The new ads in the middle of the forum are annoying...

Perhaps this is discussed elsewhere, but....

So now in addition to the thick sidebar of ads on the forum (which is ok), now there are ads between every few topics?  These line-item ads in between topics are really annoying to me, YMMV. Makes it harder to just browse-down. I chose to make a monthy Patreon donation to the GRM forum, but if half my screen is going to be covered by ads....: /     Look, I know we're all used to being hit with advertising pretty much everyplace, which is ok. Ads pay the bills. But the ads right in the middle of the screen are really obnoxious, IMO. 

LOL - I keep thinking I'm at the end of the page every time I see an ad.

Yup.  It's obnoxious.  Ads are taking up nearly as many square inches as content.

There's another thread here where people are complaining about it, they pretty much got told "too bad"

Steve_Jones said:

There's another thread here where people are complaining about it, they pretty much got told "too bad"

I'm sure the ad payments are more if people actually click on ads. And sticking them in between topic threads probably results in a lot of accidental clicks (which probably doesn't happen on the sidebar ads as much). 

IDK, perhaps they could set it up so people giving via Patreon can go ad-free like other forums, youtube, etc. 

Or just add a couple more pages of Weathertech ads to the magazines to make up the difference ;)

The giant pop-up asking me to subscribe (at least, that's what I think it is...I don't ever read it) is way more irritating.

Nope, we're wrong, we were told they aren't invasive, so they must not be.

ddavidv said:

The giant pop-up asking me to subscribe (at least, that's what I think it is...I don't ever read it) is way more irritating.

I think my pop-up blocker deals with that one. I mean, if GRM is looking to save some money, you guys probably spent a couple dollars sending me renewal letters in the mail in the last couple months.....except I already renewed my mag subscription! :)

I'm really disappointed by the lack of ads for ED treatment, have those companies at least been given a media kit? We are their target market! There's a project Corvette in the magazine now and everything! 

Seriously, I have no issues with the ads, events, driving schools and sa2020 helmets are the ones that pop up most often for me and those are of legitimate interest. 

I hope GRM's revenue stream isn't impacted  by whether we accidentally click on something because they stuck it in the middle of the page.  That's a crappy way to do business. 
 

It's a thumbs down for me.

But I still love you guys!!

I don't find it that difficult to continue scrolling down to find something of interest, and I believe that it takes ad money to keep this ship afloat.  Doesn't bother me.

Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) said:

I don't find it that difficult to continue scrolling down to find something of interest, and I believe that it takes ad money to keep this ship afloat.  Doesn't bother me.

I'm fine with ads in general. I just find the placement of these particular ads to be annoying. Just stick them over the "birthdays" box on the right instead :) None of us old guys cares about birthdays any more :)

The trick to advertisments is getting them noticed. Conveniently putting them off to the side does not do the trick. They are supposed to be directly in your line of vision and you are supposed to read them. GRM is pretty tame advertising wise, and the website so far as I can see is a no revenue sidebar to the magazine, so anything they need to do to keep the lights on is fine with me. 

bearmtnmartin said:

The trick to advertisments is getting them noticed. Conveniently putting them off to the side does not do the trick. They are supposed to be directly in your line of vision and you are supposed to read them. GRM is pretty tame advertising wise, and the website so far as I can see is a no revenue sidebar to the magazine, so anything they need to do to keep the lights on is fine with me. 

Again, I'm fine with that. But I also donate monthly to this forum with actual money. I'm a big fan of the ability to be able to "buy out of ads" and wish GRM could implement that, perhaps. I'd be curious to know how much GRM makes on selling ads pro-rated to my personal amount of forum use and whether it's more or less than what I actually donate. 

Also, IMO the GRM forum has more prominent/intrusive ads than any other forum I'm on. Or at least it's the only forum I'm on where I noticeably get annoyed at the new ad position, that I can think of.  

Adblocker takes care of it for me, IMO if ads are too annoying thats the way to deal with it.  If they want add revenue then they can make them less annoying.

After a couple days, I've gotten used to them.

Reddit does in-line ads, too, but it's sometimes hard to tell the difference between an ad and content; here, it's pretty obvious, which I appreciate.

I run adblock because I don't care how big I can make it in just 7 days.

Agreed.  Especially bad on mobile as it's easy to stop scrolling as they seem to be the bottom of the page.

Makes me want to finish setting up the Pi-Hole to kil some of the ads for the mobile devices.

The ads themselves are fine, thankfully, but their placement?  Meh.

I think you can do better, especially with the forum supporters helping out, but it's a E36 M3ty time all around and you know that people here don't like change.  You could have handled this better and prepared the people who would impacted with some sort of notice, makes us feel like we're not part of the community, just customers.

bearmtnmartin said:

The trick to advertisments is getting them noticed. Conveniently putting them off to the side does not do the trick. They are supposed to be directly in your line of vision and you are supposed to read them. GRM is pretty tame advertising wise, and the website so far as I can see is a no revenue sidebar to the magazine, so anything they need to do to keep the lights on is fine with me. 

Thanks for understanding; the size and placement of ads is always a tough balance to strike, but after seeing the costs of running this site continue to rise, and so many of our peers go to more and more intrusive ads (within article text, disguised as user posts in forum topics, constant pop-up ads, etc.), we made the tough decision to add those few additional positions. And yes, for the ads to provide value to our advertisers, they need to be in areas of the screen you're looking at. The same way the magazine doesn't have all the articles in the first half, then all the ads in the back. It's mixed up in order to get eyeballs on the ads and keep the lights on.

For forum supporters, though: I understand the desire to see fewer ads due to your financial support. I think I posted this in the other thread, but yes, we've got the developers working on it. Our vision is to build supporter functionality directly into the site, which will let us automate benefits and then add new ones.

Thanks for understanding, everybody. 

ShawnG said:

I run adblock because I don't care how big I can make it in just 7 days.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. 

GRM is one of two sites that I whitelist on my adblocker (the other is my bank, which oddly won't function correctly if you block ads). I don't even notice the ads anymore, even the new ones. Having worked at a mega corporation where our lives were measured in CPCs, CPMs and ad impressions the GRM staff has to pay the bills somehow.

Just don't go down the dark path of paid content advertising...without me to guide you. My consulting rates are reasonable.

Sometimes you gotta fire a customer.  They don't always know best. 
 

To be honest, although I find the placement annoying, I have never once read one of those ads. I have no idea what they are for, or how long you've been running them.  My eye jumps right over them.

If your advertisers think this adds value to their business, I don't get it.

I know where to look when I want a vendor for a product. I look in the advertiser's list in the back of the magazine, or even peruse the display ads or the side column of this forum. I ask for advice (and always appreciate when someone refers me to a GRM advertiser).   I would never search through the body of the content to see if there possibly might be a pop up ad that can help me. 
 

I know you are trying to find the subtle balance to keep things going, and I totally respect that.  If the method devalues the magazine or the forum, then it also devalues the advertising impact. 
 

Keep up the good work- I know it's not easy. 

Nothing is free.  Including this forum. 

 I am pretty sure the owners need to monitor this all the time just to keep it legal and prevent them from incurring liability in case someone goes off the rails in a rant that would get the attention of the Secret Service, et al.  

Then there is maintaining of the standards they prefer.   

 Its like ads on TV.  They show up because they pay the bills.

Lots of ads, lots of pop ups.  Truly annoying.

I turned off my ad blocker on this site because being slightly inconvenienced is a small price to pay to ensure the free resource I enjoy stays up and running.