Online Advertising for Antilag... help?

[Brockas]

As you may have noticed, we have local businesses on board to help maintain the site. We also have Castrol and Yokohama on board every couple of months.

The top banner however is run by Google Ads.

I used to use a company called Digital Niche' who would pay $0.50 CPM (cost per thousand impressions). This worked a treat and covered all our hosting bills plus helped fun displays at Autosalon etc.

Google ads are currently paying $0.06 CPM... as you can imagine, this pays for fucall.


There are a few of you in IT on here, and I'm basically wondering if you can recommend someone who pays a higher CPM than google?

Not interested in cost per click, only cost per thousand impressions.

Cheers :)

[cplagz]

I'll ask my mate what he uses on Boozle.

[Lmx]

boozle is king

[Skrappy]

http://exchange.contextweb.com/sellingdesk/

A rough example of the traffic per month may be helpfull.

[Brockas]

All of these are supplied by Westnet. Per month stats:

Visits:
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a208/Brockas/visits.png

Page Views:
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a208/Brockas/pageviews.png

Hits:
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a208/Brockas/hits-1.png

Bandwidth:
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a208/Brockas/bandwidth.png

[TJ]

fucking google tight asses

[Alt_F4]

Put it forward to a mate who is well connected with local advertising/internet agencies.
I'll let you know if anything better comes up :)

[thrtytwo]

if you have time and can be assed try writing up a little 1 page proposal or something, regular traffic, bullshit about how your an active club in the perth car scene, regularly featured in magazines, blah blah blah wank wank wank, and hand it out or email it around car oriented shops/workshops in perth, might work to get some new sponsers or at least advertisers. you never know

[SEXUAL TYRANNOSAURUS]

if you have time and can be assed try writing up a little 1 page proposal or something, regular traffic, bullshit about how your an active club in the perth car scene, regularly featured in magazines, blah blah blah wank wank wank, and hand it out or email it around car oriented shops/workshops in perth, might work to get some new sponsers or at least advertisers. you never know

I don't think that's the problem, Jamie. There's already quite a few sponsors. Having too many will hinder the like's of new sponsors unless they are getting something different to a banner, so they get the most out of thier $$.

Traffic isn't the only thing that reflects your payment, although this forum is great. How does someone find it?? you've got fantastic traffic, but whats the potential of this site?? Have you ever worked on your SEO??

http://www.bannerreviews.com/ <------- may be some help.

[Alt_F4]

Have you ever worked on your SEO
SEO is a waste of time as the forum is private, which is how most of the members prefer it IMO.

Paul, despite the mass amounts of tightarses that amass here, I'm sure you'd make some extra revenue from rewarding 'financially contributing members' ie. big star next to their name etc

Seriously tho, it seems to work on other forums.

[thrtytwo]

SAU gives u a special tag if you donate, see lots of people with them

[DanWA]

Donate idea is good!

Don't know anywhere that pays more then google.

[Alt_F4]

SAU gives u a special tag if you donate, see lots of people with them
haha, yeah that's what i was getting at, SAU also used to let you get around search flood control (among other things) if you contributed.
Lost that during the upgrade a year or two ago :(

[Brockas]

The problem with donations is it often gives members which donate a sense that because they have donated they are now in a position to tell me how to run the site.

This simply wouldn't work as a democracy, and we see that with SAU, where they have so many moderators on power trips that anything remotely entertaining gets locked or deleted straight away.



if you have time and can be assed try writing up a little 1 page proposal or something, regular traffic, bullshit about how your an active club in the perth car scene, regularly featured in magazines, blah blah blah wank wank wank, and hand it out or email it around car oriented shops/workshops in perth, might work to get some new sponsers or at least advertisers. you never know

That's definitely not the issue. I have plenty of local businesses wanting to sponsor the site, of which I pick the highest quality and charge them a small amount.

I need a cost per thousand impressions banner though, so that the increase in traffic (and increase in bandwidth) is directly proportional to the advertising revenue.

[shifted]

Well, if you just at least allow donations, maybe people will just donate even if you leave it at anonymous?

[KyeBidz]

People donating out of the goodness of their heart and not expecting anything in return....

yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[fourseven]

x100. Ran a donation-funded site before. Been there, done that, suggest avoiding at all costs! pingpingpingpings suddenly think they own shit when they give you $5.

[DISTRBD]

The problem with donations is it often gives members which donate a sense that because they have donated they are now in a position to tell me how to run the site.


