A better kind of advertising

Dav

Hello all,

Once again I'm back to talk about Advertising on the site. As we've been telling you for some time, the banner ad business is a fraction of what it used to be and so we've been trying to find better alternatives to traditional banners. Something that's been incredibly successful for our colleagues in TheJournal are sponsored articles. So, with that in mind, we put our thinking caps on to determine if something like that could work on Boards without interrupting the main body of content on the site.

I've got some screenshots here for you to look at which should make our thinking on it clearer than I could probably make it in words.

First of all, the home page:



You'll see a new position under the "billboard" and it's clearly labelled as a Sponsored Post. It's also dismiss-able, so you don't have to have it there all the time.

On a Forum then you'll see something like this:



The plan on forums is to completely replace the Leaderboard ad with the Sponsored Post at the top (so no increase in the amount of space for ads on forums).

Not every forum will have one, but obviously busier forums like BA as we've shown in the example will be the sort of forum that will see them the most. The posts will be on a separate "Sponsored Threads" forum (which will be in the Boards.ie part of the menu), so whilst you'll see these links in a couple of places on the site, they're not going to be inserted into our forums as a regular thread - that would, for us, be a non-runner.

So I'd like to hear any feedback you have on this. I personally believe anything that's not a banner ad is better advertising because we're getting content that's going to be relevant. I believe the tech team have a lot of the work for this completed, so roll-out will probably be soon.

Thank you as always for your help and feedback on these things folks.

Overheal

I think it gives people an avenue to post the threads they've wanted to for yonks. No harm, realistically.

I can see chancers using these as a scapegoat to do their own unpaid-for shilling though.

Boards.ie: Nicola

Overheal wrote: »

I think it gives people an avenue to post the threads they've wanted to for yonks. No harm, realistically.

I can see chancers using these as a scapegoat to do their own unpaid-for shilling though.

Not a chance, this is fairly premium stuff-not just anyone can have one of these threads and they will be very strictly moderated by us here in the office.

Skid X

The one in the mock looks fine to me.

It's a reasonable size, clearly marked as 'sponsored', it fits in with the current skin and it can be clicked away if you aren't interested.

Orion

Looks reasonable. Not as intrusive as the current home page banner and I like that you can dismiss it. Will mods be able to report sponsored posts that go against the forum charter and slip through the office net? For example, advertising Crisis Pregnancy advisors on the TTC forum wouldn't be in keeping with the ethos of that forum. (not saying that happened - just tried to think of some example)

P_1

Sounds like a better option than the banner ads (also might make more money due to adblockers not being able to zap them). Only concern is that it has the potential to spectacularly backfire by having a sponsored post in a forum where the majority of posts would read the opposite message.

johnnyskeleton

Boards.ie: Nicola wrote: »

Not a chance, this is fairly premium stuff-not just anyone can have one of these threads and they will be very strictly moderated by us here in the office.

What are the user posting rules on sponsored threads? If I pay boards.ie to run a sponsored thread for my skeleton widget at €100, can johnnycompetition or even johnnyrandomer post that competitor widget is available for €80? Or can they ask questions/give out on thread?

Sauve

Will it still be hide-able (new word for today) for subscribers?

Elmidena

I think sponsored post is too missable in this, and feels a shady way of getting more clicks. Maybe make the title underlined or a different colour to differentiate it fra "true" post?

MugMugs

I don't like Journal sponsored articles. They bug me. Always have and I never read them.

Irrespective, if it helps you make money then go for it,

Pivotal question though, as a Sub, I've preset it so I don't see Adverts. Will I begin seeing these posts and having to dismiss (therefore removing a benefit of subbing?)

Boards.ie: Nicola

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

What are the user posting rules on sponsored threads? If I pay boards.ie to run a sponsored thread for my skeleton widget at €100, can johnnycompetition or even johnnyrandomer post that competitor widget is available for €80? Or can they ask questions/give out on thread?

Like in the Announcements forum, threads will be pre-moderated so Dav, Niamh and I will approve all replies.

Questions/feedback will be permitted and it's envisioned that there will be reps from the company on hand on the thread to answer any questions.

