I popped onto Wal-mart’s site today to have a look for a picture frame to use as an example in an online conversation I’m having with someone. Instead of finding a picture frame, I ended up sending them this:
As soon as I entered your site I was presented with a survey. Not after using it. Not after making a purchase. As. Soon. As. I. Entered the site. It seems you were just looking for age and time zone info. But let me add a question for you, “how was your experience today on the wal-mart.com site?” Well, let me tell you, I was so annoyed with the stupid ass survey that popped up that instead of looking for a picture frame as I had intended I instead sent the customer service folks an angry message then left to shop elsewhere. So I’m glad you got your demographic data, I hope it was worth losing a sale over.
While they couldn’t get the age range data from my visit, there are several web services out there that could have matched my IP address to known geolocation data and looked up the time zone data from that. It’s not that hard.
As an interesting aside, I’ve put Google AdSense ads on my blog recently. Next to my “Deadliest Craft Show” entry there was an ad for replacement canopies. I found that amusing.