SITE CHANGES COMING SOON: New ad provider

digitalscream

Hi all - we're going to be experimenting with a new ad provider for a few months, because Google AdSense revenue has dropped off a cliff in the last few months and...well, the site needs to support itself in a way that doesn't involve me spending every waking hour printing pedalboard kits.

These new guys do seem like they have the site experience at the top of the priority list, and (unlike most of the other providers) they do seem to understand the requirements specific to forums and community sites, so I'm optimistic that this is going to work out better than the previous attempts at moving away from Google.

Unfortunately, it does mean there's going to be a new consent screen popping up at some time in the next week, assuming that testing goes OK. It's annoying but it can't really be avoided; please do bear with us!

I really do appreciate all of you who put up with the ads - along with the subscribers, you're all helping to keep the lights on!

Kittyfrisk

Thanks for the warning. Do you want/need any feedback from users?

digitalscream

Kittyfrisk said:

Thanks for the warning. Do you want/need any feedback from users?

Yep - as soon as I've finished integrating it into the test site, I'll be asking people to have a look over there to test it on various devices...any testing help will be appreciated

The provider is SnackMedia - they're mainly for sports sites, but they're trying to branch out into music-focused sites now. For what it's worth, it's looking good at the moment in the dev site - their ads are behaving themselves, they're loading fast, they're not bogging down the browser and I haven't seen anything inappropriate thus far.

dazzajl

I’d be very happy for the subscription version to have banner or side ads. If that’s even possible or helpful? I’d like to think the majority of us would rather have that, make your life easier and less expensive than be 100% ad free

S56035

As part of the change can we have an option to opt out of all the threads that will be raised complaining about it without any technical knowledge of how it works or appreciation of why it's needed?

digitalscream

dazzajl said:

I’d be very happy for the subscription version to have banner or side ads. If that’s even possible or helpful? I’d like to think the majority of us would rather have that, make your life easier and less expensive than be 100% ad free

I do appreciate the sentiment, but...I'd very much rather there was an ad-free option, and that nobody's effectively paying twice. Somewhat embarrassingly, though, there is the small matter of the fact that the subscribers are effectively the heaviest users of the site...and they're actually worth less as a subscriber than the ads they would've seen. Pricing fail on my part there

I can't beat Netflix's revenue, but at least I've got better ethics...

The code for distinguishing between guest/member/subscriber and showing ads accordingly is already there, though, so there's not really any extra effort involved in doing that, and I'd much rather continue to distinguish between them. There may be an extra ad unit appearing in the left sidebar at some point, it really depends on how things go. I notice that most forums have one of those...the only reason we don't is that previous ad providers managed to completely break the layout of the site when it was active. This one might actually be able to manage it properly!

digitalscream

S56035 said:

As part of the change can we have an option to opt out of all the threads that will be raised complaining about it without any technical knowledge of how it works or appreciation of why it's needed?

For the record, the "LOL" you got for that was intended as a LOLWIS.

PetGerbil

Would it work/be possible to have a section of the forum that was all ads ? That way, if someone was bored they could just go to that page and get a mega dose of ads and support the site...
Game the system sort of thing. Mwuhahaha!

Just a thought.

tone1

Does that mean the scantily clad women will disappear? 

Tannin

Just from the point of view of idle curiosity - and because I know you've got nothing else to do - what's the story with efficient ad-blockers? I've never yet seen an ad on this site apart from the inoffensive mini-banner at the top offering a member discount on setups and repairs (I think) from a shop which (to me) is 17,000 kilometres away and not exactly top of my list as a consequence.

Now that I'm a subscriber, I still don't see any ads (possibly not even that one, but my mental ad-ignorer is so efficient that I wouldn't notice either way.)

Anyway, the question is this: when users have ad-blockers (which to be honest any computer user with a quarter of a brain and even a very basic knowledge of security should have as routine), what impact does this have on revenue? 

Sporky

digitalscream said:

S56035 said:

As part of the change can we have an option to opt out of all the threads that will be raised complaining about it without any technical knowledge of how it works or appreciation of why it's needed?

For the record, the "LOL" you got for that was intended as a LOLWIS.

I did a Wis to balance it for you.

BigMonka

Tannin said:
Anyway, the question is this: when users have ad-blockers (which to be honest any computer user with a quarter of a brain and even a very basic knowledge of security should have as routine), what impact does this have on revenue? 

Similarly/conversely does the site get more revenue if we click on the links? Should we all have a regular pattern of clicking the links if it boosts revenue? 

digitalscream

Tannin said:

Anyway, the question is this: when users have ad-blockers (which to be honest any computer user with a quarter of a brain and even a very basic knowledge of security should have as routine), what impact does this have on revenue? 

If they're using an ad blocker, haven't whitelisted this site and they're not a subscriber...we make no revenue from them. It's difficult to say exactly what effect that has on the overall site revenue, but I'd estimate it at around 50% of the traffic.

