What are your opinions on Ads?

Need support or have a suggestion on how to improve the site? Post it here.

What are your thoughts on Ads?

I use GRB when not logged in and ads would cause me to stop visiting.
0
No votes
I have an ad blocker or don't care about going to sites with lots of ads.
1
8%
I only use GRB logged in, so ads when not logged in don't bother me.
7
54%
I would be OK with ads that are placed in a non-invasive way. (ie at the very bottom of a page)
1
8%
I would welcome ads anywhere if it helped generate revenue for the site.
3
23%
If i'm contributing via Patreon I better not see ads.
0
No votes
Other (post in thread).
1
8%
 
Total votes: 13

User avatar
TheoSqua
Next Gen Wart
Posts: 8894
Joined: April 22 06, 6:53 pm
Location: St. Louis
Contact:

What are your opinions on Ads?

Post by TheoSqua »

I'm considering experimenting with adding Ads to the site and wanted to get everyone's feedback on them.

What i'd like to learn about ads are this:
  • Can ads pay for hosting costs and we can drop the Patreon?
  • Will ads increase or decrease traffic?
  • Can ads increase activity (roughly 75% of the site traffic is from guests that aren't bots)
    • My thoughts are if we only show ads for users that aren't logged in with a message that logging in removes ads, maybe more people will log-in, and if you're logged in when lurking maybe you're more likely to post.
Personally, I have little interest in making GRB look like stltoday's forums where there's tons of ads and they disrupt your ability to view a thread. But there is a large amount of traffic from non-bot sources that comes from people who don't even log-in. I really like the idea of incentivizing lurkers to make sure they're logged in and more likely to contribute. And for those that don't want to even log-in, I like the idea of at least showing ads if they aren't going to contribute to the site.

I'll likely experiment with a minimal amount of ads through the month of March and then use that data and the response from this thread to standardize something to start off the baseball season.

User avatar
TheoSqua
Next Gen Wart
Posts: 8894
Joined: April 22 06, 6:53 pm
Location: St. Louis
Contact:

Re: What are your opinions on Ads?

Post by TheoSqua »

Looks like Ads have been turned back on for the site.

My initial plan was to just have ads for users that aren't signed in. But apparently there isn't enough organic traffic not-logged in and we had our ad account temporarily banned for invalid traffic. So I guess bots are hitting the site at a high enough percentage not-logged in that Google didn't think we were a legit site.

To fix that I'm putting one ad at the top of the site and one at the bottom. I don't want ads to be a negative user experience so I want them to be as minimal as possible. In my opinion the one ad doesn't really kill the experience of the site but I welcome any feedback others might have.

Online
User avatar
heyzeus
Everday Unicorn
Posts: 41335
Joined: April 21 06, 10:14 am
Location: Austin, TX
Contact:

Re: What are your opinions on Ads?

Post by heyzeus »

SHOW US THE MONEY

User avatar
Joe Shlabotnik
Hall Of Famer
Posts: 23103
Joined: October 12 06, 2:21 pm
Location: Baseball Ref Bullpen
Contact:

Re: What are your opinions on Ads?

Post by Joe Shlabotnik »

I know some of us have contributed to maintenance. If we're going to out up with ads, I'll cancel my contribution. I don't see the point in keeping both.

User avatar
TheoSqua
Next Gen Wart
Posts: 8894
Joined: April 22 06, 6:53 pm
Location: St. Louis
Contact:

Re: What are your opinions on Ads?

Post by TheoSqua »

Joe Shlabotnik wrote:
May 18 20, 11:41 am
I know some of us have contributed to maintenance. If we're going to out up with ads, I'll cancel my contribution. I don't see the point in keeping both.
I wouldn't say the ads are permanent at this point. I was going to run them for a few weeks to see if they bring in enough to be worth it. Based on our traffic and the average click rates we should be able to make about $100/month from ads, which would mean we wouldn't need Patreon and the site can pay for hosting itself.

But we're not a normal community. 80% of our traffic are the same 400 people and return users tend to click on less ads. Our demographic is heavy internet users, who also tend to click on less ads.

Today being the first day with ads would be the day they are most noticeable. We've made 11 cents so far today. If we pace to make $6 a month on ads then i'm going to remove them because that's not worth it.

Online
User avatar
heyzeus
Everday Unicorn
Posts: 41335
Joined: April 21 06, 10:14 am
Location: Austin, TX
Contact:

Re: What are your opinions on Ads?

Post by heyzeus »

Joe Shlabotnik wrote:
May 18 20, 11:41 am
I know some of us have contributed to maintenance. If we're going to out up with ads, I'll cancel my contribution. I don't see the point in keeping both.
Like Theo said, it would be great if we could attain a model that doesn't require patreon support from community members or mod contributions. We're not sure if the ads will or won't do that. If the ads amount to a few cents a day, we probably scrap them. If it would allow the mods and patreon folks to not have to support the site financially, well, that's why we're asking for your feedback, which we appreciate and will take into account.

User avatar
Joe Shlabotnik
Hall Of Famer
Posts: 23103
Joined: October 12 06, 2:21 pm
Location: Baseball Ref Bullpen
Contact:

Re: What are your opinions on Ads?

Post by Joe Shlabotnik »

heyzeus wrote:
May 18 20, 2:01 pm
Joe Shlabotnik wrote:
May 18 20, 11:41 am
I know some of us have contributed to maintenance. If we're going to out up with ads, I'll cancel my contribution. I don't see the point in keeping both.
Like Theo said, it would be great if we could attain a model that doesn't require patreon support from community members or mod contributions. We're not sure if the ads will or won't do that. If the ads amount to a few cents a day, we probably scrap them. If it would allow the mods and patreon folks to not have to support the site financially, well, that's why we're asking for your feedback, which we appreciate and will take into account.
My contribution doesn't bother me. Knowing people are freeloading off my contribution doesn't even keep me up at night. Stupid and un-American, I know.

So, considering my dotage, I would like to continue without ads.

Online
User avatar
Leroy
a bad penny always turns up
Posts: 25112
Joined: April 17 06, 12:27 pm
Location: Hanging out with my redneck, white socks and Blue Ribbon beer.
Contact:

Re: What are your opinions on Ads?

Post by Leroy »

Any chance of male enhancement ads?

User avatar
TheoSqua
Next Gen Wart
Posts: 8894
Joined: April 22 06, 6:53 pm
Location: St. Louis
Contact:

Re: What are your opinions on Ads?

Post by TheoSqua »

Leroy wrote:
May 22 20, 11:26 am
Any chance of male enhancement ads?
It's based on your browsing history. You know what you need to do.

Online
User avatar
heyzeus
Everday Unicorn
Posts: 41335
Joined: April 21 06, 10:14 am
Location: Austin, TX
Contact:

Re: What are your opinions on Ads?

Post by heyzeus »

Gettin' a lot of Trump ads these days, so....that's cool.

Post Reply