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Well this is new, 300x250 units from ad exchanges designed to look like Taboola/Outbrain units CC: robleathern
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Hmmm, selling US car insurance through tons of India economics and tech sites? Seems like a bad investment.
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In case you were wondering, despite the logos on their shirts those two women aren't the MIT grads disrupting the car insurance industry...
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The two MIT grads are Seth Birnbaum ( crunchbase.com/person/seth-birnbaum-2#/entity ) and Tomas Revesz ( crunchbase.com/person/tomas-revesz#/entity )
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Surely the sudden barrage of Outbrain & ad exchange spots w/this ad isn't some crass strategy to juice the numbers before raising capital?
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Gee, I hope Stratim Capital, Oceanic Partners and T Capital Partners didn't base any their investments off web traffic numbers in any way.
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Because it sure looks like the ad buy wasn't particularly targeted and therefore is pulling in a lot of likely BS traffic.
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And the ad placement itself encourages traffic to come in with no knowledge of what they are clicking to.
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Which means EverQuote seems to be driving a pull of a lot of traffic unlikely to create sales leads. *shrugz*
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Havvvvve fun selling car insurance to millennials who are decreasingly buying cars. ttfn dudes.
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I like that they are A/B testing smiling ladies vs frowny ladies. The frowny ladies showed up on an article about harassment, so good call?
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This is irritating me, so let's keep digging!
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You'll note none of the things mentioned in the ad prompt are actually here except auto insurance. So this is right on edge of #contentfraud
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So what is Provide Insurance, besides reportedly awful at service: reviewopedia.com/provide-insurance-com-reviews & ripoffreport.com/r/provide-insurancecom/internet/provide-insurancecom-carprovide-insurancecom-Created-fake-websites-to-promote-Internet-911378
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EverQuote is an "auto insurance marketplace was named to this year's Inc. 5000" that raised $23M in their B round 7 days ago.
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EverQuote sure sounds like some sort of insurance company, but it is an insurance marketplace. What that means is unclear.
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Everquote was launched out of a startup accelerator in Cambridge according to their about page, Cogo Labs
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So yeah affiliate links, generated off a fake news site, through badly targeted Taboola/Outbrain ads. Oh and an app! everquote.com/everdrive/
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Oh one other thing! Their dubious app, with 73 review and 5-10k installs on Android and dropping downloads - appannie.com/apps/ios/app/1079104334/ ...
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They took their data collection, authored a study off of dubious samples and unclear users & got it in HuffPost! huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-most-dangerous-interstates_us_5811ef68e4b0390e69ce51d2
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And I guess that's how we make money on the internet these days.
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"Disruption" in action eh?
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More on the now inescapable LiveSmarterDaily - adspider.io/details/ads/7546697/how-2-mit-grads-are-disrupting-the-auto-insurance-industry
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So we can now confirm that they started running this ad *right* before they started to raise capital for their B round.
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Now, the question is, was it only for that? Is this literally to just juice those numbers? Will it be running next month? Time will tell.
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I gotta wonder, theoretically, what happens if VC invests on fraudulent numbers? Is there even a way to withdraw?
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I guess MIT was too elitist so now it is 'Boston grads' as noted. aexm/801098888149106688
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To reiterate, this is a shit company & ad is a lie in at least 3 ways: 1. They aren't disrupting shit. 2. Those two women aren't the grads
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3. It isn't turning upside down. Yet note the ad design, white background that blends into the site, aping news site style, plain font...
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This ad is clearly trying to look like a news story on this site and the click-through brings you to a site that looks like a news site...
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So this is basically fake news running on a real news site. The problem with reader trust isn't on FB, it is on shit like this.
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We are engaged in the active practice of trying to make it difficult for readers to distinguish truth from bullshit on our own sites.
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Bullshit fake news-style Everquote ad now showing above the fold in giant block on guardian's website.
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BTW, now I'm sure the ad buy is not strongly targeted because it showed up in an incognito window on an article about UK education policy.
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This ad campaign, now on 4th month, specifically targets news websites & is designed to trick readers into clicking it, thinking it is news.
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It keeps running. No news sites shut it down, despite it being purely designed to trick readers. This is why journalists are losing trust.
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We invite them on to our pages and present them with a mix of well-designed advertising fakery and mix it in with our own content...
