MililaniBuckeye;1500038; said:
What ... the ... fuck. Just got another redirect, this time to shopica.com, out of the blue while in the TSUN bickering page. Was on the page for about 20-30 seconds and then got redirected. I think
Searchtigo.com may have did it (that's also in my browser history for today).
This shit is getting old...
We're getting paid next to nothing for the bulk of the ads. This is definitely not a case where we've loosened our standards in order to make a little extra. No, we're making basically nothing because our grip is so tight, and yet, some garbage still gets through and it's often too slippery for us to catch. The only ads as of late that really amount to anything in of themselves (in terms of CPM) are for NCAA 2010. The rest are remnant bulk-type ads from a variety of sources (as Deety said), and those sources get their ads from a variety of sources.
At the end of the day, your typical ad network automates their incoming campaigns, which means there's no human quality checking. That means the end sites (us) deal with the crap that gets through. Then it's a matter of figuring out, even though they run very very very infrequently so as to make it difficult to get caught, which ad is doing it, from which 4th party, through which ad network, through which bulk network we're using. The tragic thing is that we're using a few of the 'better' bulk groups. Platform-A through Advertising.com as an example. We've opted out of virtually every possible setting, which is to say that if their filters work, then we should never see flashing ads, 'error' ads, forced audio, forced video, pop-ups, pop-unders, uninitiated expansions, shaking, or any of the other sort of crap I've said from day one that BP must be free of.
When we had SportsWar (and I never ever thought I would actually miss being with them), I could email a great guy named Mike, who had contacts at the networks (the networks care when you're a collection of sites resulting in a huge footprint like Sw, not so much when you're a single site), who would in turn do the due diligence to track the ad down. That was when I asked for screenies and URLs, because I'd take all of that to him, and then we'd work together with the contacts (I have mailboxes just full of that old crap from just last December alone) to sort it out.
Now? We turn off networks one at a time, we set the ad positions to 30 second reloads, and we watch. All day, and for me, most of the night.
There's nothing I want more for BP than for it to be free of just exactly the type of crap you're talking about. I don't think it ever will be as long as we have to run remnant ads. So why not drop them entirely and be free of the headache? Because even if they only bring in a couple hundred a month, collectively, that's a couple hundred less than the site is in the hole. Drive aside, BP is in the red every single month, and has been since March.
Solutions:
1. Local ads. If we, through our own userbase, can track down a small number of local businesses who want to advertise on the site, perhaps a few months at a time for an aggressively low rate -- then we can drop remnants completely.
2. "Premium" ads. We're partnered with Fantasy Sports Ventures, a company at least partially owned by USA Today. Other sites under their umbrella include the likes of KFFL. Come the regular season, we're hoping to see 100% of our inventory filled with ads sold by FSV. High quality, relevant, targeted campaigns, just like the aforementioned NCAA 10 campaign. However, that's just during the season, and who knows, maybe they won't come through at all?
3. No ads at all, in which case BP probably needs to run drives 2-3x as effective as our best to date (last year, full year). Old-school O-Zone type drives.
4. We partner with a commercial site, adding our community to their content, and lose our independence.
5. We charge monthly fees.
5 is absurd. Not while I have a say.
I can't and won't do 4. Any way I imagine it working, it undermines everything this site is and has been about. We had a very kind and generous offer months ago that would have covered all of our (and my) money needs. Not worth it.
3? I lose sleep over how much effort (none of it my own) goes into running the drives, let alone the generosity of everyone who contributes to it, compounded against my own guilt associated with not having the site or myself more self-sufficient. As our drives have *always* been smaller numbers of people giving more, rather than larger numbers of people giving less, 3 is impractical.
2? Everything hinges on 2 right now. If premium ads don't come in this Fall, and pay relatively quickly, then difficult decisions will probably have to be made on my end in order to assure BP keeps going.
1? One is the ideal scenario. We can give local companies more bang for their buck than any other form of advertising, I'm certain of that. A dollar spent here by a local restaurant, grocery, hardware store, bar, etc. reaches a passionate group of people who will be appreciative that the site is online because of that sponsor. When SW brought in national campaigns, BP led the charge in terms of fans letting the sponsors know they appreciated the support. A local bar wants to sponsor us? We'll see if we can arrange get-togethers there for BP locals. Someone like Snowville Creamery wants to pimp their entirely outstanding locally and naturally produced dairy products? I will gush about them more than I am even now, because I believe in what they're doing. Shit, I bet someone will try them out after reading this, just because someone else who is part of the BP family recommended it. This is the lowest impact option. The one that gives US the most control over what does and does not reach the site. It means (if it's solid enough) that we don't need remnants, don't need 3rd party premiums, that no one but us dictates content on our site. But how do we 'sell' this to local companies, and what local companies? I don't have those answers.
Make no mistake, I'm not venting back at your vent. I just want to take this opportunity to be clear about how much our current ad situation pains me, how much time Deety (for one) is devoting to it, and how desperate a situation BP's economics are.
There's little I wouldn't do right now to fix this issue. I hate associating BP with this stuff, and I fear that it's quite literally slowly killing the site and community. Our traffic this offseason is the lowest it's been in over 4 years. Is it the general malaise of the last few bowl losses? Is it the evolution of the fan community away from this form of interaction? Is it bottom-of-the-barrel ads we've suffered since late last year, and all the headaches that have gone with it? Is it that pay sites have really stepped up their games and we're just less relevant finally? Maybe it's a little of all of the above. I don't know. Our size has never been something I've really cared about. If anything, I often worried about being too big, not too small. But when things dip the way they have, a story is being told, and right now the language in which it's written is out of my grasp. It could well be that traffic this fall will be on par or higher than it was last fall, and that it's just the summer that's off. No idea.
Anyway, that's the ad situation right now. I'd love nothing more than to see a solution to the issue grow organically out the site, the way so many other positive changes have. Just hasn't happened yet, but maybe we haven't planted the right seeds. With humility and respect to the general audience, here's another.