

"Ad"fully Awful - hristiank
http://appicurious.com/2011/10/17/adfully-awful/

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petercooper
_It makes me happy to see more advertising networks such as The Deck and
InfluAds spring up._

If you run the numbers on the rate card, number of advertisers, and number of
impressions (all public knowledge), The Deck works out at somewhere around
$2.50 CPM and I bet not all advertisers are paying ratecard. $2.50CPM won't
pay anyone's wages on a niche site unless they're getting silly traffic. I
love The Deck philosophically but from a business point of view, I wouldn't
run their ad unit even if I were invited.

Not many people outside of media circles are talking about the real trend
that's going on nowadays (although Monocle magazine keeps sharing the secrets,
but their circulation is small ;-)): advertising/editorial crossover and
product development. The real money is in building audience loyalty and
producing your own premium products or services targeted at them (and not a
paywall that just locks up the previously free stuff). Keep an eye out for
sites that advertise their own stuff (training courses, merchandise, reports,
premium subscriptions) rather than other people's - it's a growing trend.

~~~
sheff
_Not many people outside of media circles are talking about the real trend
that's going on nowadays (although Monocle magazine keeps sharing the secrets_

Interesting. I had a look at the Monocle website but couldn't find anything.
Do you have any useful links ?

~~~
petercooper
I say this as a huge fan, but Monocle's Web site is.. not good. They're very
much focused on their print magazine. They're definitely living by their word,
though, a loyal subscriber base (a subscription costs _more_ than news-stand
and we lap it up!) and highly profitable.

Perhaps I'll take some time to distil the philosophy into a blog post
sometime, since it does take a lot of effort to get into a print magazine if
it's not at a newsstand near you. It's only a must read for international
business and media types.

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citricsquid
You're way _way_ off the mark with your thoughts on these new "ad networks".
DF is not a good example, gruber is a brand, DF isn't just a website and his
use of a small ad network is proof of nothing. He would make a lot more with
adsense etc, but money isn't his goal. You have to assume money _is_ someone's
goal when they run adverts, otherwise why run adverts?

We tried out one of the fancy curated ad networks (projectwonderful) and if
our experience is anything to go by they suck, they absolutely suck. Unless
you are in a very specific niche they will not do anything but make your
revenue tank.

There's a reason these advert displays are not widely popular, it's because
they pay nothing. Sure on a blog with a few thousand visits what's the
difference between $100 and $50? Larger sites will hurt a lot.

~~~
hristiank
Yes, I agree that Gruber is not the best example but is just that an example.
I am trying to prove a point which is that there are ways to make money online
from advertising.

I do not have any experience with the networks first hand but from what I can
gather from their websites and other places they are a step in the right
direction.

I know most "big" websites will not change but at least if smaller blogs and
sites start experimenting with something other than AdSense I think it would
create a better experience for the end user (us).

~~~
dangrossman
It's not a better experience for the end user if there's not enough revenue to
create the content for the end user in the first place.

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hooande
Advertising is awful because the incentive system is fundamentally broken. The
only thing a publisher has to risk by showing crappy ads is you going to
another site. Even the sites with the most annoying ads will only lose a small
percentage of visitors if the ads become more annoying. They have nothing to
gain by making ads appealing.

The problem with online advertising is that the system is entirely skewed to
the advertisers. Since they are the ones injecting money into the system, they
get whatever they want. If they want to annoy you, then they get to annoy you.
And there's nothing wrong with that. They _are_ the customers.

The Deck is really cool, and so is InfluAds. But those solutions don't seem to
scale. Exclusivity doesn't solve the underlying problem, it just passes it
along to someone else.

The solution to the problem lies in finding a way to make money from a website
that doesn't involve doing whatever an advertiser tells you to do. The details
of this solution are left as an exercise for the reader.

~~~
hristiank
Yes, unfortunately the system is fundamentally broken and skewed towards
advertisers. Although as another commenter here pointed out there are ways to
make it better and create a system more independent of advertisers.

In my article a left out a big portion of alternatives but I'm researching and
writing a follow up with 4 or 5 ways to substitute display advertising.

Thanks

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valyala
Use adblock[1] or advertban[2] if you are annoyed by ads. IMHO, neither
publishers nor advertisers loose a penny if you _consciously_ use ad blocking
solutions, because this means the probability of your _intentional_ click on
annoying ads tends towards zero even if you'll see all these ads. In other
words, you don't belong to the target audience of these ads. [1]
<https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adblock-plus/> [2]
<https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adban/>

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nodata
tl;dr version: many websites have far too many adverts.

~~~
hristiank
Exactly the point I try to make in the article.

~~~
nodata
Unfortunately the article provides no real extra benefit beyond the tl;dr
version.

~~~
hristiank
I am new at this whole blogging thing and It is a work in progress. I try to
write about things that interest me and hopefully I will get better at it with
time.

What do you think would provide real benefit for this article?

~~~
nodata
You identified a well-known problem without providing a solution. For example
you could have talked about the reason for things being like they are and
alternative methods for them achieving that. But you'd have to provide some
new ideas, don't just drag up micropayments again without adding something
new.

~~~
hristiank
I will try to keep these ideas in mind for my next article. I would try to
provide more alternatives (where possible) and new ways to achieve goals.

Thanks

~~~
Klinky
Also take criticism with a grain of salt. Often it's much easier to complain
than to create. If you don't have a critic you might be doing something wrong.

~~~
hristiank
I have no problem taking criticism when it is productive. In this case I also
believe the article does not cover all the alternatives, which is a good
point. In the future I will try to make my articles better by not only
pointing out the obvious but also giving more relevant examples of how to
change something for better.

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robryan
I'll happy run the deck ads, its pretty much invite only though right? The
reason the Internet is covered in adsense is because pretty much everyone can
join and the cpc from my experience is better than similar providers.

~~~
hristiank
Yes, as far as I know these are all invite only networks. It is what makes
them special and good respectively. There is a good business model in these
kinds of networks and if more such networks can come into existence then
blogers like us will have an option.

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hristiank
As always I would like to hear the community comments on my article.

Cheers

~~~
modeless
Grammar issue: "peeked my interest" is incorrect; it's "piqued my interest".
Sorry, it's a pet peeve of mine.

~~~
hristiank
I fixed it. Thanks