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And then we in the media have the gall to ask 'why can't readers distinguish fake news from real news?' Because we trained them not to.
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“Can you trust what’s put out in the digital news ecosystem when you have fake news mixed in?” shar.es/18T08K via lmoses
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One more version of the Everquote ad for the books: lmoses/809411920306536452
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Some more detailed thoughts on this: medium.com/@aramzs/the-media-is-a-business-and-journalism-is-a-job-get-it-together-c1ba78a4df95#.p2zk0959q
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Clearly someone at EverQuote looked at the previous image and yelled "More screens!"
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Also props to the graphic designer who used drop shadow to hide the cut lines and then blended to try and make it look like they didn't.
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Holy shit. Look at all the fake websites EverQuote is building. bit.ly/2hqxyHJ webster/813817046039400448
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At what point, warnings aside, does this become misrepresentation? Intent to deceive? False advertising?
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Fun stuff, here is EverQuote's Inc. 5000 page, which lists their 2015 revenue at $96.8M inc.com/profile/everquote
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In light of all these different websites it is worth noting an earlier ver of the ad mis-reported the ad's source Chronotope/791804583253307393
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You can see that, unlike the other versions of the ad which list EverQuote as the ad's source that ^ one lists "Provide Savings" as sponsor.
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You know what would be useful? A lawyer who specializes in business or advertising law. Could get some of these legality questions answered.
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Genuine question: is this someone else operating on behalf of EverQuote? These things do happen. dennishegstad/813862804205637633
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And low and behold, EverQuote acknowledges that they indeed have purchased and maintain multiple domains i/web/813865963363803136
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LOL, now other content marketing ads are stealing EverQuote's ad photo. gabedelahaye/814962011041886208
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It keeps getting larger.
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And then reporting happens, great work by sonyaellenmann digging deeper into this mattermark.com/everquote-deceptive-advertising/
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Turns out EverQuote has been scummy for quite some time hlauinfo/816444928914030594
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.TheAtlantic's article about media being careful what they publish has a huge link to EverQuote's fake news site in the center of it.
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By the way, I just noticed another lie in this ad. The "small team of data scientists" is, according to LinkedIn, 200 people. So not small.
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Can't escape EverQuote! profcarroll/819047135723266048
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Perhaps this new-found semi-honesty is an after effect of sonyaellenmann's coverage of EverQuote's at-best-deceptive behavior?
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Looks like the EverQuote geo-targeting is vaguely working. quantumdotdot/821797429309833216
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Everquote ad arrives to split profits with white supremacists. OFH_John/828968149169090560
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Never stop being shitty EverQuote hlauinfo/830426115823063040
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Oh look... EverQuote has discovered Instagram aexm/833738376792645632
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And hey, Everquote thinks it is "brilliant" now webster/833452256150315008
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The ever changing pitch and a new star "grad" for EverQuote's targeting. robleathern/842010241499766784
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And yeah, EverQuote continues to call itself brilliant aexm/840941186043019264
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Everquote's Math Grads at it again robleathern/846929669341437952
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EverQuote has these multicultural young people so you won't think about their founders being two old white guys robleathern/846932750313504768
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I think my favorite part of this EverQuote photoshoot is the EverQuote branding on the water bottles robleathern/846932801618272257
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So, fun times in EverQuote land, despite statements to sonyaellenmann that they were going to shrink their fake site footprint...
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EverQuote continues to run a number of fake news sites with the same content bit.ly/2hqxyHJ Around 98 of them:
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Is this illegal? I don't think so. Is this highly unethical? Yeah, yeah, it is.
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I suppose we can at least be thankful that EverQuote has decreased the number of these sites that look like news sites, but still: yuck.
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All new EverQuote ads! They seem to have dropped the misleading text about founders at least. aexm/882779603143716865
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Worth noting how even more non-specific the copy is here. They're just looking for clicks, who cares if you want car insurance or not.
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"My phone started ringing within minutes of filling out the EverQuote form, and it did not stop ringing for days." linkedin.com/pulse/other-side-quality-leads-avi-ben-hutta
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And look QuoteWizard has been doing this crap for a year longer than EverQuote. I guess EverQuote isn't so "disruptive" after all?
