New Advertising methods on Boards

Dav

Hello all,

Starting next week, we've got 2 new advertising services that we're looking to trial for 3 months. They're called Skimlinks and Adroll.

Skimlinks is software can turn certain standard web-links on Boards (typically links to online retailers with whom Skimlinks has a relationship) with into affiliate links, also known as tracked links. These tracked links are then marked as coming from Boards. If a member or reader ends up purchasing something then the retailer pays an affiliate fee which is shared between Skimlinks and Boards. It is important to note that the following always applies: posts on Boards remain as they were originally written, no content is altered; there is *NO* personally identifying information in the tracking code that the Skimlinks software uses, the only thing Skimlinks and the retailer knows is that the link came from Boards; the price on the retailers website stays exactly the same, no customer gets charged one cent extra because of Skimlinks.

Adroll is software that places anonymous re-targeting cookies on your device when you visit Boards. These cookies track the topics that members of Boards are interested in (by way of reporting what forums you visit) and this information can then be used to serve similar/relevant ads to you when you visit other websites and services such as Facebook and Twitter. Using Adroll will not mean extra ads for our members either on Boards or on other websites, everyone will see exactly the same number of ads but the contents will hopefully be more relevant to you. As with Skimlinks, there is *NO* personally identifying information in the cookies that the Adroll software uses; this is a pretty standard technology that most of us will have come across already (as an example, Amazon has used this approach for years for populating the "You May Also Like" part of their pages).

I've answered some of the most obvious questions for you below.

Will this mean more ads?
No. It will mean that some of the links to products on a retailer's website posted to the site by our members will generate some revenue for us.

Are you giving them my details?
There is no sharing of any member's information from Boards to either Skimlinks or Adroll.

Are you changing my or other people's content?
The software for Skimlinks *only* activates when an outbound link to one of their affiliate companies is clicked. Otherwise, member's content remains unchanged in any way.

Don't your rules prohibit Affiliate Links?
Barring some notable exceptions, we do indeed ban affiliate links from being posted by members. The reasons for this are reasonably straight forward - when someone's earning something out of a link, you can't be sure you can trust that the advice given is genuine. We recently had a Chinese online retailer sending our members free products in exchange for favourable reviews posted on Boards (commonly referred to as Shilling) and allowing affiliate links in people's posts or signatures can create some more of that mistrust which is far more damaging to our communities in the long term and being blunt, our policy has always been if any company wants to advertise here, they can pay for it like everyone else.

So what's different about us using a technology like Skimlinks to suddenly insert these affiliate links? When a single affiliation is appended on to all outbound links, then no one can accuse members posting recommendations or reviews of any product of bias or of attempting to make a few quid on the side. The other up side is that this is a means to pay our bills without asking our members to do anything different or without subjecting them to any more banners or the likes.

What are the exact details of these cookies?
We're waiting for the technical specifics of the cookies so we can update our Cookies Page to include them - we should have that on Monday (18th).

Can I opt out?
Yes, you can do so with these 2 links (also on our Cookies Page).
Opt out for Adroll is accessed here: http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices
Opt out for Skimlinks is here: http://optout.skimlinks.com/?tested=1

If you have any further questions folks, please feel free to post them here and I'll do my best to get you an answer.

Please excuse my ignorance on the "tech savvy speech" but will you be sorting out the problems with the touch site? Will these new ads be in the same place as the current ads?

I seem to click on an ad and the page loads up at least a few times a day. All I have been trying to do is scroll to the next post. Is it my phone causing this problem or are the settings on boards programmed for this to happen?

I've also noticed that my junk folder is full of crappy emails since this started.

Red Alert

Do they not already know it's come from Boards.ie with the HTTP referrer header???

RomanKnows

I've been reading and posting on boards for the guts of 15 years now. It's a great website. There have been disagreements about many changes over the years. The sky didn't fall in. This middle ad on the touch site really is a disaster though.

I realise wages have to be paid; you have to remain relevant; you have competitors. That middle ad is a really bad idea though. It destroys the readability of the site. Without readers there are no posters.

dulpit

One quick query - re. the skimlinks, are these only going to apply when someone links to a product themselves (e.g. in a bargain alert thread to something on amazon or similar), or will it appear even if the thread author did not specify a link, but mentioned a product.

If the former, that's cool (could be a goldmine with BA threads!). If the latter, please say no!

Boards.ie: Sean

Hi dulpit, it's the former, not the latter. The flavour of Skimlinks we are intending to rollout will only generate affiliate links if someone posts an actual link to a product, _not_ if the product is mentioned but there is no link. Hope this helps

Boards.ie: Sean

Red Alert wrote: »

Do they not already know it's come from Boards.ie with the HTTP referrer header???