Ask sponsors to donate some small items and raffle them off or Antilag Bikini wash .

[shifted]

Ask sponsors to donate some small items and raffle them off or Antilag Bikini wash .

That sounds good.

[fsbk]

just an idea, may not want to be the direction you want to go.

1. open the site up to everyone, whether you're signed up or not.
2. have integrated adverts that look like forums posts like SAU and other forums for members that have not signed up.
3. open the for sale threads up to anyone and everyone to post/view, for a person looking for a decent import it could be their first stop before carsales etc. maybe also look at getting dealerships (fabcar etc) to have a forsale thread for cars. you could probably double the amount of traffic to the site doing this and hopefully your advert revenue as well.

as far google adds versus others. that price is pretty much the norm now, you may get a better rate with others, but only very slightly.

it's my understanding that per click is quite a lot more than per impression so maybe having both of them on the site (one up the top one down the bottom) might be worth a look at.

[DISTRBD]

just an idea, may not want to be the direction you want to go.

1. open the site up to everyone, whether you're signed up or not..

Enough muppets in here as it is


3. open the for sale threads up to anyone and everyone to post/view, for a person looking for a decent import it could be their first stop before carsales etc. maybe also look at getting dealerships (fabcar etc) to have a forsale thread for cars. you could probably double the amount of traffic to the site doing this and hopefully your advert revenue as well.

.

May double the traffic but the fuckhead ratio will also double creating more work for Mods

[TJ]

Paul, one of the forums im on over east did a donation drive - owner pretty much said its all annon, and you will get nothing for it, but if you are on here etc etc and you like the place, throw some coin in.

It raised nearly 7k.

Now while the forum over there is bigger, I reckon you could probably get a years worth of hosting costs from a similar thing.

[TTZ]

On a lot of big forums i'm on there are complaints that donating members think they own everything and how it's such a pain in the ass for mods/admin.

however on antilag the mods aren't ones to take shit or care what people think, probably the best forum to have it on? Just have terms when they donate saying it's just a donation, you get a "donating member" icon next to your name but you get NO say it how the place is run, your no better than a non donating member etc.

Antilag lets me sell my car shit for free and i'm always buying and selling shit on here, i'd be keen to become a donating member to help out

[fsbk]

[QUOTE=DISTRBD;619272]Enough muppets in here as it is

they would be able to browse the site, not post, giving the site more unique visits per month presumably.

[esky]

Can you just have lots of adds from all the different add companies at the bottom of the page. i.e have six of them all above each other? We don't have to look at them but they're there creating revenue.

fsbk - there shitty ideas that will only make the forums worse.

[Skitzo]

If i was to donate, i would want use of [Bought R] once a month.

[Ben Wha]

I donate enough to Paul in the form of shots of Absinthe on the weekends.

[DISTRBD]

If i was to donate, i would want use of [Bought R] once a month.

Wont work as it only goes once a month , Paul will never get to drive it :)

[_S9_]

Wait a sec;

5,000,000 impressions, divide by 1000 impressions = 5,000 * 0.50c = $2,500/month!?!?!

5,000,000 impressions, divide by 1000 impressions = 5,000 = $300/month.

Surely this site can't cost more than $100/month to host? let alone 300. Let alone the $2,500 it's been making in the past?

Or am I working it out wrong?

[Skitzo]

Paul just admitted to the source of his Bulk cash. Good one mate hahaha.

I helped pay for T04Z!

[Brockas]

Wait a sec;

5,000,000 impressions, divide by 1000 impressions = 5,000 * 0.50c = $2,500/month!?!?!

5,000,000 impressions, divide by 1000 impressions = 5,000 = $300/month.

Surely this site can't cost more than $100/month to host? let alone 300. Let alone the $2,500 it's been making in the past?

Or am I working it out wrong?

Yeh that is what I was hoping for as well... unfortunately didn't quite work out like that.

I figured out that the page impressions reported by Westnet were about 3x what they were reported by google / digital niche.

Apparently this is because the pages like sponsor.php are embedded into the home forum page. Every time someone refreshes the forum, it registers are 3 page views.

To give you an idea, Google Ads is paying about $85 a month right now for the 2 banners.

I'm not worried about covering hosting, as the advertising does that (which is another reason I wont accept donations). Unfortunately, the way it is now it leaves no money in the antilag account for displays, events, etc etc.

I figure if we can all benefit from having different advertisers instead of google, it can only be a good thing...

