The Double Edge of the CTA Sword

My lovely wife Nancy just asked me whether I'd ever gotten through to "that website" after watching the Super Bowl this past weekend. (Turns out that half the Super Bowl watchers say they do so for the interesting commercials).

Levi's had advertised "Free Pants" for their Dockers line -- and we of course responded to their CTA (call-to-action) by going to the web site. Alas, so did millions of other people -- because we could not get the site to come up. And no, I didn't make a note in my busy day to go back...

In the world of technology, just as with business models, the issue of scalability can bite you -- meaning that was an extremely expensive billboard.

A corollary to "You get only one chance to make a first impression" is "Serve the customer when they respond to your CTA." The same lesson applies to advertising with Google AdWords or Bing AdCenter -- if you promise 30% off a particular model, don't just send them to your home page where they'll be lost!

And by all means, don't leave them with "nothing". Later this month, when you work on your next campaign, ask your colleagues these two courageous questions:

1. How do we react if nobody responds?
2. How quickly can we scale if everyone does?