The retailer can see if its comes from Boards.ie if they care, but they don't - from their perspective they're just interested in somebody landing on their page and hopefully making a purchase. Without an affiliate agreement between us and the retailer, they don't care if the link came from Boards we wouldn't receive any affiliate or referral fee.

There's two ways to solve this. One is that Boards ties to setup affiliate agreements with the retailers - that's long, without guaranteed success and there's a lot of potential retailers out there.

Second way is to partner with someone who has already gone through the process of setting up affiliate agreements with lots of retailers so takes all that pain and hassle away from us.

We thought the second option was the more sensible, hence the proposed partnership with Skimlinks

salamanca22

So, members find links and share them with the community in forums such as bargain alerts and then Boards hijacks the link and places their affiliate link in there? Seems realllyyy shady to me. Especially since boards will be making money from others contributions.

Dades

salamanca22 wrote: »

So, members find links and share them with the community in forums such as bargain alerts and then Boards hijacks the link and places their affiliate link in there? Seems realllyyy shady to me. Especially since boards will be making money from others contributions.

How is it shady if you've been informed of exactly how it works?

And why would you have an issue with Boards making money at no cost to either the poster who shares the link or the poster who makes a purchase via that link? The referral fee is not passed on to the purchaser, it's paid by the retailer.

Lovely Bloke

Dades wrote: »

The referral fee is not passed on to the purchaser, it's paid by the retailer.

If anyone believes this, then they need their head examined.

All costs are passed on to the consumer one way or another.

NeVeR

So we can't post affiliate links but it's ok for Boards.ie to hi-jack all links and change them to affiliate links ... is Boards.ie then not breaking it's own rules and get a ban ?

Oneunited

Baldy Conscience wrote: »

If anyone believes this, then they need their head examined.

All costs are passed on to the consumer one way or another.

Do you really think a retailer would pass this specific cost onto the consumer? Of course they would not. It's simply another overhead of business and no different from any other costs of promoting their goods. Ultimately it's the consumer's choice as to whether they want to pay the retailer's price

salamanca22

Dades wrote: »

How is it shady if you've been informed of exactly how it works?

And why would you have an issue with Boards making money at no cost to either the poster who shares the link or the poster who makes a purchase via that link? The referral fee is not passed on to the purchaser, it's paid by the retailer.

It is shady because it should be the person who posts the link that gets the cut, not boards.

Dades

salamanca22 wrote: »

It is shady because it should be the person who posts the link that gets the cut, not boards.

I think you're missing a point here. Boards needs to get money in so that that they can pay the large monthly bills that ensure this website remains live - so that you can post on it for free. They'd also rather keep any revenue-generation non-intrusive to maintain a good user experience.

Dav

I'd also remind everyone that if they read through the post again they'll see the links where they can opt out of these companies services not just for us, but for all across the web.

Lovely Bloke

Dav wrote: »

I'd also remind everyone that if they read through the post again they'll see the links where they can opt out of these companies services not just for us, but for all across the web.

FYI, just to be nosey I clicked on the Skimlinks one just now, and was already opted out.

I've never visited that site before, so is being opted out the default position?

Dav

I'm making a total guess here, so bear with me It could be that you've never visited a site that uses their service and therefore you don't have one of their cookies on your device, which might mean you've never been "opted-in" so to speak, but I'm not 100% sure so I'll send them off an email and find out.

clairek6

Strawberry Milkshake wrote: »

Please excuse my ignorance on the "tech savvy speech" but will you be sorting out the problems with the touch site? Will these new ads be in the same place as the current ads?

I seem to click on an ad and the page loads up at least a few times a day. All I have been trying to do is scroll to the next post. Is it my phone causing this problem or are the settings on boards programmed for this to happen?

I've also noticed that my junk folder is full of crappy emails since this started.

Keeps happening to me too my browsing history consists of daily visits to 'boldchat' Ammmm!!

Gaspode

So when I click the links on the Boards.ie weekly digest email I keep getting brought to this topic. Boo!

Edit: not happening any more, presumably the cookies have had confirmation I've been here.

Boards.ie: Niamh

Gaspode wrote: »

So when I click the links on the Boards.ie weekly digest email I keep getting brought to this topic. Boo!

Edit: not happening any more, presumably the cookies have had confirmation I've been here.

Oh dear. I put the wrong link on the 'Eurovision Contest 2015' thread header

Gaspode

So now you've outed me as a Eurovision fan!

dulpit

Gaspode wrote: »

So when I click the links on the Boards.ie weekly digest email I keep getting brought to this topic. Boo!

Edit: not happening any more, presumably the cookies have had confirmation I've been here.

