There is only one way to measure the effectiveness of an advert, (unless of course it is an advert like this).
On Saturday night just before midnight, at the Toppled Bollard Dance Club in the rather lawless Rutland / Leicester / Northants border country, a woman asked me to dance.
I naturally agreed, and we had a really good jive together.
At the end she said, “That was lovely. Just like my friend said, you really are good. If you ever need someone’s throat cut, any time, day or night, you can find me on Facebook.”
It made a change from being asked how long I’d been dancing.
And it also makes the point that one can, on occasion, get responses that one doesn’t expect.
However, I think one should always remember that, as with responses to adverts, just because one person offers to work for me as an assassin, that doesn’t mean all the clientele of the Bollard are this way inclined.
The only measure that matters are the broader figures. For example, if you send out an email you should be asking...
What percentage of people click through from the advert to your website (an indicator of the effectiveness in the email)?
What percentage of people go from the website to making a purchase (an indicator of the effectiveness of the website)?
How can I get those percentages higher?
And if the assassination gets bungled, am I likely to be implicated.