[JME]

Donating isn't an issue. The donation may unlock a financial member only area, give larger avatar option, html signature etc etc. Doesnt mean the member has active input on running of the forum.

Financial or not, if they don't like it, gtfo or ban stick. China Policy ftw!


Random fact: This is my 2010th post in 2010, fucken wow!

[Scaf]

I can see how donation would work, but i can understand what Brockas is saying.
There are already people on here that think they run the place, imagine if they 'invest' money into it, anonymous or not it will end in a shit fight.

The only way i can see donations really working is if its only open to people who have a certain number of post and have earnt their stripes around here.

[TJ]

I can see how donation would work, but i can understand what Brockas is saying.
There are already people on here that think they run the place, imagine if they 'invest' money into it, anonymous or not it will end in a shit fight.

The only way i can see donations really working is if its only open to people who have a certain number of post and have earnt their stripes around here.

Not really - the other forums guys where simply given an account to make a deposit into and told specifically that they would get nothing special for it.

This is what the owner of the other forum said:


Ok guys here it is, the PF beg for money thread

Cliffs: FUCK YOU PAY ME!

Long version:
As all you guys know I’ve been paying for this place for the past 5-6 years out of my own pocket. This hasn’t been a burden to me or anything and I’ve enjoyed doing it, I’ve always been of the opinion that if i don’t take any money off members or advertisers then I have no obligation to provide any sort of service or special treatment to any member or advertiser. You guys all know how this place works, if you think Brisbane Porsche sucks you can post it here and no one’s going to ban you or remove your post (they may give you a bit of shit when you don’t buy a Lamborghini but hey, that’s par for the course).

That being said those of you who can read know I’ve been dealt a couple of shitty hands of poker recently and as such my funds are limited. While I still have an income and I still can afford to pay for this place it really would help me if didn’t have to for a while.

So here I am begging for donations like some sort of rotary driver begging his engine to last another lap, or begging his mechanic to remove his oil filter.

It’s a pretty shitty deal for you guys, basically your going to throw in some bucks and you’re going to get fuck all in return, no special treatment, no badge, no nothing. Ill happily change your names, and avatars for you without giving you some fucked up name and give you technical assistance when you need it, but that’s about all I can offer.

How much do we need? Well right now I’m hosting this shit on the cheap, and by on the cheap i mean its sitting on a single VM ware cloud server for about $200US a month, with about $40US a month worth of software running it. Now before you all chime in and say how dream host can host us for $9.99 a year, let me tell you i been hosting sites since 1995 and it simply doesn’t work that way. PF is basically a big database that gets a fuck load of requests a second, its currently about 40-50gb big, and pulling in excess of a couple of million requests a month, for those of you who don’t know about computers, that’s fucking big. PF’s sister site firesport.com which is dead on even in traffic is run off three machines, were doing it rorge spec with a busted ass budget cloud server and a packet of bbq shapes. Back last year when this place was humming along perfectly it was sitting on a $800 a month rackspace server i mooched for free off work.

Where will the money go? Well I’m right for hookers and coke right now and my m3 just got brand new rubber so the moneys going to go firstly to sustaining the existing setup, if you guys choose to be generous then I’ll get us a new hot shit server which should eliminate all the db crash’s and speed up the site again. If there’s an existing member who’s a DB specialist who wants to help out I’ll take that help too, but seriously it’s a big ass db so don’t take on the job unless you honestly think you can make a difference, you’re just going to look like a pingpingpingping if you fuck it up. I’d also like to add a live chat feature, so the Canberra pingpingpingpings can do even less work for their government money and I’d also like to add a shout box and a second $20 a month pop server to handle the absolutely massive amount of outgoing mail this place generates, personally I don’t give a fuck about the outgoing mail and thread notifications but let’s face it, it’s easier to make it work than listen to bigmuz whine about it. I'd also like to fix all the forum niggles like the guys who can't change there avatars and shit

How do i know you’re not going to spend my money on midget boxing in the Philippines? Well that’s a good question, and i do love midget boxing, here’s what I got in mind. I’m going to hand all financial control of this place to bill sherwood, basically he will own the forum financially, he will pay the bills and he will account for all the cash, as cash is spent we’ll give you guys a running tally of where it’s going and how much remains. Lets face it, bills too old to steal the money. If we run out of cash and no pingpingpingping wants to chuck more in then its not the end of the world, i’ll pay for everything again, just would help me out if i didn’t have to.

