fyi- New advertising system rolling out this weekend

[Sean]

Hi All,

You may notice some banners disappearing for a time. It is because we are migrating over to a new system and it will take some time for our advertisers to sign up again. I'm over the moon about this new system. Our advertising is going to be outsourced and managed by Shinyads.com an award winning ad agency. It will take a considerable work load off of me, provide our advertisers with superior service, functionality, reporting AND cheaper ad rates. Our ads still remain private, no other ad networks will be serving goofy ads on APUG. I will continue to keep ads non-invasive like they are now (no animations, popups, popunders or any of that carry on). We should be able to offer a few new ad placements as well, possibly a text ad appearing in APUG email notices, specific forums being sponsored, or an ad in the chatroom "this chat is sponsored by ....". If anyone has questions or suggestions just let me know.

Thanks,
Sean

 

[Sean]

The system is now implemented and seems to be running well, I'll keep an eye on it.

Thanks,
Sean

 

[MattKing]

Sean:

Something that your advertisers/sponsors might appreciate - a toolbar link to their forums that is visible when one reads threads or reviews the threads listed in forums or as a result of a "New Posts" search.

IIRC there used to be one before the recent upgrade.

 

[Sean]

Hi Matt,

The dedicated advertiser forums we had were too hard to manage (along with all advertising in general) so everything has been consolidated to one advertisers forum. People probably don't realize all that goes on behind the scenes when you have 40 or so companies with banners and block ads. You can end up with 5-10 advertisers missing payments, lots of chasing up, disabling/re-enabling their forums and advertiser status, disabling/re-enabling their ads, obscure payment method requests, etc. I am now taking a more hands off approach to advertising by turning it over to a professional firm, this way I can focus more on the site itself. Since I am taking a hands off approach and reducing sponsor forums, the ads have become cheaper. I will contact the advertisers though, and encourage them to place company information and links in their signature.

 

[MattKing]

I understand Sean - it is just that there is now not even a list of advertisers anywhere.

When I'm looking for something, I like to check the advertisers here, but unless one of their banner ads shows up, I cannot find them.

Could you have a Forum that just shows the current banner and block ads?

 

[Jerevan]

Isn't this going to risk getting people not having an adspace, but going off selling their Granny and whatnot in the signature? I've seen some cheapskates (not on this forum, mind you) pulling off FS/WTB ads in the signature.

 

[Sean]

I understand Sean - it is just that there is now not even a list of advertisers anywhere.

When I'm looking for something, I like to check the advertisers here, but unless one of their banner ads shows up, I cannot find them.

Could you have a Forum that just shows the current banner and block ads?

Great suggestion, I will set up a visible area today. Thanks

 

[Sean]

Isn't this going to risk getting people not having an adspace, but going off selling their Granny and whatnot in the signature? I've seen some cheapskates (not on this forum, mind you) pulling off FS/WTB ads in the signature.

We've always had an open signature policy regarding members personal sites. If we find people using their signature as a sales/spam technique we tend to remove it (we also appreciate such spam being reported).

 

[AgX]

The link at the homepage bringing one to a sponsor listing does not work anymore. Instead there is a link to a "sponsors forum", without a sponsor listing.

 

[Athiril]

APUG is the only site I dont use an AdBlocker plugin for Firefox on.

 

[Sean]

APUG is the only site I dont use an AdBlocker plugin for Firefox on.

Thanks Athiril! The whole point is to get the traditional companies out there as much exposure as possible at a very cheap rate. We could probably monetize the ads here 3-5x the current revenue with unrelated ads, but that is not what APUG is about. We're all in this together