Google Sent Me a Refrigerator

That's right. Google sent me a refrigerator. It is without a doubt the strangest corporate gift I've ever received. It came with a certificate indicating that my company has generated over one million leads on Google Adwords, and a nice letter acknowleging the milestone.

By one million "leads", of course, they mean one million paid clicks. I know how much each one of those clicks costs me on average, so my first thought was "Whoa! That is a LOT of money!" I already knew how much we're sending Google monthly, but the total over my company's short lifetime came with a bit of sticker shock.

My next thought was, "And all I get is a lousy mini-fridge?"

Don't get me wrong. I do appreciate the gesture, but it's on par with what you'd expect to get when you buy a used car or open a checking account. I've been offered trips to China from companies with whom we spend less.

Then again, we couldn't do what we do without Google. So the other way to look at it is Google did give me a lousy mini-fridge... and my car, and my house, and jobs for my team - even the fancy little office I'm sitting in.

Not a bad return for buying a million clicks.