I most commonly see microsites produced by large companies that should know better. They manage their brands so well. They massage every form of PR and corporate communication, and they spend countless hours molding the consumer's perception of their brand. But go to their corporate website and it's a disaster. Why? Because usually those websites are controlled by an internal group that morphed out of the IT department into an interactive department, which keeps re-morphing.

That department is not an extension to the marketing department of consumer insights. It does not care about the consumer. It is trying to put puzzle pieces that don't fit into a picture that doesn't match. They are more a reflection of a company's internal structure than they are communication vehicles for the brand.

And that's when you get stuck.

You become sick of railing against internal politics and decide that if the company cannot get its act together, then you are going to help solve the problem by creating what? A microsite, of course, where you can control the messaging. I understand your grief. I have been there countless times, and yes, I have given in to temptation before. Before you go off on a crusade against your own internal systems, think about why are you creating that microsite.

I find that most microsites are just an extension of another program.

"Well, we have to create a microsite for that TV promotion we are doing." Uh, why? Because when you were brainstorming with the 20 people on the account and they asked for ideas, that one n00b said, "We can do a microsite." And the team leader wrote it down as one of the extension ideas. Wow, you have no idea how many times that happens.

Online marketers, who in order to get budget, have to make sure it is glommed onto a traditional program. You go off and create a custom URL and name, half the time buying out the name from some domain park that already owns it, or worse, creating a bastardization of it that no one will remember. It gets printed on every ad, every TV commercial, every piece of collateral. And no one comes. Well, you did get those 20,000 people to register; and it cost you what, with all of the fees, not to mention the costs of your agency resources being used up on it? $80,000. You're better off going out and handing $4 to 20,000 people and spending five minutes telling them about it. "But Sean! They were 'engaged' with our brand." Nope. Probably not. They were engaged with some stupid game your agency created as the extension with your logo in the corner.

So next time the noob raises their hand, use a stun gun, walk over to the internal group that handles your main site and ask them if you can put up something on the homepage that alerts people and drives them to a single internal page discussing the program. And then give the money back to a program that will do your brand some good.