Someone made a comparison to Piston heads earlier.
Piston heads is owned by a US company called Cargurus which is a public company listed on the NASDAQ. It was bought in 2019 from Haymarket for £15m.
Cougar. With the utmost respect. As you're a full member. You'll have no real idea just how bad the ads make using this place. And it's not as if the ads aren't even the only problem with the site for free members.
I don't think anyone is calling Mark "bloody stupid" but I'd go as far as to suggest a level of naivety and ignorance here.
Thank you for your reply and taking the time to try and help
I was a Free Member for a while. A year maybe? It's only recently changed, like in the last couple of weeks.
Pretty much every media site I visit now has the 'Accept Ads or Pay' Pop Up. Some still allow ad-blockers but it's decreasing.
That bastion of depravity The Guardian does it these days.
I do wonder whether they're struggling. They continually run fundraising campaigns and donation requests to keep the lights on.
Kinda puts STW's position into perspective.
I don’t really understand the reluctance to pay under 10p a day to support this place
I was a subscriber until reasonably recently and paid into one of the fundraisers for the forum too. I let my subscription lapse because I was finding the forum's constant bugs, glitches and falling over very irritating and I kinda thought it annoys me more than it assists me. That combined with other external factors made me want to scale back the amount of time I spent here. I don't have any problem with the ads tbh, I don't find them that intrusive on a tablet and if they keep the lights on that's ok with me.
This is the only site I ever visit which has intrusive pop up ads or an "accept ads or pay" or policy. including a couple of other forums. I don't ever look at news sites though.
Eurgh, they're alarmingly common on "news" sites such as the Sun, Express, Hatemail etc; also to be found on the Planetfootball/rugby/F1 family of sites. On the latter the ads are so intrusive I've resorted to other ways of getting around them though
I don’t really understand the reluctance to pay under 10p a day to support this place.
Well it is a consumer decision, do I get value compared to other things I could spend money on, in my case the answer is no. I subscribed to the magazine for well over ten years, invariably magazines on the same subject can get repetitive so they do tend to have a shelf life and I wasn’t even opening the packaging in the end. It wasn’t a difficult decision especially as I was fed up with some the virtue signalling that had impacted the operation of the forum. Based on what I have seen or heard since, the mag content holds no interest so I am not going to pay for it.
But what about the community? The forum is a shadow of its former self, most of the posters I found moderately interesting seem to have gone – ernie has apparently been banned and he was pretty much the last man standing. I occasionally think about posting but can’t be bothered because I can’t face the dimwitted responses when there are no interesting ones likely to be forthcoming.
As for the user experience, I finally managed to get the quote function to work. Unfortunately that takes up the whole reply box so I can’t see what I am typing so to post this I had to copy the quote script into word, type out my post in word and then paste it all back.
Re: ads, I saw an ad I was moderately interested in yesterday. However, I couldn’t click on it because it was being covered by another ad!
Everything has its day and I am afraid that seems to be the case for this forum.
All free users should have a code in their message inbox that gives you £8 off your first 2 months of digital subscription. So 2 months of Full Membership for £1.
In defence of gah there isn't a message that's immediately obvious ... and not being a full member means I can't post an image of the problem.
When i select messages as @mark has shown I have a screen that says "Create New Private Conversation."
There's no obvious sign of an inbox, or indeed any of the messages/conversations that have had in the past.
Only when I click on a not particularly obvious three-line and dot-point kind of thing to the left hand side of the screen do I find that I've two unread messages.
Clicking on that shows me the message... eventually. Which I may as well post here:
-
We've just launched some new features on the website that are exclusively for our subscribers. As well as ad free web browsing and full access to our magazne archives, subscribers can now use improved search, AI chat with Stan our benign forum expert, get topic summaries and even translate posts into countless languages.
We'd love you to give it a try too, so we have a special offer for you.
This code...
digimay1
Will knock £8 off your first payment against a bi-monthly digital subscription. That means you will pay just £1 for 2 months of full subscriber access.
You can cancel your subscription at any time (your sub will last a full 2 months regardless of when you cancel). Of course we hope you will stick with us beyond this introductory offer, but we'll leave that entirely up to you.
If you want to take us up on this special offer just head to our membership page and add the bi-monthly digital subscription to your basket. You can apply the code at the checkout.
Cheers
Mark
p.s - This code expires on the 8th May.
4/27, 23:22 -
That page then...
...but then when I try it I am told I already have a subscription.
Is there a secret handshake I don't know about?
That bastion of depravity The Guardian does it these days.
I do wonder whether they're struggling. They continually run fundraising campaigns and donation requests to keep the lights on.
there is no paywall at the guardian nor are there pop up ads. there is a pop up asking you to subscibe, you can just click and the pop up goes awsy. They are in a stable position financially
Grauniad has a limit on the number of articles you can read each month without a subscription.
