For those that aren't aware, there is a growing class of lead-generation startups which scrape websites and determine what services you're using.
My guess is that the company that contacted you is using one of these (Stripe requires your public key in the head of your site and linking to their JS). BuiltWith is one such service: http://builtwith.com ... NerdyData & Datanyze also: http://nerdydata.com, http://www.datanyze.com
Subscribers use these tools to find people who are trying out competing services (they are not cheap, BTW). Often, if a site only recently added JS code–for example, say, KissMetrics–you can assume they are still in the trial period. That gives you a window of time to try and sell them on your competing product. Or, if you sell a special WordPress plugin, you can use these services to find WordPress sites.
Stripe doesn't have a trial period per se, but its pretty easy to switch between the modern payment providers and if it was only recently installed, its safe to assume you don't have a lot of customers yet.
Based on the fact that he got the email 40 minutes after his query to Stripe I doubt any of these companies were involved.
To do a crawl across a meaningful percentage of the Internet and refresh this every 24 hours is hard enough even if you only capture the front page. Very few sites include stripe.js in the source on the front page. So you would need to crawl deep enough into a site to hit the checkout page and capture stripe.js in the head section which is exponentially more difficult.
Indexing your crawl and passing this off to a team to extract contact details and send it to a client so they can reach out all within 40 minutes I would say is nearly impossible. It is possible they already had his details but I cannot see anything on his site that would trigger a "likely to switch payment gateways" alert.
My guess is this was completely random. A good sales rep will make 60-100 outbound calls per day along with a bunch of emails. Multiply this by the number of outbound sales reps in the payments market and you have a lot of sales activity.
Yea, http://NerdyData.com offers an API for real-time webcrawling. They can find out each day who adds/removes certain codes. It's really interesting, I was part of their initial beta test program - cool stuff!
Ghostery my friend; and AdBlock Plus while we are at it. As someone who have worked in e-commerce, I'm keenly aware of the pixels that is "always watching you". So I don't want to be tracked and prefer that someone to be someone else.
Can this be explained with a birthday paradox? If there is a large number of people signing up to Stripe and a large number of people receiving spam emails from Stripe competitors, probability that some people will receive a spam email just after signing up to Stripe may be non-negligible.
I'd guess it's more to do with the OP is in a job that gets targeted with these types of ads. (Correctly it seems)
Combined with, there probably has been other emails previously but they were ignored since OP at that time had their head on different issues.
As a human a pattern was looked for and a pattern was found.
As above companies are tracking this sort of stuff and some sites get the email addresses of user who visit (from tracking data). So the 'coincidence' might be more contrived with a bit more targeting than just low level job data. Would need more info.
But I wouldn't call it a birthday paradox, it's not totally random.
I confess I've been trying a similar kind of thing attempting to promote a website of mine. I find people who've written about competitors and email them inviting them to try my site and asking for their thoughts. Is this scummy or is it acceptable? I'm hoping it's different because the pertinent material is public, rather than private like in the OP's case.
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Edit: I think in retrospect watty has a point, I've removed the links. I also didn't expect this comment to rise to the top, and it is kind of off-topic. Apologies.
At the size you are at (you probably have a pretty small footprint?) I don't think it matters what you get as an answer from people on HN (or your friends or some blogger) but rather how would your target audience feel?
And more importantly even if they don't like it will that really impact the bottom line? Meaning will enough people care to stop using you and spread the word of your "scummy" practice? (So for example if you are promoting on HN then "live by the sword die by the sword" and you'd better care about appearing scummy. Otoh if you are selling hats to soccer mom's in the midwest it's a entirely different story, right?)
My feeling is you can't go around worrying about being "scummy or acceptable". First everyone has a different opinion of where that line is. And 2nd all those people with opinions on what you should do aren't going to pay your bills are they?
I remember back in the mid 90's people would ask "do people care if you ping them?" (meaning unix ping not "hey what's up") or not? I mean if they care what are they going to do?
I'd say that if you're using public info that they have chosen to share, e.g. blog posts, then acceptable. If using underhand tactics like tracking them via an ad network, then maybe scummy.
I've done this too, and I don't think it's unethical if you're doing it in public forums. I try not to do it too much or be spammy about it... I just find public forums where people are looking for ways to do a certain thing and then suggest my own thing as an option.
It's a fine gesture, although I would say the timing is interesting. They've already made a decision to go with someone. I guess it's better than waiting until they invest even more in that competitor's integration.
