The biggest digital marketing nightmares (and how to avoid them)

If you work in digital marketing there’s a pretty good chance you know the feeling that comes after launching a campaign. Not the feeling of relief that we actually made our deadline, although you probably know that one too, but the nagging feeling that maybe you’ve made a mistake somewhere.

Maybe you got the budget wrong on your social media ads. Maybe you published the wrong version of an asset. Maybe you

In most cases it is just that—a feeling. But what if it’s not, what if your worst marketing-related nightmare comes true?

In this article we’ve collected five digital marketing nightmares that are sure to keep you up at night. From Fname mess-ups, to campaigns that go viral for all the wrong reasons. And of course we’ll also give you a real life example of a company that lived through this specific nightmare, and suggestions on how you can avoid the same experience.

Digital marketing nightmare #1. You call your customers by the wrong name (at scale)

We all know the horrible feeling of calling someone by the wrong name. So it’s with good reason that a recurring nightmare in digital marketing is getting tens of thousands of names wrong.

One of the most common mistakes when it comes to personalization is the dreaded “Hi FNAME” email opener, which is usually just a result of failing to have a fallback option for contacts without an FNAME value.

And while this mistake is toe-curling when you’re the author of it, it usually occurs with low-intent contacts that haven’t filled out a name on a contact form or sign-up sheet. However, sometimes it also happens when we aren’t talking email openers and low-intent contacts. 

Imagine if it happened during a nurturing or retention campaign, or if you were running a promotion through your own app towards your current customer base.

Well, fast food giant Jack in the Box doesn’t have to imagine. In 2018 they sent out a few unlucky de-personalized emails that started with the words: “Fname! HAPPY BIRTHDAY WEEK”.

Luckily, avoiding this mistake is usually pretty easy. 

The mistake occurs when a contact in your CRM system doesn’t have a first name registered. In this case the system uses FNAME, {{customer.first_name}} or whatever dynamic tag your CRM system needs to carry out the personalization. However, as most systems allow you to set up a fallback text, which is a standardized placeholder, you can remedy any potential disasters. For Jack in the Box they could’ve simply set up “Taco Lover” as a fallback.

Digital marketing nightmare #2. You send the right email to the wrong people

Worse, probably, than getting someone’s name wrong, is forgetting entirely who they are. The result could be telling them something meant for someone else.

Like when the New York Times wanted to send an email to 300 people who had canceled their home delivery subscription to the newspaper, and they wanted to offer them 50% off for 16 weeks. But someone mixed up the recipient list, and the New York Times sent the wrong email to 8 million people.

And the newspaper is not alone in making this type of mistake.

In 2017 Amazon sent out a number of emails announcing that someone had purchased an item from the recipients' baby registry, to users who did not have a baby registry with the online retailer.

This could have been a rather innocent blunder, but as users were quick to take to social media, not everyone has the same situation, and multiple people who received the email were undergoing IVF or had miscarriages, so the mistake ended up adding salt to open wounds.

While there is no way to guarantee a mistake like this never happens, making sure that audiences are clearly named, and remember that unless a person has signed up for specific content their age and/or gender does not automatically qualify them, especially when sensitive subjects are concerned.

Digital marketing nightmare #3. You publish the wrong version of an asset

Imagine this. Your campaign is locked, loaded, and ready to launch. You’ve got everything covered from print, to emails and social media. You’ve got approval from your seniors, you’ve got your influencing-ducks in a row, and you’re ready to push that button.

You push the button, the campaign is live, and everything feels good. Until the first messages start ticking in.

“Did you mean to publish that?”

“Is there a mistake in the copy?”

“I don’t think this is the version we approved.”

Whether the mistake is publishing a draft version of an asset instead of the final version or a version of an asset with review notes still attached, it is something that can keep marketers up at night. 

And worse than being something that happens when marketers have bad dreams, it’s also something that happens in real life.

In fact  when music group Little Mix set out to do a promotion of their Wishmaker product line, their social media manager forgot to remove the review notes from the caption of their a post, which resulted in this little gem.

