How Marketers Use Redirect Ads to Deceive You
Sometimes bait-and-switch is obvious, but the tactics grow sneakier every day
“Redirection” is a catchall term for a form of bait-and-switch deception used by Google marketers. A helpful ad on Google will match a searcher’s keywords with a relevant landing page, but redirect ads provide counter-messaging and often alternative destinations that go against the search words.
For example, if you search Google for “iPhone 6S,” you’re predictably going to be shown an ad for the iPhone 6S. By clicking that ad, you’ll probably land on a page where you can buy one. A redirect ad, however, might twist your search and prompt you with something like this for a Galaxy S6 instead:
In this example, Samsung is trying to swerve the searcher’s intent with counter-messaging and is betting the searcher will question their brand loyalty, click the ad, and convert from Apple to Samsung.
It’s one thing to (fairly obviously) redirect an ad in a smartphone search. But what if the redirection was a bit harder to detect? Let’s say the ad and the landing page seemed to validate your expectations and…
