Yep, that’s a new ad on the right side

[Lindon]

Mike,

OK, so no free ads, thats fine. How about for contributors with more than (say) 500 posts/replies - which is arbitrary but seems like it would be a "serious" contributor - they get access to tier 1 - you get zero additional emails/work and they get some payback?

Just a thought.

LMP

 

[mouse]

Making tier 2 not show up on mobile would probably force more to pay for ads and tier 1.

 

[d.healey]

There are a few wordpress plugins available that allow you to set up a kind of ad store. Someone who wants an ad can buy one, upload an image, and then all you have to do is tick a box to approve it. Is there nothing similar available for whatever CMS the VI site uses?

 

[Mike Greene]

Why not hire someone to do the legwork, and give them a percentage? Maybe one of the forum members here who has some time, (not me) who knows how to sell ads, (not me) who is nice enough, (not me) can get some of those companies on board for you, and in the process they can earn a few dollars.

As far as the ads being diluted - I get that part, but maybe you can charge a bit more to have some ads in "heavy rotation"

Great minds think alike. I have someone already who handles the day to day of ad changes and stuff. I'm not ready yet to reach out to other potential advertisers, though, because we're still tweaking the ad structure. (Very slowly. Ad revenue already more than pays the bills, so I'm not in a rush.)

OK, so no free ads, thats fine. How about for contributors with more than (say) 500 posts/replies - which is arbitrary but seems like it would be a "serious" contributor - they get access to tier 1 - you get zero additional emails/work and they get some payback?

That would be fair. I'd probably also want to include a requirement that the company is small. Let me think on that.

Making tier 2 not show up on mobile would probably force more to pay for ads and tier 1.

Yes, but then members on mobile wouldn't see all the announcements. Most people here want to see all announcements, whether Tier 1 or 2.

There are a few wordpress plugins available that allow you to set up a kind of ad store. Someone who wants an ad can buy one, upload an image, and then all you have to do is tick a box to approve it. Is there nothing similar available for whatever CMS the VI site uses?

There is, and we have it. There are snags, though, in that some advertisers here try to upload enormous images (sometimes as much as 10MB for a 728x90 gif, and a couple times over 50MB), so it still takes a lot of monitoring. Since these companies are small and don't have true art or tech departments, they have no idea how to make their gifs smaller, so there's a lot of hand holding to get things fixed.

Also, the Portal page is Wordpress, so our ads plugin (which is on Xenforo) doesn't handle that page, so those have to be handled separately. That's really annoying, so I'm thinking about discontinuing ads on the Portal page, or maybe making them so they are "permanent" and can't be updated, or maybe making them more expensive if people update them, or ... something. I dunno.

None of this is that big of an issue, though, and like I say, the current setup more than pays the bills, so I'm in no rush to make more changes.

 

[thesteelydane]

On a related note, guess how many people are paying for that sidebar ad right now? Did you guess zero? That's right, literally no one has bought that slot since Sonokinetic did their 12 Days of Christmas ads. (I gave free ones to BotDog and Spitfire because they're my friends and the slot would be empty otherwise. Oh, and Realitone, too, even though that guy's kind of a jerk. Good looking, though!)

It's crazy, because I honestly believe this is the best ad slot on the site. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. I'm totally fine financially, and when we finally officially release Hip Hop Creator in a couple weeks, I'll be glad to be the only advertiser there, so it doesn't bother me at all. I just find it very interesting.

I find myself in a funny position here. As forum owner, I want to sell ads. The more money the forum can make, the better, right? But as Realitone owner, I'm competing with the other developers/potential advertisers.

So as forum owner, I want to explain to my competitors how marketing works. (With all due respect, I think many of these companies are totally clueless on that topic.) I want to show them what my ad budget is, and how, even with a small number of products, Realitone is doing pretty well. Advertising works. Especially here, because I can then show them my Realitone numbers as an example, and how VI-C ads are far cheaper than KVR or Gearslutz ads, and also cheaper than a few other sites where I advertise.

But as Realitone owner, I don't want to tell them any of those things, because these are my competitors. And I especially don't want to reveal what other places I advertise, because other than KVR or Gearslutz, those sites are ones I had to discover on my own!

The choice is easy, because Realitone is far more profitable than VI-Control, so if 8dio and East West and CineSamples and a dozen other companies don't want to advertise here, that's fine by me. Especially since posting and updating the ads can be a PIA.

I just find it baffling from a business standpoint.

Well I, as a new (and decidedly small) developer, would love a marketing masterclass from you. Just sayin’...