Myrddin

Needs must, & it'll probably be a far more effective revenue generator than banner ads. As long as they are dismissable {I really hate advertising, though I know it helps in paying the bills} then I think that's a reasonable compromise. Will this be replacing the banner ad? What is the 'leaderboard' ad? If they are going to be running together, the amount of space taken up by advertising is huge...

Boards.ie: Rónán

Sauve wrote: »

Will it still be hide-able (new word for today) for subscribers?

MugMugs wrote: »

I don't like Journal sponsored articles. They bug me. Always have and I never read them.

Irrespective, if it helps you make money then go for it,

Pivotal question though, as a Sub, I've preset it so I don't see Adverts. Will I begin seeing these posts and having to dismiss (therefore removing a benefit of subbing?)

Just like the current ad placements, these will be switch-off-able (new word for today) for subs.

Doctor DooM

If it'll make you the money to keep Boards going then do it, although on a personal level I pretty much ignore sponsored or featured articles or videos, I want to read something because it's good not because someone's paid for it to be seen. Therefore, the ad I'm seeing right now is technically doing a better job than they will for me as I'll pretty religiously ignore it and perhaps think less of the company/person posting it (they have to "pay to win").

This, of course, makes absolutely no sense as what's the difference between paying for a banner ad or a post as an ad really. It's funny the way the human mind works.

Dav

As a few of you have mentioned it, I'd just reiterate that the content is managed by us here in the office, but you should always feel free to report it if you think something's wrong with it and we'll review it.

Elmidena wrote: »

I think sponsored post is too missable in this, and feels a shady way of getting more clicks. Maybe make the title underlined or a different colour to differentiate it fra "true" post?

There's definitely no intention to be shady - there is never anything except a sponsored thread in that particular location on the home page and on the forums to avoid this.

EnterNow wrote: »

Needs must, & it'll probably be a far more effective revenue generator than banner ads. As long as they are dismissable {I really hate advertising, though I know it helps in paying the bills} then I think that's a reasonable compromise. Will this be replacing the banner ad? What is the 'leaderboard' ad? If they are going to be running together, the amount of space taken up by advertising is huge...

As I said in the start, on the home page, it's an additional slot underneath the Billboard (the very large ad you see on the screen shots). On the forum pages, it replaces the Leaderboard (which is the 728x90 banner you see at the moment on the top of every forum).

Ken.

Boards.ie: Nicola wrote: »

Like in the Announcements forum, threads will be pre-moderated so Dav, Niamh and I will approve all replies.

Questions/feedback will be permitted and it's envisioned that there will be reps from the company on hand on the thread to answer any questions.

What about the bit of Johnny's question about competitor offers. For example in Dav's mock up the headline is Three: get the HTC one for free with 18 month contract. Would I be able to go their and post "Thats crap you can get the HTC for free with Meteor with 3 coke can ring pulls". If Meteor were doing that offer.

Myrddin

Dav wrote: »

As I said in the start, on the home page, it's an additional slot underneath the Billboard (the very large ad you see on the screen shots). On the forum pages, it replaces the Leaderboard (which is the 728x90 banner you see at the moment on the top of every forum).

Ah sorry, I get ya now. My only qualm with that is that there would be so much space devoted to advertising on the front page that there's only three threads visible on your screenshot. Or maybe you just cut your screenshot short? There's an awful lot of blank space over to the right of the screen, personally I think site announcements should take precedent over sponsored content, how about moving announcement over to where the threads are, & having sponsored content over to the right where all the space is...you could put a lot more of it there...

El Guapo!

No objections here. I think it's a good idea.
As long as they're only at the top and not slotted in among the thread list I don't see why it would be much of a problem.

Steve

On theJournal, they appear in a different color (at least on the IOS app) so there's no doubt you are selecting a paid/sponsored article.

That said, any of them I've read on that site were readworthy so no complaints there as long as boards maintains the same standards of journalism.

witnessmenow

Speaking of advertising I was greeted with this this morning (Im on an US IP address)




This pop-up creepily follows you as you scroll up and down. It seems to be linked to a PSN ad that was down the bottom right.

