Flash ads killing the internet?

[Ⓩ-Ⓐ-Ⓜ-Ⓞ-Ⓡ-Ⓐ]

You have a click through rate of 0.004%? That's not typical at all, average CTR is usually predicted at 1-4% depending on ad placement and type of site. I average about 3% for article based sites. I'd say NSC is very atypical due to have no adverts in the actual content. 95% of views (?) must come from registered users who probably barely see a banner during the whole day as they're so out the way. Putting an ad inside the post section or near the quick reply box would increase clicks hugely I think.

I'm pretty sure that if you view NSC as a Guest User there are ads placed within the content. I imagine CTRs are never as high as 1-4% on a site that has registered users, many of whom view NSC on a daily basis.

 

[desprateseagull]

What annoys me most are the pre-ads, that run before almost ANY clip online- news, or whatever..

Some last longer than the actual thing I wanted to see, and lately have been going at the same time?? The 'hidden' ones (placed at bottom of a page) are also frustrating, as it may take a while to realise they are no part of the intended clip you wanted!

 

[Easy 10]

And those vile little SHITPUFFINS where you can't even find the X to close it.

 

[looney]

OK from memory as I am not rooting around for it, I believe there are options on Firefox/flash media player where it has to ask permission to run.

You get 3 options.
1 always allow(say for NSC if necessary)
2 always ask
3 never allow.

Maybe just the first 2, it does mean you can sort i tout for your reg sites and stops flash playing. The only hassle is always clicking the option box but it learns as you go so to speak.

 

[looney]

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/988836

firefox/tools > addons > plugins and set shockwave flash to ask to activate. then the plugin will stay disabled per default but can be activated on a per-site basis

 

[AZ Gull]

NSC gets 1 click for every 25,000 banner ads displayed. That's probably quite typical.

With web users so used to barely registering banner ads on pages they view, advertisers have gone to more extreme lengths to capture attention: video/flash, sound, expandable ads and page takeovers.

Each week I probably turn down 5-10 approaches for ads like these. They may be (more) lucrative but they are a pain in the arse so I always reject them.

Last week Google and others announced AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) with the aim of resolving some of these bad experiences on phones - https://www.ampproject.org

[MENTION=6886]Bozza[/MENTION] - in the last day or two I had a handful of web pages open when the audio from an online ad started playing. It took me a while to figure out that it was coming from a Microsoft Cloud ad beneath the "Quick Reply" box on an NSC thread page that I had loaded.

The same thing happened earlier today, and I was able to identify the culprit a lot quicker. Are you aware of this (and, if so, okay with it)?

 

[narly101]

Not an option at work.

We've had to find a way round using IE, and deployed Firefox with Adblock in order to use the internet now.

Flash sux0rs

 

[Bozza]

@Bozza - in the last day or two I had a handful of web pages open when the audio from an online ad started playing. It took me a while to figure out that it was coming from a Microsoft Cloud ad beneath the "Quick Reply" box on an NSC thread page that I had loaded.

The same thing happened earlier today, and I was able to identify the culprit a lot quicker. Are you aware of this (and, if so, okay with it)?

Hmmm. That ad unit is an interesting one. It only renders around 50% of the time and it's a mix of high-quality advertisers, which Microsoft clearly are. I can't control what appears there in terms of ad types.

Am I happy? No, as I'm not keen on those ads, but I've never had it myself so I'd guess it's not there very often. Tricky. I'll give it some thought and see what I can do.

 

[Nottseagull]

Surely 99.999999999% of people completely ignore it

That means that one in every 100,000 million people don't. There are only 7,300 million people on the planet

 

[mistahclarke]

Are you an SEO specialist?

That'll be PPC not SEO. And they only pay if clicked (and around 80-90% goes to google, not the advertiser)

so imo it's google to blame, I hate the money-grabbing *******s as deal with them every day. I've got a display campaign running specifically for males over 45 as a test for a client despite me knowing it's a waste of time. So google displays on mumsnet, etc. Rant over.

 

[Bozza]

Still, Facebook advertising is nice and honest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag

 

[GingerBeerMan]

Are you an SEO specialist?

I wish, I'm pretty terrible at SEO. How companies "get you to the front page of Google" in three months is beyond me.

Two thirds of NSC views comes from unregistered users (or those not logged in anyway).

These users have more adverts, including a large top banner a lot of the time, as well as in thread ads.

I'm amazed. Considering how many members this forum has and how relatively dedicated we are, to have only 35% of total pageviews from registered members surprises me. I'm interested to know how you measure that number, does it account for spiders and such or purely humans who happen to stumble upon NSC by chance?

There is an ad unit by the quick reply box but I have a high minimum bid price for that so it doesn't display all the time, but it's always a high quality ad when it does.

Nice idea, I wouldn't have thought of that.

I'm pretty sure that if you view NSC as a Guest User there are ads placed within the content. I imagine CTRs are never as high as 1-4% on a site that has registered users, many of whom view NSC on a daily basis.

You're probably right, I've never owned a forum and don't intend to. Must be one of the hardest things to do online. Even if everything is perfect (software, niche, moderators, design, server) there is a still a large failure rate associated with message boards. Once it's successful it can be a gold mine but I don't intend to try that out.

That'll be PPC not SEO. And they only pay if clicked (and around 80-90% goes to google, not the advertiser)

I thought Google took around 40% of revenue for Adsense, but I might be wrong on that or being confused with Youtube. Adsense ads aren't just click though - some are CPM which means Bozza would get paid even if no-one clicked on the ads. If NSC has a CTR of 0.004% I suspect many of the ads shown are CPM, as I can't see how this site would make a profit on so few ad clicks.

 

[TWOCHOICEStom]

WOULD YOU LIKE TO TAKE A MOMENT TO TELL US HOW WE COULD IMPROVE OUR WEBSITE?!

Why certainly... if you'd let me use the website for more than 1 second before SHOVING A FULL SCREEN POPUP IN MY ****ING FACE!!

 

[AZ Gull]

Hmmm. That ad unit is an interesting one. It only renders around 50% of the time and it's a mix of high-quality advertisers, which Microsoft clearly are. I can't control what appears there in terms of ad types.

Am I happy? No, as I'm not keen on those ads, but I've never had it myself so I'd guess it's not there very often. Tricky. I'll give it some thought and see what I can do.

I have now "experienced" this ad at least 5 times this week. I can only assume that NSC contains code that enables the "high-quality advertisers" to reach only "high-quality" posters.

Either that, or Bill Gates is stalking me.

 

[Hampster Gull]

WOULD YOU LIKE TO TAKE A MOMENT TO TELL US HOW WE COULD IMPROVE OUR WEBSITE?!!!

The BBc are driving me mad with this on some of their sports pages. They need to get a grip