Now, you might think to yourself that this digital marketing nightmare becoming a reality is a one off, but you would be wrong. Little Mix’s social media manager isn’t alone in making a mistake like this. 

This type of mistake pops up again and again, especially in the influencer marketing space. Over the years the likes of model Naomi Campbell and reality tv personality Scott Disick forget to remove the instructions attached to the copy as they post on their accounts endorsing a product.

Ups.

While this is one of the tougher problems to solve when it comes to digital marketing, because it often relies on external collaborators such as influencers pulling their end of the deal, there is a solution.

These issues most likely occur because the proofing rounds are carried out through email, direct messaging apps or written directly in a document alongside the copy.

Digital marketing nightmare #4. Your campaign goes viral (for all the wrong reasons)

In the early 2000’s Dove’s marketing team carried out a study amongst 3200 women all over the world in the ages of 18-64. Dove wanted to understand the female experience. One of the things they found was that only 2% of women saw themselves as beautiful.

This knowledge gave birth to the Real Beauty campaign which kicked off in 2004. The goal of the campaign was to connect emotionally with their audience through digital marketing efforts, and to make women feel comfortable with themselves and their own bodies.

And it worked.

For more than 10 years Dove ran successful campaigns surrounding natural beauty and body positivity. That is, until the 2017 version of the Real Beauty campaign launched under the headline “Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes”.

The campaign, which was the brainchild of Ogilvy London, featured a range of different bottle types that all contained the same shower gel. Each bottle’s shape was made to resemble a woman’s body type. Along with the bottles and the commercials a message on the Dove website explained: “Beauty comes in a million different shapes and sizes. Our six exclusive bottle designs celebrate this diversity: just like women, we wanted to show that our iconic bottle can come in all shapes and sizes, too.”

While we can all agree that Dove’s intentions were in the right place, the reception of the campaign was anything but positive. Where Dove had spent over a decade campaigning for women to feel beautiful no matter what their body looked like their new campaign (and their bottles) made women look at everything they felt was wrong with their bodies.

And users on social media were quick to respond and ruthless (albeit with a sense of humor) in their reception.

One user requested advice on what to do since none of the body typed bottles included arms, while other users likened the body-shaped bottles to products like Mrs. Butterworth's.

There are plenty of ways this situation could have been avoided, but the main one is probably involving focus groups in the ideation of the campaign. 

While this should always be standard practice when it comes to digital marketing, focus groups and messaging reviews involving external stakeholders are often skipped because they take too long.

Digital marketing nightmare #5. You let a domain name lapse and now it’s being used for something else

Remember that campaign you ran eight years ago where you bought a domain name that matched the campaign name? Do you also remember what happened to it? Do you still own it? Or did someone else snatch it up after you let it lapse?

“What’s the worst that could happen?” You might think to yourself.

Well, let’s take a look at exactly what could happen.

Between 2012 and 2014 Heinz ran a competition titled “Spread the word with Heinz”, which involved QR codes on their bottles that directed users to the website “sagsmitheinz.de”. But for some reason Heinz let the domain name lapse after the competition expired.

What didn’t expire was the bottles with QR codes linking to the competition website. In fact, some stores still had them in stock and they stood on shelves in peoples’ homes.

One day, a German man, Daniel Korell, decided to scan the outdated QR code on his bottle. This sent him to the URL “sagsmitheinz.de” which, when Heinz let it lapse, had been picked up by a provider of adult entertainment (yes, that kind of adult entertainment).

Heinz ended up issuing a formal apology to Danial Korell, and has since stated that they would look at how they manage temporary brand extensions to avoid a similar issue in the future. Humorously, the pornography which took over “sagsmitheinz.de” offered Korell a free subscription to their service to apologize for any inconvenience.

Now, you might think this situation is a one-off that happened to Heinz. But it’s not.

In fact, in 2012 the FBI seized control of an illegal file sharing site called Megaupload.com from Kim Dotcom. However, the US Department of Justice allowed the website to expire which resulted in the site offering pornography, drugs and malware while under the control of the US government.

Luckily for digital marketing professionals, avoiding this specific nightmare is rather simple. Make sure you do not let temporary brand extensions or other domain names lapse.

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