There's a weekly email digest?

Gaspode

Yep, go to your control panel and click 'Edit options' on the left hand side and then you should see the option then on the right in the 'Messaging & Notification' section.

omicron

Is altering to the trending algorithm part of your new advertising regime? The top trending tread at the moment is ''Guide - Getting the most out of your high speed UPC 240mb/s service'' posted in the broadband forum (not the UPC one), and not marked as an ad or posted by a UPC rep. It's trending at the top despite being a 5 month old thread that hasn't had a new post in 19 days.

Dav

We've not touched that code in months, so I'm not sure why it's picked that. Are you seeing that on the Home Page under the trending tab?

Lovely Bloke

Dav wrote: »

I'm making a total guess here, so bear with me It could be that you've never visited a site that uses their service and therefore you don't have one of their cookies on your device, which might mean you've never been "opted-in" so to speak, but I'm not 100% sure so I'll send them off an email and find out.

Was away for the weekend, so only seeing this now.

Just checked back at the link, and I'm still "opted out", having never been opted in.

KevIRL

Baldy Conscience wrote: »

Was away for the weekend, so only seeing this now.

Just checked back at the link, and I'm still "opted out", having never been opted in.

They must know you are a contrary fukker and decided not to bother with ya...

Lovely Bloke

KevIRL wrote: »

They must know you are a contrary fukker and decided not to bother with ya...

Probably.

Dav

The best we can figure is that you've not been to a Skimlinks site before and so you don't have a Cookie for them set on your machine. So when we roll ours out, one will be set and that "Opt Out" link above will become live.

omicron

Dav wrote: »

We've not touched that code in months, so I'm not sure why it's picked that. Are you seeing that on the Home Page under the trending tab?

Yeah it was on the home page, I have a screen shot on my laptop if you want?

Star Lord

Any idea when you're planning to roll it out?

Dav

It's going to be rolling out today.

T-Bird

So is this why there are no stars on the touchsite anymore to show updated threads?

It still works fine on normal site, just a bit annoying that's all.

freelancerTax

can no longer use the touch site.. I find it funny that the full site performs better on my phone than the touch site. I have no problem with boards making money from ads but at least make sure you don't need a super computer to display the ads. they are completely unsuitable for mobile sites having large animated ads that are incredibly processor intensive to the degree that you can't even scroll the page.

kerry4sam

Can you answer this for me by any chance Please?

Rubicon is 1 out of 104 companies that initially had access to determine my ad-choices. I've turned off 103 ; ie. all but Rubicon.

When you hover over the ad's on here Rubicon shows as being part of the domain for some adverts.

It states cannot connect / experiencing technical issues when I go to turn it off. Tried differing days & times and when it finally connects it shows Yes for delivering 'customised adverts' on my pc. When I try to turn it off it disconnects again.

It simply won't allow me to turn the setting off. Out of the 104 , this is the only one whose setting seems fixed.

Would you have any insights into this per chance?

Many Thanks,
kerry4sam

Brendan Flowers

I presume the skimlinks have been rolled out now? Is there any examples of post that have these?

justsomebloke

the first post here http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057443272. It's the first time coming across them and slightly annoying as I had assumed the OP had been trying to link to the product in question rather then boards putting in the links

28064212

justsomebloke wrote: »

the first post here http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057443272. It's the first time coming across them and slightly annoying as I had assumed the OP had been trying to link to the product in question rather then boards putting in the links

+1. Previously stated:

Boards.ie: Seán wrote: »

Hi dulpit, it's the former, not the latter. The flavour of Skimlinks we are intending to rollout will only generate affiliate links if someone posts an actual link to a product, _not_ if the product is mentioned but there is no link. Hope this helps

That doesn't appear to be the case. The OP in the linked thread doesn't appear to have linked to amazon.de, but the skimlinks have been automatically inserted. Disappointing

28064212

^ Any comment from the office?

Dav

A plaintext web address being automatically turned into a link? What sort of "disappointment" is this? Had the person above put www. in front of it, VBulletin would have done the same.

I'm genuinely stumped as to what the actual issue is here?

28064212

Dav wrote: »

A plaintext web address being automatically turned into a link? What sort of "disappointment" is this? Had the person above put www. in front of it, VBulletin would have done the same.

I'm genuinely stumped as to what the actual issue is here?

It directly contradicts what Boards.ie: Seán said earlier in the thread. Do you not see an issue with that?

And vBulletin's url parsing functionality is not the same thing. A poster has the option of bypassing that, e.g.: [noparse]www.google.ie[/noparse]. They don't have the option of bypassing the skimlinks functionality, e.g.: [noparse]www.amazon.de[/noparse]

Dades

28064212 wrote: »

It directly contradicts what Boards.ie: Seán said earlier in the thread. Do you not see an issue with that?