How much should i pay? Well that’s up to you, what do you think this free service is worth to you? Put in what you can afford, put in what you want to, don’t put in $500 and miss out on your car payment this month, but maybe u can go without some beers this weekend and throw in that money instead. The one thing i do ask is if you make money off this place for fucks sakes give us a kickback, ie, if Q sells a 911 turbo here and makes a 5k commission it would be nice if he chucked in a few bucks from the sale, oldmate who sold 100 USB modems here, you just made a heap of cash off this place, how about throwing some back in. You don’t fucking have to, and i wont think any less of you if you don’t, but you’d pay eBay, or yellow pages for the business generated, so do the forum the same courtesy. Btw that’s not a dig at Q or oldmate with the modems, there just the only pingpingpingpings i could think of when i wrote that.

Brockas, i don’t really like you, personally i think you’re a self important asshole i don’t wanna give you any money what should i do? Well chances are i don’t like you either, but look back over the past years ive never banned anyone for calling me a pingpingpingping. But the moneys not going to me, its going to you, its going to keep you pingpingpingpings entertained, to keep the club house open without pepsi max banners, so fuck you and pay some money already.

So there it is, bills been kind enough to setup a bank account to take donations, the details are as follows

blah blah


If you make a donation or you got something to say feel free to reply to this post and i’ll say thank you.
The balls in your court


Like I said, bigger forum, 7k.

Not that this has to happen, but its an idea. Im sure to many of us this place means alot, even 100 people at an average of 20 bucks would help Paul out a ton.

Ballers like ballsac can throw in a couple of grand each :D

[ben351]

predicts Built R to cop chairty mods :)

[YOUR MATE]

I'm willing to chip in some coin to keep this site up and running and all the associated things that go with it. These days it's the main if not only forum I bother with, and considering I'm on here a couple of times a day to get a laugh or check out womens/cars I have no problems donating to help it continue. +1 for not having a bigger avatar or special signature saying your a donating memeber.

[SEXUAL TYRANNOSAURUS]

I'm willing to chip in some coin to keep this site up and running and all the associated things that go with it. These days it's the main if not only forum I bother with, and considering I'm on here a couple of times a day to get a laugh or check out womens/cars I have no problems donating to help it continue. +1 for not having a bigger avatar or special signature saying your a donating memeber.

Echo the above, from me.

Im not a massive poster but here most day's since i joined and reading AL when im in the office makes it look like im doing work :)

[brynj]

Yeh that is what I was hoping for as well... unfortunately didn't quite work out like that.

I figured out that the page impressions reported by Westnet were about 3x what they were reported by google / digital niche.

Apparently this is because the pages like sponsor.php are embedded into the home forum page. Every time someone refreshes the forum, it registers are 3 page views.

To give you an idea, Google Ads is paying about $85 a month right now for the 2 banners.

I'm not worried about covering hosting, as the advertising does that (which is another reason I wont accept donations). Unfortunately, the way it is now it leaves no money in the antilag account for displays, events, etc etc.

I figure if we can all benefit from having different advertisers instead of google, it can only be a good thing...

I assume you know how it works, or have worked it out now.. but you need to look at visits or page views as opposed to hits, because as you said hits just refer to requests to the server for individual files related to a page and aren't indicative of the number of people actually visiting this site.

One person visiting one page on this site might generate 10 hits, and visiting a couple of pages could generate a lot more. It'd be much more beneficial to look at unique visitors, or page views depending on how you want to structure your advertising and costs associated.

[DanWA]

So why are you giving digital niche the flick? or is the other way around... finding it hard asking around for higher CPM.

[SEXUAL TYRANNOSAURUS]

So why are you giving digital niche the flick? or is the other way around... finding it hard asking around for higher CPM.

Can you not fucking read??

[JME]

I'm willing to shit in a cup and sell ilt on ebay and not share the profits.....

[mitchy]

Don’t X-Speed, ASG, SouthWest Brakes etc pay a fee to advertise on the site?? Surely that is enough to cover the cost of most things??

[DISTRBD]

Don’t X-Speed, ASG, SouthWest Brakes etc pay a fee to advertise on the site?? Surely that is enough to cover the cost of most things??

Thats why i charge you more for parts Mitch :)

[ben351]

I'm willing to shit in a cup and sell ilt on ebay and not share the profits.....

im willing to not pay to watch this

[yeahlow34]

I though the problem was the owner of the site just has too much cash?