I think this kind of advertising completly cheapens the site tbh

Boards.ie: Rónán

witnessmenow wrote: »

Speaking of advertising I was greeted with this this morning (Im on an US IP address)

This pop-up creepily follows you as you scroll up and down. It seems to be linked to a PSN ad that was down the bottom right.

I think this kind of advertising completly cheapens the site tbh

Would be very surprised if that was fired from a Google AdSense placement. Have you ever encountered anything similar while browsing other sites?

If you encounter that particular ad campaign / popup again could you please drop the details in here:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056855938

We take active measures to block any inappropriate / annoying ads.

nesf

Once sponsored posts can't be mistaken for regular posts by anyone with any sense and they are not overwhelming in number and we've to scroll down by six or seven to get to the forum list, the I really can't see an issue so long as the thread isn't being moderated by the company posting it.

Should work fine I think once there's decent quality control.

wnolan1992

Looks fine to me. Like that it's dismissible on the homepage.

Suggestion though, how about adding a button to it on the forum view so people could collapse it after they've seen it? Obviously you'd want it so that it stays collapsed while that particular post is there, but will expand for a new one. Might be too much hassle, but just an idea.

entropi

It looks grand like that in the image, considering it is using already available space without clogging up the screen. If it does what it says on the tin (generates revenue and advertisement with little/no tracking) then it's all good. In terms of layout for mobile users, is the hitbox large enough should they want to dismiss the ad?

Victor

Is that add honest and truthful?

Gaspode

I really dont like the Journal.ie, and sponsored threads is one of the more irritating things about it.
I'm not sure exactly why they annoy me so much, but they do so I'm not keen on seeing them here. However, it's not a showstopper for me provided thee's not too many of them on any one page.

Amirani

I think I'd be much more likely to visit a sponsored post/thread" than to click an ad that will result in a re-direct to a different site or a new browser instance. This would be even more of a factor on mobile.

It's also good to know that whatever you're clicking has been verified by someone fairly reputable (Boards employees) rather than by an automated Google process. Thumbs up from here.

nesf

Gaspode wrote: »

I really dont like the Journal.ie, and sponsored threads is one of the more irritating things about it.
I'm not sure exactly why they annoy me so much, but they do so I'm not keen on seeing them here. However, it's not a showstopper for me provided thee's not too many of them on any one page.

Sponsored ads on Journal.ie annoyed me because they were "embedded" in the main news feed. They were too in-my-face for my tastes. For maximum views this is obviously the best option, yet having the same sponsored article appearing over and over again in my feed did quite annoy me.

The idea here, with them split off above the content, works fine for me. If they were interleaved with regular threads it'd drive me mad, but that's not being proposed.

danniemcq

Are they going to be the same ad over X amount of days or will there be multiple ads running at once.

Are they all going to be someway related to the Talk to: forums or open to everyone.

In the given example is the thread going to be in the three forum or the android forum or is there going to be a sponsored forum where each ad gets its own thread. The last could be an advantage if people look through it every few days. The user might have ads off but can now quickly scan to see if anything grabs their attention.

Dav

We've just done some testing on this and we're happy with how it's looking, so we're possibly going to have a client next week.

Now that I've seen the back end of it in action, I can explain exactly what'll be happening.

Alvis has built an addition for us into the Admin CP of the site to manage these threads. This consists of a thread id (any thread from the site), a "start" and "end" time for it, an active y/n flag and then a coma separated list of the forums it'll appear on. Pretty straight forward.

We're putting a new forum live for these sponsored threads for content which doesn't have a natural "home" anywhere else. So, for example, if one of our Talk To clients wants one of these threads, we're almost certainly going to link it back to their own forum and manage it there. If a new client comes along and wants to have a sponsored thread and discussion, we're going to host that on our new "Sponsored Threads" forum so that it's not impacting on any one community on the site. Just for convenience we're not allowing anyone to start a new thread in that forum except office staff - it's just a time saver for us.

Someone else asked above about what happens if there's a thread offering a "bargain" that's found to be anything but. We had a chat about this and have come to the conclusion that if a company wants to pay us to advertise it's wares and those very same wares can be found elsewhere at a better price, then by all means post it. In an ideal world, the company will say "ok, we'll do another X% off for you guys for pointing that out" and then it's a big win for everyone. I'm not saying that's going to happen of course, that's just how I think it *should* happen

Currently, there will only ever be one running on the home page at any time, but not all of them will appear on the home page. So if a small business in Galway wanted to just target the locals with a thread, we can make it so that it'll only appear on the Galway City, County and maybe West region forums. Meanwhile, a big company like one of our Talk to clients could have the front page and whatever other forums they're paying to display in.