Seán seems here to have been easing concerns that mentioning a product would automatically create a skimlink. The treatment of basic URLs you bring up probably wasn't being addressed (and maybe hadn't even been noticed).

28064212 wrote: »

And vBulletin's url parsing functionality is not the same thing. A poster has the option of bypassing that, e.g.: [noparse]www.google.ie[/noparse]. They don't have the option of bypassing the skimlinks functionality, e.g.: [noparse]www.amazon.de[/noparse]

Is it a problem that all URLs (with or without http) get turned into links to the actual link? I'd have thought in BA it's customary to post a link anyway.

You can also just drop the www to achive the same effect, e.g. google.ie

28064212

Dades wrote: »

Seán seems here to have been easing concerns that mentioning a product would automatically create a skimlink. The treatment of basic URLs you bring up probably wasn't being addressed (and maybe hadn't even been noticed).

The (strong) implication was that nothing would be done to any posts that wasn't already happening.

Dades wrote: »

You can also just drop the www to achive the same effect, e.g. google.ie

Except it doesn't work for skimlinks: amazon.de gets a link. google.ie doesn't

DannyD

so boards can schill but I can't . Bah...... Schilllinks

Banta

Looks like there could be a problem with this here? Posting this just to see...

AccessAw posted up on the Udemy thread on Bargain alerts to a free course, but when you try the link you get a "Invalid Coupon" message, and the course shows up as Full price. I tried this on Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and IE on both Mac OS X and Windows 7. Same result - full price.

The link should direct to (without all the spaces at the start of the URL):

https:// www. udemy. com/dslr-photography-modelshoot-101/?couponCode=Be+Inspired.+Start+Now+with+Celebrity+Photographer+&+Cinematograph%C3%A2%C2%80%C2%8B%C3%A2%C2%80%C2%8Ber+Corey+Reese#/

When you click on the from the thread it addeds a site ID to the end, possibly meaning the referring site (this bit: etc. etc. ...Corey+Reese&siteID=TnL5HPStwNw-hsGVLdpYEKc33B.1jNppKA&LSNPUBID=TnL5HPStwNw) the link shows up as full course price.

So, link doesn't end with "#/" but "&siteID=TnL5HPStwNw-hsGVLdpYEKc33B.1jNppKA&LSNPUBID=TnL5HPStwNw" instead, and this seems to show the coupon as invalid.

Here's the thread: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057198335&page=105 the link in question is the Photography onein post #1567. You can see further replies to it.

Could be nothing, could be something. Just posting it up here for clarity, as maybe there's a problem. Apologies if it's nothing.

_Tombstone_

The opt out links don't seem to work either...or they do but the process at the other end does nothing.

Dav

Definitely sounds like something's not right, I'll kick it up the line for investigation today if possible, but it might be tomorrow when someone gets a pair of eyeballs on it.

KomradeBishop

_Tombstone_ wrote: »

The opt out links don't seem to work either...or they do but the process at the other end does nothing.

You'll find that opt-outs for almost every kind of advertising/marketing, are deliberately broken - especially on the Internet, and especially with mobile/telephone companies (how many companies have you encountered, that have an opt-out email/text address, which appears to do nothing...).

I would say it's for similar reasons, that Google does nothing to try and autodetect mislabelled ads that autoplay etc. (based on the code they execute) - they definitely have the resources and technical ability to do this, but they never will because money...

Buford T Justice

Am I imagining things, or is there new flashy adds at the tip of each forum page, that wasn't there before?

Boards.ie: Niamh

There are always ads there in that position but they rotate between various types - ads we put up for paying customers, house ads for the likes of Adverts/Daft and Google ads. The one in the screenshot is a Google Ad and they can sometimes be a bit "flashy" as you call it. They aren't new though.

Dav

Banta wrote: »

Looks like there could be a problem with this here? Posting this just to see...

So I've checked into this with the last couple of day's UDemy links that've been posted and I've gotten "Free" on the currently listed as free.

Then I clicked them all again and something went screwy - I got different courses and none of them were free or were showing messages saying the instructor wasn't accepting the free course coupon.

I've tried again three times and the links as posted by AccessAW are working as they did the first time, so I'm afraid I don't have anything conclusive other than to say "something's not quite right and I'm not sure what yet and if it's related to the Skimlinks." I'll keep looking at it though.

_Tombstone_ wrote: »

The opt out links don't seem to work either...or they do but the process at the other end does nothing.

I'm still looking at this one, I've not been able to definitively confirm one way or the other.