I had a subscription years ago, but it was problematic for some reason i can't remember now. I think because I purchased it through some account that wouldn't transfer and there was no family membership system.
I hate ads but for this sort of site they're the difference between it continuing to exist and not, some people seem to think it's the difference between STW making fistfuls of cash or just getting by, it's clearly not.
I've made so much use out of the STW forum over the years I'm happy to subscribe, I spend more time on here than on Netflix...
Sure for those that can't afford the sub fair enough, it's a bit crap - almost to the point of being unusable (much like if I make the mistake of clicking on a link to a local 'news' web-site) but I can't really see another option. It is true though without free members providing content this forum would die fairly quickly.
For those that can afford to sub but choose not to and still complain, wtf? Have one less soy latte whilst your £8k eMTB is charging at the £25 a day trail centre and sub.
I hate ads but for this sort of site they're the difference between it continuing to exist and not, some people seem to think it's the difference between STW making fistfuls of cash or just getting by, it's clearly not.
im not sure people think mark et al are wallowing in piles of cash through the ads, i just think they wonder why the 'ad experience' has to be so much worse than so many other sites that use ads for revenue.
im happy to pay full whack for the forum, its definitely worth it to me, but i linked a thread to my wife the other day as i thought she'd be interested in it. she clicked it, then said she couldnt be bothered to try and 'wade through that lot' to read it. singletrack figures quite highly on google searches i find, so id guess that reaction is replicated quite often when randomers come across search hits. i know i used to direct my friends to threads on here back in the day but i dont now as they wouldnt thank me for it.
tis a shame, and i dont know what the answer is. ive often thought mark must feel like just jacking it all in when theyve tried to make the experience better (investment, new forum etc), then there are still constant complaints. one day he might which would be a great shame, id really miss it big time.
Everything has its day and I am afraid that seems to be the case for this forum.
If I've learnt one thing after 40 years in business is that customers come and go - loyalty means nothing (on both sides).
You do what's best for the business - you'll lose some customers but you'll gain some too.
I'm freeloader but I can see the like button now? Seems to be a bait and switch though as if i press it and then view the post in incognito mode my 'hate like' isnt showing up 😂
anyway, seems a lot like local news sites death spiral
cant make enough money, add adds, degrades UX, users decrease, can't make enough money, add more adds, degrades UX, users decrease
...but then when I try it I am told I already have a subscription.
That happened to someone the other day. Turned out the user in question already has a sub in their basket and it won't let you add a second one.
Whether that's the case in this instance, obviously I've no idea.
there is no paywall at the guardian nor are there pop up ads. there is a pop up asking you to subscibe,
The pop-up asks you to subscribe or accept "personalised" advertising.
i just think they wonder why the 'ad experience' has to be so much worse than so many other sites that use ads for revenue.
Are those "other sites" propped up by other ventures?
The Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday between them sell over a million newspapers a month, as a random example. And their parent company is considerably more than that: "The Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) is a British multinational media conglomerate and investment company, controlled by the Rothermere family. It owns dmg media, which publishes the Daily Mail, MailOnline, The Mail on Sunday, Metro, and The i Paper, alongside B2B businesses in property data, exhibitions, and dmg ventures."
Are those "other sites" propped up by other ventures?
@cougar no idea mate. i thought id just try an experiment so used firefox as it wouldnt sign me in here automatically. i tried to think of another large forum that i use and wouldnt be signed in automatically, 'tripadvisor' and compared the two, they were quite different.
tripadvisor had a few ads on the screen but nothing to stop you having a pleasant enough scroll through the topics. this site had a video of jimmy floyd hasselbaink talking about football, other video ads, a pop up ad on top of another ad. it wasnt pleasant, so i can only imagine what it would be like on a phone screen.
so whats the difference? dunno. maybe tripadvisor is owned by a parent company that can chuck more money into it, no idea really. i guess if the stw experience was a little more sedate, fewer video scrolls, flashing ads, then there would be fewer complaints, but those ads might put most money into the coffers.
tis a difficult one indeed, but mark knows better than us what bang for buck he needs to keep the lights on.
so whats the difference? dunno. maybe tripadvisor is owned by a parent company that can chuck more money into it,
The difference is several billion.
@reeksy you are quite right about your sub. I checked and you sub has been 'on hold' since 2022 due to a cancelled payment. I've cleared that off the system now. Also, the WPForo message notification process is not clear - you do have to click on the message hamburger/menu to reach your messages - We are talking to the WPForo supprt engineers to see if they have a better signposting/alert system. If they can't we'll try and build one ourselves.
The difference is several billion.
ok, ill try and think of something more 'hobbyish' 😀 pinkfish media, for hifi buffs?
just been on there and theres one large ad at the top, one at the bottom, neither one is flashing and again its an easy enough, pleasant enough experience to open a thread and read it without any obtrusive popups.
so whats the difference? dunno. maybe tripadvisor is owned by a parent company that can chuck more money into it, no idea really.
