Suggestion for improving affiliate revenue/also adult banner issues
03-17-01, 02:00 AM
#1
New Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2000
Location: athens, OH
Posts: 17
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
I posted this in the thread in DVD bargains about affiliate links, but thought I would bring it here as well. Please understand Im not attacking the site or you personally,but rather offering just a little criticism. 
Please dont flame me too hard.
----
You may want to consider putting a little cash into a little creative coding. http://www.fatwallet.com, a hot deals site, has recently set it up so if you type a link to, for example, http://www.buy.com, it will automatically include the fatwallet referall link. Im sure with your resources you could easily do the same thing. Im also sure it would boost your affiliate revenue at least 2x. You should really consider this.
On another note, Im a little dissapointed by your response to the poster who complained about the adult DVD ads. Mind you, Im an avid porn watcher , and dont care, but forcing those who dont wish to see them by making excuses about what time they show up, and that they really help the site just doesnt cut it in my book.
Note that Im not slamming DVD talk, and continue to come here for everything DVD. It just seems that *we* are your customers, and forcing something that many consider innapropriate is a little too much, IMO...but as I said, I couldnt persnally give a rats a**. You could easily give the option for a user to turn them off, and still have the default as on. I bet less than 10% would do so given the option, and your *customers* who are offended would be more inclined to visit the site more often and make affiliate purchases.
Sorry to go OT. Just wanted to suggest putting a little money into someone who could implement my suggestions, or if you can, to do so yourself.
Please dont flame me too hard. ----
You may want to consider putting a little cash into a little creative coding. http://www.fatwallet.com, a hot deals site, has recently set it up so if you type a link to, for example, http://www.buy.com, it will automatically include the fatwallet referall link. Im sure with your resources you could easily do the same thing. Im also sure it would boost your affiliate revenue at least 2x. You should really consider this.
On another note, Im a little dissapointed by your response to the poster who complained about the adult DVD ads. Mind you, Im an avid porn watcher , and dont care, but forcing those who dont wish to see them by making excuses about what time they show up, and that they really help the site just doesnt cut it in my book.
Note that Im not slamming DVD talk, and continue to come here for everything DVD. It just seems that *we* are your customers, and forcing something that many consider innapropriate is a little too much, IMO...but as I said, I couldnt persnally give a rats a**. You could easily give the option for a user to turn them off, and still have the default as on. I bet less than 10% would do so given the option, and your *customers* who are offended would be more inclined to visit the site more often and make affiliate purchases.
Sorry to go OT. Just wanted to suggest putting a little money into someone who could implement my suggestions, or if you can, to do so yourself.
03-17-01, 02:14 AM
#2
DVD Talk Hall of Fame
Join Date: Jan 2000
Location: England (w00t!)
Posts: 7,796
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Just an idea, but with the adult ads, would it be possible to set a user-defined "cookie" for them that you could configure through your profile? For example, a user could set it so that between 9 and 5 Monday to Friday, adult ads were removed from rotation, otherwise they're fair game? If you set it to "Enabled" by defualt, and put a clear disclaimer on the registration page that you should disable them if you don;t want adult ads popping up, then you'd probably see an increased revenue. Of course, it's probably a better idea to have them disabled by default and make it a user-enableable feature... But some people don't keep "conventional" working hours, or don;t want porn banners at all no matter what time, so the current "solution" is woefully inadequate...
03-17-01, 05:32 AM
#3
DVD Talk Hall of Fame
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: The Sports and Pr0n Forum
Posts: 7,811
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Regarding posting material that depicts sexual acts.......
I am wondering since we are not allowed to post pics from porn sites depicting sexual acts if its then ok to post this pic:
VERY MATURE !!!
I only ask this because I found this pic off the banner ad from this site after making only two clicks.
[Edited by TaTTooD on 03-17-01 at 03:36 AM]
I am wondering since we are not allowed to post pics from porn sites depicting sexual acts if its then ok to post this pic:
VERY MATURE !!!
I only ask this because I found this pic off the banner ad from this site after making only two clicks.
[Edited by TaTTooD on 03-17-01 at 03:36 AM]
03-17-01, 12:08 PM
#4
Registered
Join Date: Jan 1999
Location: Marblehead, MA
Posts: 6,948
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
While I respect where you are all coming from on the adult issue, I have to disagree. Based on the sales we do with FiveStarDVD every month there IS a strong demand for a store like FiveStar who takes care of their customers, does business fairly and respects people's privacy.
We do a lot of things to keep DVD Talk family friendly, but the truth is, in the late night hours, banners for a more mature DVD company appears. We invested a lot in the infrustructure to be able to serve these ads late at night, and we do it relative to people's time zone.
The ads themselves are not pornographic, and are clear that they lead to an adult DVD store. Are there explicit pictures on that site. Yes, if you go looking for them.
It's very easy to dismiss something like this but the truth is, it simply ISN'T easy to fund a dot com business these days, and in case you haddn't noticed companies are dropping like flies.
Over a year ago we brought the issue of adult advertisers and adult discussions to our membership, and what was agreed on then was that we'd have 1 and only 1 adult DVD advertiser and we wouldn't have an adult DVD discussion area on our site (something that would be reasonable for a DVD site to have).
We now regularly turn down dozens of adult advertisers a month, many of which have a lot of money they want to spend. Money that could really help pay our server bills (which are racking up).
So again, I respect where you are coming from, but I must also respectfully disagree.
