Advertising on Nexus Mods. The how, what and why, and what to do when it goes wrong.

[arkoftruth]

In response to post #45647185.

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tonicmole wrote: Who the hell is complaining about advertisements? I'm sick of everyone demanding everything for free like spoiled brats. I'd accept, "I'm trying to make money off of my mod site." If I owned and ran a massive site that cost as much as the Nexus and a user complained about small adds I'd permaban them into Oblivion! Than I'd start a mandatory $15 a month membership like every other online service. Which honestly, a $5 a month fee for downloading isn't a bad idea. Unless ads really work, but otherwise.

To be honest I think a mandatory membership would kill this site. However I did upgrade to supporter status just to remove the ads.

If you don't like the ads? Just do the one off payment to remove them. Simple as that :)

[Aireal2]

In response to post #45634790. #45635625, #45643415, #45644335, #45645145 are all replies on the same post.

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MrJohn wrote: Interesting article, much better content than the others I would commend.

The problem I have with the advertisements are mostly their annoyance. As far as I knew, you had removed the "lifetime membership" option back when you announced the "final sale" of them. But my opinion is not gained a positive spur from this article.

Viewing picture 5 and 6, I would like to say a few things. Beginning with picture 5, the banner advertisements aren't too bad. The bright background mitigates my first issue, which is contrast. The second square ad really breaks this. The first thing that pops up on the site is a bright white box, clearly disrupting the otherwise gray and pleasant to look at information, trying to squeeze my eyes to look at it, interrupting my viewer experience to push their product. It doesn't fit, and thereby becomes an anomaly in an otherwise good site.

We scroll down, and see what you see in picture 6. Not too bad. Banner ad holds the color of the page, it can be ignored successfully. But there it is again. Bright colors, clearly attempting to gut at you. "Look at me!!!!" it screams.

Which is the purpose of an advertisement, to gain attention. But right now my attention wants to be on modding.

Which brings me to the 2nd point, targeted advertisement. I am not condoning the art of cookie tracking, am quite strongly against it and any form of advertisements, even though their "wooo eviiiiil" is necessary. But there are a few simple steps that could help. Using your examples for picture 5 and 6, only one advertisement could be uniformly helpful to anyone viewing your site. The first banner ad, Discord. Something for the gamers. The rest are about christmas presents or traveling, nothing that you would come to the Nexus for. I doubt Github would have as much success putting up ads for puppies as you would for traveling. Understandably, you do not control the ads yourself as you've said, but it doesn't help.

A minor tweak would be to add more focus on gaming related advertisement, or to push your ad-provider for more things closer to home. Gaming equipment (keyboards, mice, Logitech/Razer etc.), computers (such as Origin PC), games or games media. These things would be interesting to your demographic (gamers/modders), and would maybe persuade more to help out. What I would rather fear is that it would cost your bottom line to restrict advertisement content. As far as I am concerned, most of these ads are just as bad as any other "bad ads", only "less frowned upon" so to speak.

I can only speak for myself of course. Generally, pages without ads are just better, cleaner and smoother. Less bandwidth is used, if you are on a metered connection, than if not. It all eventually boils down to ethics and morals.

What gives you the right to show us ads? Because you own the site? It is an open internet and you've made this site as a free resource. Some people pay for their bandwidth (such as mobile internet), and would probably not want to pay for the advertisements themselves given the choice. Is it right to push advertisements on them? And if we have the magic switch that says "no thanks", is it right for others to slander them because they don't give out money instead? Should we be expected to hand out cash for sites in exchange for ad-free nature? Ads that they push themselves.

In closing, I commend you for this article. The look into the backside of Nexus is always interesting, not always positive, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy them. You also avoided the "we needs monies, pls help" side of the story, though whenever a site mentions the "ads", they usually want to spark some feeling of "Maybe I should help", which is quite cheap. Personally I am torn on the issue regarding finances, as I know it is difficult.

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Ethreon wrote: "What gives you the right to show us ads? Because you own the site?"

Exactly. He owns it, and he would have to pay for it from his pocket. Even if he'd be a rich man, doubt you'd get the same amazing offer if there were no ads. Rest of your argument might be based and intelligent, but that there is a dumb statement.