But I would much rather find out when people sign up to COMPLEMENTS of your service, and offer them your service as an addition instead of being combative :)
not necessarily. there's not enough context as to how they got to stripe.
Did they write the url in the address bar of the browser without any other context, or did they do something that signalled what they were going to do.
BlueSnap does not allow the use of any BlueSnap links and products in any type of spam activity. If you believe that a BlueSnap link was used in spam activity please submit a report to [email protected] and include the relevant link/s and message/s.
Merchants and Affiliates are requested to review our guidelines on avoiding spam to help stay on the right side of the relevant legislation.
I too suspect it is coincidence but two questions to add to my database, one are you using the Chrome browser, and regardless of browser do you have any extensions that help you 'fill in forms' ?
I think this is a clever marketing scheme by Stripe. Now hundreds of HN readers will sign up just to check if they get an email from BlueSnap. I know I did.
People who signed up for anything other than to use the service are of no value to Stripe. As a marketing consultant and someone who used to work in a marketing agency, I think many people here over-estimate the cleverness of marketers.
This actually would be brilliant. But for a different reason! It creates contrast between stripe and a spammy competitor. Makes you hate the spammer and love the company you signed up with.
Did you put any of the code on a site? There are services that will scan sites for snippets of competitors code and alert a company when someone is trying their service.
this title is misleading. 40 minutes is a very long time, hardly "moments after."
Considering the fact that I get about 3 postcards a week pushing merchant services and credit card processing, I think this is just a coincidence.
As a marketer, especially in the fast paced online world, if I had the ability to pull this strategy off, I wouldn't wait 40 minutes. I would pull the trigger instantly, and since it is spammy as it is, I would use a much more aggressive sell. (not that I would ever do this... I wouldn't!)
I see Blue Snap is running marketo on their site, so they clearly are doing marketing automation, and if they are at all sophisticated, they probably have some pretty advanced ways of deciding who to email, when.
For what it's worth that marketing message assumes you are already in production with someone else and transacting actively: "I do understand you may feel as though you are all set in this area" Rather than win your entire business away they want you to start using them for some payments. If they thought you were actively looking to add a PG for the first time (ie somehow knew you'd just signed up for Stripe) it would be different messaging. So I think you may have signed up with them in the past a ways back and they think of you as an already processing site with a gateway.
I've seen a startup here on HN that was doing exactly this thing. Would warn you when a client signed up on a competitor site. I think the data was leaked from some kind of analytics app.
A lot of people don't realize what's really going on. They view life as a bunch of unconnected incidents and things. They don't realize that there's this, like, lattice of coincidence that lays on top of everything. Give you an example, show you what I mean: suppose you're thinkin' about a plate of shrimp. Suddenly someone'll say, like, "plate," or "shrimp," or "plate of shrimp" out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin' for one, either. It's all part of a cosmic unconsciousness.
I've not experienced this myself. But have you asked them where they got your contact info from? I'd be curious to know because any possibility I can think of (outside of you posting on twitter or your blog, etc) would be extremely questionable.
I've had this happen to me on different topics (IIRC it did happen with Stripe a month or two ago) way too often to attribute it to coincidence. My working assumption is that online privacy does not exist anymore.
With all these microphones and cameras attached to all the net enabled devices we use, it's a matter of time before offline privacy stops existing as well.
[+] [-] callmeed|12 years ago|reply
My guess is that the company that contacted you is using one of these (Stripe requires your public key in the head of your site and linking to their JS). BuiltWith is one such service: http://builtwith.com ... NerdyData & Datanyze also: http://nerdydata.com, http://www.datanyze.com
Subscribers use these tools to find people who are trying out competing services (they are not cheap, BTW). Often, if a site only recently added JS code–for example, say, KissMetrics–you can assume they are still in the trial period. That gives you a window of time to try and sell them on your competing product. Or, if you sell a special WordPress plugin, you can use these services to find WordPress sites.
Stripe doesn't have a trial period per se, but its pretty easy to switch between the modern payment providers and if it was only recently installed, its safe to assume you don't have a lot of customers yet.
[+] [-] adamseabrook|12 years ago|reply
To do a crawl across a meaningful percentage of the Internet and refresh this every 24 hours is hard enough even if you only capture the front page. Very few sites include stripe.js in the source on the front page. So you would need to crawl deep enough into a site to hit the checkout page and capture stripe.js in the head section which is exponentially more difficult.
Indexing your crawl and passing this off to a team to extract contact details and send it to a client so they can reach out all within 40 minutes I would say is nearly impossible. It is possible they already had his details but I cannot see anything on his site that would trigger a "likely to switch payment gateways" alert.
