Next, the Stumbleupon experts declared that my site was a squeeze page? Uh… what? Forgive me for asking, but isn’t a squeeze page one that REQUIRES an email opt-in to proceed further? The Daily Gangster has no such requirement. There is a splash page, yes, but no squeeze page. In fact the Daily Gangster landing page is very much like the “Vertigo” safe landing page example Stumbleupon recommends?Perhaps my luck was just not with me on the day I submitted, after all, I got StumbleUpon approver, “Cyrus F.” Cyrus F says, “Do make sure a page with a call-to-action (like ‘Sign Up’)” - that’s a quote published in the StumbleUpon site (Very bad grammar, I admit, but it’s clear what Cyrus is trying to say). Yet I’m banned from StumbleUpon because my site (in his opinion) is a squeeze page thingy (with an opt-in form). You can look for yourself, it does not, never has, and never will. Go figure?Now that my site is doomed to stumble around in hell for eternity, I figure I’ll write an email to StumbleUpon and appeal to their higher intellect. Maybe a re-evaluation would be in order considering their expert judge was listening to alternative rock music while stumbling Art, Animation, and Movies while evaluating my site… all of which perhaps skewed his judgement.I submit documentation that I’m NOT an affiliate, rather I’m the CEO of the Daily Gangster. I demonstrate that the site is not a squeeze page and does not require an email to explore. I detail the sites true focus and I request to be approved. And I prepare to SPEND MONEY on the “Paid Discover” ad service.Then is true, in-your-face style, StumbleUpon responds:Cyrus Fard, Dec-21 12:11 (PST):Hi Dan,Please resubmit and we’ll take another look.Best,
CyrusI write one more time requesting APPROVAL before having to invest further time resubmitting forms (again) and I’m told basically… NO. Start from scratch, and we’ll see if it gets through on a second try. NO guarantees. In fairness, here is StumbleUpon’s reply:Cyrus Fard, Dec-21 12:46 (PST):
Hi Dan,Our ad approval team makes decisions regarding approvals so if you wish to have your campaign reviewed you will need to resubmit your campaign. We apologize for the inconvenience.Best,
CyrusPerhaps a few may think I’m being picky. After all the standard “We apologize for the inconvenience” line was there. But after investing so much time trying to follow their rules, in an effort to PAY STUMBLEUPON MONEY and being blatantly accused of things that even a stumbling fool should be able to evaluate and discern, I decided I’d be better off making a public recommendation… TO ALL THAT EXPECT PROFESSIONALISM… stear clear of StumbleUpon. I give StumbleUpon’s “Paid Discovery” advertisement service 1 star. I do not recommend StumbleUpon.Any service that cannot admit a mistake and make it right with a customer deserves all the free viral marketing they can get. I therefore share this rant free of charge and hope the internet does it’s magic by making it as viral as a well stumbled stumble may be.
In case your interested… here is StumbleUpon’s recommended ways to reach out to them: advertisers@stumbleupon.com or by Tweeting @PaidDiscovery.
Don’t Get Stumbled Upon!