We do a lot of things to keep DVD Talk family friendly, but the truth is, in the late night hours, banners for a more mature DVD company appears. We invested a lot in the infrustructure to be able to serve these ads late at night, and we do it relative to people's time zone.
The ads themselves are not pornographic, and are clear that they lead to an adult DVD store. Are there explicit pictures on that site. Yes, if you go looking for them.
It's very easy to dismiss something like this but the truth is, it simply ISN'T easy to fund a dot com business these days, and in case you haddn't noticed companies are dropping like flies.
Over a year ago we brought the issue of adult advertisers and adult discussions to our membership, and what was agreed on then was that we'd have 1 and only 1 adult DVD advertiser and we wouldn't have an adult DVD discussion area on our site (something that would be reasonable for a DVD site to have).
We now regularly turn down dozens of adult advertisers a month, many of which have a lot of money they want to spend. Money that could really help pay our server bills (which are racking up).
So again, I respect where you are coming from, but I must also respectfully disagree.
03-17-01, 12:56 PM
#5
Senior Member
Join Date: May 2000
Posts: 363
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Right, but I don't think that's the issue at hand. I'm sure there are a lot of people who work late night hours and would like to visit this site during their down time at work. However, adult banner ads prevent that. For people whose internet use is monitored at work (either by their boss, IT person, or simply coworkers walking past their computer), adult ads - no matter how tame - could be enough to discourage people from coming to the site. So my questions is... why does this site have to be so unaccomodating to people who work late at night? We're not demanding you remove all adult ads altogether... just asking for a reasonable solution to an easily fixable problem for some people.
03-17-01, 06:59 PM
#8
New Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2000
Location: athens, OH
Posts: 17
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
What Bobubott said is exactly what I was trying to convey.
In actuality, I wasnt coming at first to criticize you or the site, but rather offer a helpful suggestion which could greatly improve your affiliate revenue. (I dont know what to make of your lack of response to this suggestions, since you still say how much the site costs to run.)
I do respect what you do and how you do it. I admire you for building the site up and maintaining the user base. I guess what I would like to you know, coming from my end, and seeing from other websites, is that you could be more accomodating (allowing users to turn off the ads) and still maintain or even greatly increase your revenue by automatically linking to affiliate sites.
As I said, I couldnt give a damm what ads I see-I dont click on em, and I dont look at them. The only revenue that you will see out of a majority of your users is through affiliate links. I dont want to preach to you on business practices or how to run your business. I just hope you can take my easily implemented suggestions and apply them so that more users can be accomodated (see Bobubott's post for reasons why) and so that your revenue can increase for the longevity of the site.
Thanks for listening, and I appreciate your response.
In actuality, I wasnt coming at first to criticize you or the site, but rather offer a helpful suggestion which could greatly improve your affiliate revenue. (I dont know what to make of your lack of response to this suggestions, since you still say how much the site costs to run.)
I do respect what you do and how you do it. I admire you for building the site up and maintaining the user base. I guess what I would like to you know, coming from my end, and seeing from other websites, is that you could be more accomodating (allowing users to turn off the ads) and still maintain or even greatly increase your revenue by automatically linking to affiliate sites.
As I said, I couldnt give a damm what ads I see-I dont click on em, and I dont look at them. The only revenue that you will see out of a majority of your users is through affiliate links. I dont want to preach to you on business practices or how to run your business. I just hope you can take my easily implemented suggestions and apply them so that more users can be accomodated (see Bobubott's post for reasons why) and so that your revenue can increase for the longevity of the site.
Thanks for listening, and I appreciate your response.
03-17-01, 07:50 PM
#9
DVD Talk Hall of Fame
Join Date: Feb 1999
Location: Orange
Posts: 7,737
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Perhaps one of the two ideas might work:
#1 - Acutally work at work.
#2 - Get an ad filtering program just for work so that the ads won't appear (of course don't do this at home as DVDTalk will lose ad revenues).
#1 - Acutally work at work.
#2 - Get an ad filtering program just for work so that the ads won't appear (of course don't do this at home as DVDTalk will lose ad revenues).
Originally posted by Bobubott
Right, but I don't think that's the issue at hand. I'm sure there are a lot of people who work late night hours and would like to visit this site during their down time at work. However, adult banner ads prevent that. For people whose internet use is monitored at work (either by their boss, IT person, or simply coworkers walking past their computer), adult ads - no matter how tame - could be enough to discourage people from coming to the site. So my questions is... why does this site have to be so unaccomodating to people who work late at night? We're not demanding you remove all adult ads altogether... just asking for a reasonable solution to an easily fixable problem for some people.
Right, but I don't think that's the issue at hand. I'm sure there are a lot of people who work late night hours and would like to visit this site during their down time at work. However, adult banner ads prevent that. For people whose internet use is monitored at work (either by their boss, IT person, or simply coworkers walking past their computer), adult ads - no matter how tame - could be enough to discourage people from coming to the site. So my questions is... why does this site have to be so unaccomodating to people who work late at night? We're not demanding you remove all adult ads altogether... just asking for a reasonable solution to an easily fixable problem for some people.
03-18-01, 12:34 PM
#10
DVD Talk Ultimate Edition
Join Date: Aug 2000
Location: Canada
Posts: 4,538
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
The ads in themselves don't look mature to me... just more of a sensual ad campaign that you could find from anywhere else... I don't really approve or disapprove of adults ads but I've yet to see any which were really raunchy. Although they do seem to come up in bunches, I was at the school lab and got the 5star banner more than any of the others.