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MrJohn wrote: A fair point. But there are other variables than just ownership. Consider it an open house. To enter you need to bring posters. But the house is open for all. No entry fee. So you arrive without grabbing that poster. Does he have the right to smack you for not taking the poster? The house is open, after all. He could plead you to bring the poster. A form of begging, if you are cynical.

But the fact is this that the road you use to travel to said house, the car/transport you use and so forth you cover yourself. Only the end-point is "owned", so to speak. But ads are like a baggage that rides along with you. Like a poster you need to bring with you.

This boils down to opinions, but really I don't think ownership of a site would also give you right to force ads people do not want to see. What would be a great idea would be choice of ads, where you could see the ad options and tailor the ads based on color, contrast, type and so forth, to actually give a personalized ad service that could be unintrusive and maybe even helpful.

I don't blame the users of ads, but rather the ads themselves. It's like producers like EA f*#@ing companies over, the same as advertisers f*#@ the companies using them over. It's all greed.

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Elianora wrote: > What gives you the right to show us ads?

^ The fact that he spends hundreds of thousands of monies a year to provide the service free for ungrateful people like you and hired a team of professional people to keep the site running as great as it can.

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Elta1 wrote: @MrJohn Its more like having someone else drive you around and they are willing to do it for free if you occasionally look at their crappy paintings. That person still has to maintain the car and put gas in it and you don't.

As one of those people that pay's for my band width ( my cell phone IS my internet connection) Personally I don't mind paying to keep the AD's off...I go out of my way to not go to sites with a lot of AD's... but those that I do go to that have them.. I either pay to not have to view them.. or it's a site I don't visit often..

As a retail manager I understand running costs.. I'm not rolling in money.. but I prefer to spend it where I want...and that's not more on my phone bill.

Any Service is going to come with a "fee".. it's all in how it's paid for..

[TombRaiser]

I used to use AdBlocker, but after a while of using it I felt bad, because I really do understand that ads on this kind of website is a means to pay for keeping the service running. So, I ended up becoming a supporter for that one time fee. I don't know why most people haven't become supporters yet. It costs more to buy a small cup of coffee at Starbucks than to pay a one time fee to become a supporter which in turn gets rid of ads forever!

[jaidyn09]

i use ad block but i also support the site each month for the better download speed

[redshift1979]

I'm fine with ads until they start talking, making music or noise, expanding on my screen, following me when I scroll. When this occurs you get put on AdBlock. No second chances lol.

[jjjk49]

honestly, i use adblock but i disable it for nexus ;)

[AGreatWeight]

Thanks for taking the time to write a reasonably detailed & lengthy explanation in easy to understand language explaining exactly WHY there is advertising on Nexus.

Whilst there are many of us who understood the reason beforehand and appreciate the amount of effort that goes into keeping the Nexus going, I have to admit that it's disappointing that there are still those who just don't quite 'get it'

 

 

 

[BlazeStryker]

I honestly plan to support mod makers as soon as I yet my yearly Online-purchase gift card. But I watch the ads. I let them play as it's more income for the site overall than the one-shot supporter fee.

 

I also rant about auto-sound adds and Adobe Crash cachebloat because they're the ones that make everyone do the adblock.

[chaptermaster21]

I don't joke when i say i sometimes intentionally keep browsing the nexus pages and click on ads just to help with the revenue.

 

I have no method of online payment available to me and barely enough money to scrape by lol, but i hope that by clicking the ads and cycling through the website's pages helps you guys.

 

I love the nexus and i hope one day i will be able to pay for premium membership to truly contribute to its longevity.

 

To Robin and the nexus staff i say, thank you so much for all your hard work and with all my heart i wish you the best of things =)

[Kalell]

There's something I've wondered ever since I became a supporter. Is the $2 I paid worth more than the ad revenue that would have been generated during the time I've been using the site? $2 seems like an awfully small amount, but the ad rev is even less. However, the ad rev adds up over time so it's possible that in the long run it may be more. It would be nice to know which is the better way to support the site.