My guess is this was completely random. A good sales rep will make 60-100 outbound calls per day along with a bunch of emails. Multiply this by the number of outbound sales reps in the payments market and you have a lot of sales activity.
[+] [-] DerpJones|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] noname123|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mixedbit|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aaron695|12 years ago|reply
Combined with, there probably has been other emails previously but they were ignored since OP at that time had their head on different issues.
As a human a pattern was looked for and a pattern was found.
As above companies are tracking this sort of stuff and some sites get the email addresses of user who visit (from tracking data). So the 'coincidence' might be more contrived with a bit more targeting than just low level job data. Would need more info.
But I wouldn't call it a birthday paradox, it's not totally random.
[+] [-] gabemart|12 years ago|reply
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Edit: I think in retrospect watty has a point, I've removed the links. I also didn't expect this comment to rise to the top, and it is kind of off-topic. Apologies.
[+] [-] watty|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Zikes|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] larrys|12 years ago|reply
At the size you are at (you probably have a pretty small footprint?) I don't think it matters what you get as an answer from people on HN (or your friends or some blogger) but rather how would your target audience feel?
And more importantly even if they don't like it will that really impact the bottom line? Meaning will enough people care to stop using you and spread the word of your "scummy" practice? (So for example if you are promoting on HN then "live by the sword die by the sword" and you'd better care about appearing scummy. Otoh if you are selling hats to soccer mom's in the midwest it's a entirely different story, right?)
My feeling is you can't go around worrying about being "scummy or acceptable". First everyone has a different opinion of where that line is. And 2nd all those people with opinions on what you should do aren't going to pay your bills are they?
I remember back in the mid 90's people would ask "do people care if you ping them?" (meaning unix ping not "hey what's up") or not? I mean if they care what are they going to do?
[+] [-] mattgibson|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] api|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] atmosx|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] EGreg|12 years ago|reply
But I would much rather find out when people sign up to COMPLEMENTS of your service, and offer them your service as an addition instead of being combative :)
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/StrategyLetterV.html
[+] [-] nodata|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bryan_rasmussen|12 years ago|reply
Did they write the url in the address bar of the browser without any other context, or did they do something that signalled what they were going to do.
I bet #2.
[+] [-] davemel37|12 years ago|reply
http://www.bluesnap.com/ecommerce/legal/prohibitions-and-dmc...
BlueSnap does not allow the use of any BlueSnap links and products in any type of spam activity. If you believe that a BlueSnap link was used in spam activity please submit a report to [email protected] and include the relevant link/s and message/s.
Merchants and Affiliates are requested to review our guidelines on avoiding spam to help stay on the right side of the relevant legislation.
[+] [-] Grue3|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ashdav|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arb99|12 years ago|reply
Or, when you said you 'played around with the [stripe] service' did you put any stripe code on public sites?
[+] [-] ashdav|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thesis|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mendozao|12 years ago|reply
http://creativaldo.tumblr.com/post/73662726109/is-spotify-sp...
[+] [-] andrelaszlo|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gk1|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pc|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davemel37|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] naren87|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joshdance|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ashdav|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davemel37|12 years ago|reply
Considering the fact that I get about 3 postcards a week pushing merchant services and credit card processing, I think this is just a coincidence.
As a marketer, especially in the fast paced online world, if I had the ability to pull this strategy off, I wouldn't wait 40 minutes. I would pull the trigger instantly, and since it is spammy as it is, I would use a much more aggressive sell. (not that I would ever do this... I wouldn't!)
I see Blue Snap is running marketo on their site, so they clearly are doing marketing automation, and if they are at all sophisticated, they probably have some pretty advanced ways of deciding who to email, when.
[+] [-] jusben1369|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ttty|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seeingfurther|12 years ago|reply
EDIT: Found it here: http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/20/this-startup-tells-you-whe...
It's http://www.datanyze.com/
[+] [-] Zikes|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] northband|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danvoell|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] instakill|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ganeumann|12 years ago|reply
- Repo Man
[+] [-] sanswork|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ashdav|12 years ago|reply
I'm thinking really hard about this and I can't find anything I've shared that suggests I'm looking for a new payment gateway. Hence the post :)
[+] [-] Bill_Dimm|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] headgasket|12 years ago|reply
With all these microphones and cameras attached to all the net enabled devices we use, it's a matter of time before offline privacy stops existing as well.
Email in 1985 must have felt weird too. Cheers, F