Chapter 32:
Make it last
In 1994, an early version of Wired.com featured a banner reading, “Have you ever clicked your mouse right HERE? YOU WILL.” An astonishing 44%* of visitors clicked what was the Internet’s first advertisement. By 2022, only 0.02% of visitors might click on a good, targeted creative display ad—a number so low that it’s indistinguishable from user error.
Andrew Chen, former head of rider growth at Uber, analyzed the decline in banner advertising and email effectiveness, and concluded that, “over time, all marketing strategies result in shitty clickthrough rates.” He called this the Law of Shitty Clickthroughs.1
Email open rates haven’t actually declined as precipitously as Chen claimed. From 2007 to 2009, Chen says that ...
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