Sporky said:

digitalscream said:

S56035 said:

As part of the change can we have an option to opt out of all the threads that will be raised complaining about it without any technical knowledge of how it works or appreciation of why it's needed?

For the record, the "LOL" you got for that was intended as a LOLWIS.

I did a Wis to balance it for you.

Much obliged, sir.

BigMonka said:

Tannin said:
Anyway, the question is this: when users have ad-blockers (which to be honest any computer user with a quarter of a brain and even a very basic knowledge of security should have as routine), what impact does this have on revenue? 

Similarly/conversely does the site get more revenue if we click on the links? Should we all have a regular pattern of clicking the links if it boosts revenue? 

That used to be the case, but not any more - AdSense moved to a pay-per-view model earlier in the year, and revenue has been on a steady downward tick since then, even though site traffic - and, more importantly, the number of ads viewed - hasn't.

TTony

digitalscream said:

Tannin said:

Anyway, the question is this: when users have ad-blockers (which to be honest any computer user with a quarter of a brain and even a very basic knowledge of security should have as routine), what impact does this have on revenue? 

If they're using an ad blocker, haven't whitelisted this site and they're not a subscriber...we make no revenue from them. It's difficult to say exactly what effect that has on the overall site revenue, but I'd estimate it at around 50% of the traffic.

A pure guess, but I'd guess a lot of that freeloader traffic is in the Classifieds?

Perhaps we need to consider some form of paywall ... subscribe for;

- Posting in the Classifieds
- And PM functionality

??

dazzajl

TTony said:

digitalscream said:

Tannin said:

Anyway, the question is this: when users have ad-blockers (which to be honest any computer user with a quarter of a brain and even a very basic knowledge of security should have as routine), what impact does this have on revenue? 

If they're using an ad blocker, haven't whitelisted this site and they're not a subscriber...we make no revenue from them. It's difficult to say exactly what effect that has on the overall site revenue, but I'd estimate it at around 50% of the traffic.

A pure guess, but I'd guess a lot of that freeloader traffic is in the Classifieds?

Perhaps we need to consider some form of paywall ... subscribe for;

- Posting in the Classifieds
- And PM functionality

??

Could a tiered subscription option work? 

Tier one could be a very low level amount, with PMs allowed. Just to support the board really
Tier two would give classified posting access and photo uploads
Tier three could be classified posting, photo uploads and ad free

digitalscream

dazzajl said:

TTony said:

digitalscream said:

Tannin said:

Anyway, the question is this: when users have ad-blockers (which to be honest any computer user with a quarter of a brain and even a very basic knowledge of security should have as routine), what impact does this have on revenue? 

If they're using an ad blocker, haven't whitelisted this site and they're not a subscriber...we make no revenue from them. It's difficult to say exactly what effect that has on the overall site revenue, but I'd estimate it at around 50% of the traffic.

A pure guess, but I'd guess a lot of that freeloader traffic is in the Classifieds?

Perhaps we need to consider some form of paywall ... subscribe for;

- Posting in the Classifieds
- And PM functionality

??

Could a tiered subscription option work? 

Tier one could be a very low level amount, with PMs allowed. Just to support the board really
Tier two would give classified posting access and photo uploads
Tier three could be classified posting, photo uploads and ad free

It's reasonably likely we'll use the BassChat model - something like £7 for posting one ad or £30 for 6 months of posting ads. Anything under £400 would be free anyway, and I'd have to have a think about existing subscribers - it's possible existing subscribers will get the classifieds free in return for their long-term support, and future subscriptions would be 6 months/annual (to stop people subscribing for a month and then buggering off).

Obviously, I'd need to work on the numbers.

BillDL

Tannin said:

.... when users have ad-blockers (which to be honest any computer user with a quarter of a brain and even a very basic knowledge of security should have as routine), what impact does this have on revenue?

I would guess that covers a not insignificant portion of the forum members 

dazzajl

BillDL said:

Tannin said:

.... when users have ad-blockers (which to be honest any computer user with a quarter of a brain and even a very basic knowledge of security should have as routine), what impact does this have on revenue?

I would guess that covers a not insignificant portion of the forum members 

*waves*

Offset

digitalscream said:

as soon as I've finished integrating it into the test site, I'll be asking people to have a look over there to test it on various devices...any testing help will be appreciated...

Errrm... you don't work for, um, CrowdStrike do you Lee...?

Just askin'...

TTony

digitalscream said:

Obviously, I'd need to work on the numbers.

Yes.

digitalscream

Offset said:

digitalscream said:

as soon as I've finished integrating it into the test site, I'll be asking people to have a look over there to test it on various devices...any testing help will be appreciated...

Errrm... you don't work for, um, CrowdStrike do you Lee...?

Just askin'...

I think it would be obvious that I don't, given that I'm testing before it's released