The Ads themselves are going to be approved by us. If something isn't right with the copy, it'll go back and be re-worked. This is something we have some experience of - I'm sure many of you remember one or two incidents of that nature with Boards Deals and we're not keen to go through all that again.

28064212

RopeDrink wrote: »

Can't see how people can get annoyed with this

You haven't been around here long, have you? :pac:

Looks good, definitely an improvement

stevenmu

One little suggestion; on Reddit, if they don't have a sponsored post to serve up at the time, they show a random post or subreddit instead. This benefits users by helping you discover interesting content that you would otherwise not have seen, and it benefits advertisers by making that part of the page more interesting and relevant.

Personally, if I know that a part of the page only ever has ads, I tend to put a mental filter in place and just never look at it. But, if I have seen interesting stuff there before, then I'm more willing to look at ads positioned there too. I suspect most people do the same.

Boards.ie: Niamh

Adverts.ie are currently running one of these sponsored posts in some of the Home & Garden forums; if you happen to come across them or go to take a look, please give us your feedback.

Thanks.

Boards.ie: Niamh

First official (non-Distilled) one is up at the moment from Celtic Ferries on the Homepage - any feedback, let us know here

Victor

Boards.ie: Niamh wrote: »

First official (non-Distilled) one is up at the moment from Celtic Ferries on the Homepage - any feedback, let us know here

Not showing when logged in.

I saw it before you asked, registered that it was for a ferry company and mentally filed it under "ad - do not click".

The alignment seems odd - it doesn't seem centred like the banner ad or left justified like the main table, although that seems to be visual rather than actual. See vertical lines on the attached.

It also seems de-emphasised, perhaps use a stronger colour?

Just looking at the thread: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057099113&utm_source=sponsored_thread&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=2057099113&utm_content=thread_title is it being astro-turfed or are they just buttering up Rory for freebies?

If you really want people to click on it, you need for it to be part of the main table, not standalone.

wnolan1992

Not showing up for me either. Is it turned off through subscriber features?

GLaDOS

Shows up for me when I'm logged in.

Pelvis Parsley

Not only does it show up, but it comes back every time you visit the homepage (despite clicking the x to dismiss it).

If this is intentional, feel free to disregard.

Boards.ie: Niamh

wnolan1992 wrote: »

Not showing up for me either. Is it turned off through subscriber features?

Subscribers who have opted out of ads will not see it.

Pelvis Parsley wrote: »

Not only does it show up, but it comes back every time you visit the homepage (despite clicking the x to dismiss it).

If this is intentional, feel free to disregard.

This is the way it should work

Pelvis Parsley

Thanks.

wnolan1992

Boards.ie: Niamh wrote: »

Subscribers who have opted out of ads will not see it.


This is the way it should work

Could I suggest maybe making this a separate option in the CP for subscribers? I've ads disabled, but would like to see these threads.

Probably a lot of hassle to implement though, so maybe something more to put on the to-do list as opposed to an immediate necessity.

nesf

Well if it's good enough for Facebook: http://businessetc.thejournal.ie/facebook-video-ads-1226409-Dec2013/

Spear

nesf wrote: »

Well if it's good enough for Facebook: http://businessetc.thejournal.ie/facebook-video-ads-1226409-Dec2013/

If a website with auto playing video ads was a physical thing, I'd pour petrol over it and torch it the instant the first video played.

nesf

Spear wrote: »

If a website with auto playing video ads was a physical thing, I'd pour petrol over it and torch it the instant the first video played.

It's a psychological profiling test, those that can't manage to google adblocker within a few hours of the videos appearing on their feeds don't get taken to the underground shelters during the inevitable nuclear winter that's coming.

Or at least that's the only sensible reason I can come up with.

oscarBravo

"If I wanted your website to make noise, I would have licked my finger and rubbed it across the screen."