Don't worry when you get the cookie permissions popup!
So...the last few months have been quite instructive when it comes to running ads on t'Interwebs. It can all be condensed down into the following:
- Google's AdSense is really easy to deal with
- It's bloody marvellous when you first start
- It makes you pray for clicks, though
- And none of the ad industry blacklists actually work particularly well
- It's also really variable in terms of revenue
- When it tanks, it tanks
That's where we are right now - giving lots of space to advertisers, with revenue that's just not cutting it, and we're still getting gambling ads and the like all over the place.
That's absolutely no use to anyone, and if I'm honest I'm getting really pissed off with the constant gambling/alcohol/Viagra ads and other completely irrelevant rubbish that's showing up, despite being blacklisted. There are other problems too, like the fact that a bunch of stuff just doesn't seem to work (like the "accept cookies" GDPR functionality which has never worked, and thus leaves us open to legal challenges), and it's obviously impossible to actually get support from anyone at Google.
Therefore...I'm switching providers.
Starting at some point tomorrow, I'll be moving it over to another company (Monumetric, in case anybody's bothered). They purport to solve all of these problems, and they've shown themselves to be very capable and supportive up to this point. They haven't even argued with me when I've given them requirements which I know will leave money on the table for both parties, even though I know it must've hurt them in their souls.
The ad layout may be changing a bit as we experiment - for non-logged-in users there will be a sticky ad at the bottom of the screen all the time, in addition to the top-and-tail ads we currently have. They also think they can fix the problem with the sidebar ad, so I may switch that in at some point, instead of the "tail" ad we currently have. The goal is, of course, to avoid the ads being too intrusive; there's currently a reasonable balance, but I'm not sure we've hit the sweet spot yet.
Of course, I hope that you guys will give me feedback in here if any of the ads that appear are problematic in any way, rather than just installing AdBlock (if you haven't already) - as stated before, I'm trying to hit the balance of the forum being self-sustaining without becoming an unusable ad-infested mess, and that can only happen with constructive feedback.
tl;dr - If, after tomorrow afternoon, you see any shitty ads - please let me know, with a screenshot if possible.
<space for hire>
Comments
Ian
Lowering my expectations has succeeded beyond my wildest dreams.
The way that ads are managed here is absolutely unintrusive. If they had been of interest I would have clicked a few, but once you've seen the 888 one a few times you kind of just switch off, and I couldn't tell you what most of the other ads are.
Good move to try something else.
In that case...I suspect you've got an ad blocker of some sort installed
Ian
Lowering my expectations has succeeded beyond my wildest dreams.
Also, just about every site I've seen that runs Ezoic is a toxic swamp of ads compared with Monumetric. That's a flat "nope" from me, but it also implies something else - both providers pay per thousand impressions, rather than per click, and whenever you see sites that are festooned with ads it's because it's the only way they can make a decent return (more ads = more money, it's a direct relationship...at least, to begin with). That suggests to me that Ezoic's return simply isn't as good as Monumetric's.
I mean...money's really a secondary concern for me here. Monumetric set up a call with me straight away, and totally understood where I was coming from in terms of the user experience being the primary goal and not wanting to milk the site for all it's worth. The only interview criterion was "Did they try to persuade me to add more ads than I want to?", and they passed with flying colours
I have worked in mental health and addictions and it's not, for me, that I can't look at the forum at work but I worry about some people who are trying to get over or manage their addictions and having this come up on their screen when they are lust trying to focus on music stuff.
Give me period pants over these anyday!
Seriously, though, click it and you can change your cookie preferences at any time.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein