5 ms·

sometimes revenue is sadly in tension with user needs.

by joshu 16y ago

bradleyjoyce 16y ago
yes, but my opinion is that ad placement is doing more harm than good. for the site's audience, I think it's a safe assumption that they are fairly web-savvy and able to detect ads without too much effort. As a google adsense block, it's a cost-per-click ad. You see where i'm going with this... savvy users, poor ad placement = very few clicks = no revenue. of course, that is all anecdotal... I'd be really interested to see real performance numbers on it.
- dkersten 16y ago
  You are right. When I first saw the page earlier, I closed it again without even looking at the content because I wasn't bothered scrolling and all I saw was a dirty, ugly page (google ads - a bunch of random links - are ugly as hell). Only after you posted your image did I actually look at the content.
- NZ_Matt 16y ago
  Those ad placements above the content get very high click-throughs when someone arrives at the page via search. One technique that I've used is to only show the adsense to search visitors. Regular visitors tend not to click ads so chances are you won't lose much by doing so.
  - patio11 16y ago
    This technique works in other contexts, too, and is extraordinarily underutilized. (Other options include displaying "house ads" for e.g. pitching "Join our mailing list to get X" or "Our best articles" or "Subscribe to our RSS feed" to convert search-driven transients into recurring visitors.)
Neputys 16y ago
mostly when users are not paying ones ;)
mmaunder 16y ago
Everyone who needs to pay rent has ads in some form, and ads always suck: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/627097/how-to-tell-if-a-browser-is-in-quirks-mode http://stackoverflow.com/questions/627097/how-to-tell-if-a-b... Unless of course you're a bubble company building to flip before you're profitable, in which case you get to point fingers and laugh at the rest of us while we spend hours wrenching the last dollar out of our cash flow plans.
- cparedes 16y ago
  In some ways, reddit gets it right - they put games in the ad space, which trains the users to look at that area a bit more often.
  - pistoriusp 16y ago
    Correct me if I'm wrong, haven't they been having issues with money for servers recently?
    - JoachimSchipper 16y ago
      As far as I can tell, you're wrong, but only on the "recently".
pvg 16y ago
'in tension' is one thing. 'in ugly contradiction to your message' is another.

sometimes revenue is sadly in tension with user needs.

by joshu 16y ago

sometimes revenue is sadly in tension with user needs.

yes, but my opinion is that ad placement is doing more harm than good. for the site's audience, I think it's a safe assumption that they are fairly web-savvy and able to detect ads without too much effort. As a google adsense block, it's a cost-per-click ad. You see where i'm going with this... savvy users, poor ad placement = very few clicks = no revenue. of course, that is all anecdotal... I'd be really interested to see real performance numbers on it.

dkersten 16y ago
You are right. When I first saw the page earlier, I closed it again without even looking at the content because I wasn't bothered scrolling and all I saw was a dirty, ugly page (google ads - a bunch of random links - are ugly as hell). Only after you posted your image did I actually look at the content.
NZ_Matt 16y ago
Those ad placements above the content get very high click-throughs when someone arrives at the page via search. One technique that I've used is to only show the adsense to search visitors. Regular visitors tend not to click ads so chances are you won't lose much by doing so.
- patio11 16y ago
  This technique works in other contexts, too, and is extraordinarily underutilized. (Other options include displaying "house ads" for e.g. pitching "Join our mailing list to get X" or "Our best articles" or "Subscribe to our RSS feed" to convert search-driven transients into recurring visitors.)

Neputys 16y ago

mostly when users are not paying ones ;)

mmaunder 16y ago

Everyone who needs to pay rent has ads in some form, and ads always suck: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/627097/how-to-tell-if-a-browser-is-in-quirks-mode http://stackoverflow.com/questions/627097/how-to-tell-if-a-b... Unless of course you're a bubble company building to flip before you're profitable, in which case you get to point fingers and laugh at the rest of us while we spend hours wrenching the last dollar out of our cash flow plans.

cparedes 16y ago
In some ways, reddit gets it right - they put games in the ad space, which trains the users to look at that area a bit more often.
- pistoriusp 16y ago
  Correct me if I'm wrong, haven't they been having issues with money for servers recently?
  - JoachimSchipper 16y ago
    As far as I can tell, you're wrong, but only on the "recently".

pvg 16y ago

'in tension' is one thing. 'in ugly contradiction to your message' is another.