[POTTER]

i'm willling to claim 20% of what you make out of this Brockas

and your backyard:)

Jokes!

[shifted]

Don’t X-Speed, ASG, SouthWest Brakes etc pay a fee to advertise on the site?? Surely that is enough to cover the cost of most things??

I think Brockas is saying that it covers the costs but nothing extra for the club itself as a whole ie. Stuff for antilag events etc.

[Brockas]

predicts Built R to cop chairty mods :)
#1 reason I wont accept donations. I don't want to have to justify where the money comes from to mod my car. Get enough snide remarks from muppets like you already ;)


I assume you know how it works, or have worked it out now.. but you need to look at visits or page views as opposed to hits.
Yeh I know how it works mate. I'm not talking about hits, never have. The difference is, you can't even take page views as accurate, as there are 3 "pages" loaded every time you refresh the forum page. This is due to the site design.


So why are you giving digital niche the flick? or is the other way around... finding it hard asking around for higher CPM.
Digital Niche went the way of the dinosaur when the recession hit. Before that, it was the perfect arrangement, and allowed me to pour money into events, get new banners made up, etc etc etc.

Ideally, we need something like that back.


Don’t X-Speed, ASG, SouthWest Brakes etc pay a fee to advertise on the site?? Surely that is enough to cover the cost of most things??
Yes they do. See above. They cover costs, but considering the traffic on this site we should be able to raise more money for events etc.


I think Brockas is saying that it covers the costs but nothing extra for the club itself as a whole ie. Stuff for antilag events etc.
Bingo.

[Tre-Cool]

Out of interest if you feel like sharing, but how is antilag currently hosted, own servers on a monthly rack hire? etc.

I only pay $150 a month per 1RU rack space in belmont in a secure environment. (government shit on site) and have unlimited bandwidth.

I'm sure theres a few other I.T connected people who could sort out a decent server to host this site if required. (I pick up decent server's from grays every so often with decent specs).

[Brockas]

I have extremely happy with Westnet, so not keen to change servers at all, but cheers for the suggestion.

[Scaf]

It sounds like you've pretty much decided against the whole donation thing for various understandable reasons, but to be honest i cant really see there being that much to lose so im just going to throw this one last suggestion out there.

A locked thread, just one thread with the details on how to donate and thats it, no whooha, no posting about who's donated what, no speak of it whatsoever. A thread that is sticky'd to the top of the 'new posts' thread list for a couple of months? - if thats even possible. State that nothing about the forum will change and nothing can be given in return. People can donate whatever they feel the site it worth to them, the site that gives you hours of laughs and cool stuff, helps you buy and sell your shit and gives you that information you so desperatly need. If people want to donate they donate, if they are concerned that the money is going to be spent on BUILT R then dont donate, its simple really.

Just an idea that i cant see any real downside to.

[DTM-031]

#1 reason I wont accept donations. I don't want to have to justify where the money comes from to mod my car. Get enough snide remarks from muppets like you already ;)

^^ This.

Also, x2 for not changing servers, I work for Westnet and you have a damn good deal :)

[rucker_]

It sounds like you've pretty much decided against the whole donation thing for various understandable reasons, but to be honest i cant really see there being that much to lose so im just going to throw this one last suggestion out there.

A locked thread, just one thread with the details on how to donate and thats it, no whooha, no posting about who's donated what, no speak of it whatsoever. A thread that is sticky'd to the top of the 'new posts' thread list for a couple of months? - if thats even possible. State that nothing about the forum will change and nothing can be given in return. People can donate whatever they feel the site it worth to them, the site that gives you hours of laughs and cool stuff, helps you buy and sell your shit and gives you that information you so desperatly need. If people want to donate they donate, if they are concerned that the money is going to be spent on BUILT R then dont donate, its simple really.

Just an idea that i cant see any real downside to.


This sounds decent.

[Brockas]

^^ This.

Also, x2 for not changing servers, I work for Westnet and you have a damn good deal :)

I know :)

It's good when you ring up Westnet and get one of you boys who go "oh, antilag, yeh I'm on that".

Always results in a good deal haha pass on my thanks.

[DTM-031]

haha yeah there's a few of us around :P

[SEXUAL TYRANNOSAURUS]

I don't quite understand Member's making Snide remarks about what is done with the money made here. AL is a business at the end of the day, what the owner chooses to spend the income on is at the owner's discretion, there should be no input/WHINGING from anyone else.

In a perfect World, ay.