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More EverQuote ads for the endless set. shansquared/894645576071081985
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I guess only the northeast corridor gets the multi ethnic EverQuote ads?
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Also, looking at the copy, I guess this bunch aren't Harvard grads?
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Everyone is slowly seeing their EverQuote ads move to the all white people version, it seems. shansquared/920331182746820608
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Also, no one is wearing EverQuote gear in the photo anymore, interesting. CC: shansquared
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shansquared Seriously, do they pay anyone at that company or does it all just go to Outbrain and Taboola?
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The inescapable EverQuote aexm/922925190476062722
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Those EverQuote folks, such innovators. taylorbuley/925835928404238337
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Fun fact, if you ever want to make it so no one can reverse image search your face on the internet, star in an EverQuote ad.
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New stars from our favorite personal data sales/arbitrage company that presents itself as some sort of innovative insurance hack robleathern/937379734257676290
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(2nd photo h/t SeanBlanda )
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Yeah, I'm pretty sure that EverQuote is just sticking its employees in front of the cameras to generate these photos. Guy in foreground looks like linkedin.com/in/richard-hughes-0b523812/. Do you get a bonus at EverQuote for having your photo plastered on millions of pages?
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I'm pretty sure at least one of the people in those two photos isn't at EverQuote anymore. So... do they end up the face of EverQuote forever?
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"The phone calls did not stop coming. I was getting 10-12 phone calls per day, if I was in a meeting and had to ignore them, they would call me back right away instead of leaving a message. I felt like I was getting harrassed" BrandonCaudill_/971128674757029888
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I think my favorite part of this EverQuote ad is that they've reduced their endless formulaic phrases to just a series of words strung together into a nonsense non sentence.
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Looks like EverQuote has made some new hires! shansquared/989877031612637184?s=19
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More new Everquote ads! shansquared/1008732962597294080
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And a story about the faces in some of these ads that I totally missed! Nice work by melodyhahm - finance.yahoo.com/news/real-story-behind-those-two-math-grads-who-are-disrupting-auto-insurance-industry-192118360.html
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Oooo. EverQuote's all data scientists now? rahulrangnekar/1047898882774945792?s=19
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My favorite company is eminently short-able right now. finance.yahoo.com/quote/ever/ $EVER I don't know what data they had to release to IPO, but I would *love* to read it at some point.
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As KelseyLArendt points out it is now 2 years since I started talking about EverQuote in what is now a 149 item long thread. This includes 3 articles, new friends to talk about EverQuote with & EverQuote IPOing. Celebrate by reading their SEC disclosure: davisshaver/1051939607787515905
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I can only assume 'crossed legs on table' succeed in their last deployment of new images, so time for some variations!
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EverQuote is apparently expanding into both scammy life insurance offers and intentionally confusing ad designs meant to trick you into clicking on them. aexm/1080900172236947456
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EverQuote, now '1 team of mathematicians' robleathern/1084339091691327488
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Oh or their GlassDoor office photos?!?!?!?! glassdoor.co.uk/Photos/EverQuote-Office-Photos-IMG309509.htm Complete with the requisite 'our startup has beer' photo!
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In case you were wondering, here's how much the leadership of EverQuote pay themselves! (According to Bloomberg bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=182093966 )
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You know I'm on a long train ride when I randomly spend 2 hours digging deeper into EverQuote. You know what... I've spent so much time on this now I think it is officially a hobby.
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If you remember from a previous interview, EverQuote (now a publicly-traded company) had said it was going to remove it's misleadingly titled fake news sites from the web. mattermark.com/everquote-deceptive-advertising/
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This is a change from back when we could just Google the address of their company and see many fake sites maintained by EverQuote's marketing team. Now we can't, an indication that they took the negative reporting and decided to hide what they were doing, not stop it.
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You can check out the sketchy site yourself at https://article.usautoinsurancenow dot com com/
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Everquote is indeed BBB accredited, which means there is an impressive collection of 327 customer reviews, averaging less than 2 stars, on the BBB website. bbb.org/us/ma/cambridge/profile/internet-marketing-services/everquote-inc-0021-122911/customer-reviews
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Also, while the image is unique on TinEye for that particular ad... that individual does not appear, as far as I can see, in any of the photos published by EverQuote of their team.