AI:
"Tripadvisor makes money primarily through a diversified model focused on travel advertising, commissions from bookings, and subscriptions. The company earns significant revenue via cost-per-click (CPC) advertising, where hotels and online travel agencies (OTAs) pay for traffic, alongside commissions from "instant booking" services and the Viator experiences segment."
ok, ill try and think of something more 'hobbyish'
pinkfish media, for hifi buffs?
As far as I can tell from two minutes with Google, Pink Fish Media is "just" a forum. It appears to be a one man band enterprise and it earns money via commission when users are buying and selling.
If all you are is a forum, your only running costs is hosting. It's probably a tidy little earner.
PlanetSport have at my request reduced the in content ads by 25%. I'm monitoring the effect of revenue closely and also the sales of subscriptions. One will happen quickly, the other will happen slowly, if at all. Fiscal drag is a worry when we do things like this. Changes that can impact revenue instantly can take much longer to impact revenue in a positive way elsewhere - This is where parent companies with lots of cash can bank roll the drop in revenues while they wait for the benefits in increased revenues elsewhere to appear. In our case those two competing forces are ad revenue (Instant drop) vs Subs revenue (slow increase). The difference we don't have reserves for. Or we do but the cost of borrowing it is extremely expensive and involves putting more debt on the company books. Those are the choices I have to weigh up when considering what are seemingly simple decisions like make the website nicer for people that don't pay directly and hope this makes them decide to pay.
This is the crux of the dilema of running a media buisness. The really good stable revenues like subscriptions and magazine copy sales are really slow to change. But the decisions that can possibly nudge those revenues in an upward direction can create instant costs that are substantial. Take the free gifts that are typical or the big discounts offered by media brands to get you to subscribe. We use those strategies too. Those campaigns come at a cost to the media brand and generally mean that for the first year you make nothing or even a loss on the free offer - the payoff, hopefully, comes when they decide to stay and their sub renews a year later - which is a year after the media brand had to pay for that campaign.
TLDR: The choices I have to make here are difficult because we do not have reserves on which to place the bets that we will get a payoff. Every choice I make is weighed against what the effect it will have on the bank balance and the ability to pay the bills and wages that week. After the feedback here and eleswhere I've taken a gamble that we can afford the ad revenue drop that we will feel for real in 28 days time against the chance that change will lead to an increase in subs aquisitions and renewals. If I'm wrong then I'm going to have to find a way to pay for it.
For this website?
For the whole business
thanks for your comprehensive reply Mark. is suspect i know the answer, but do all singing all dancing flashing ads provide you with more revenue than the same sized plain ad?
cheers
That's a complicated issue - as is typical.
The simple display ads that represent bike brands that we have a direct marketing campaign deal with, like the forum sponsor banners are usually tied in to a direct financial campaign involving lots of things like social media, newsletters and print etc. So there's not a direct correlation to be drawn on any one particular channel. The programmatic ads - the ones that animate, popup up and the like are extremely compicated in how they perform and what affects them. Th erates we get for the,m vary on aday to day basis and are affected by such obscure things like decisions made by Trump. This is becasue they are essentially a commodity market. We don;t set the rates - the advertsiing market sets th erates based on advertisers and agencies at the front end bidding on keywords and other targeting factors. When Trump bombed Iran the rates dropped by 30% instantly because businesses instatly reduced their outgoing spend to see hwo the world reacted.
We get paid in what is called an eCPM. That is an effective Cost Per Thousand impressions. But this is misleading. It implies that if we display more ads we will earn more money. That's not how it works. At the front end the money being pumped into the market by actual advertisers is done ins the form of what is called Pay Per Click campaigns. This means the advertiser only pays for clicks on the ad and not just because it was displayed. The fact they refere to it is eCMP at our end (The publisher is the end pioint of delivery) is juts so we can account for th erevnue eaily. the 'e' part is the giveaway here - that stands for 'effective' which tells you it's a dreived number and not actually the real thing - see? Complicated bollocks.
So, the actual reality is we only get paid when ads get clicked, although the amount we get is then labeled as a cost per thousand impressions. Truth is if no one clicked the ads our eCPM woudl be zero. This makes it easy to fall into th etrap as a publisher in thinking that the more ads you pump into a page the more money you will make. The counter ius also true though. If you don;t display enough then you will get fewer clicks and the eCPM wil be low - so there is an optimal number fo ads - finding that optimal point is really hard and it;s where the variables of user expereinec play a part too. There are programmatic suppliers (like EZoic who we were with for a few years) who claim they use AI to calaculate this optimal balance point between UX and eCPM, but in my experience they are still pretty wrong most of the time, especially where you have a community based site where the experience of one person can have a very public exposure. If there were no forum and therfore no direct feedback from the community I could just look at the overall big numbers and find the optimal point - there would be some users for whom this would be an awful experience but the overall effect would be averaged. But with a community forum those user who get a bad UX can speak up and that has to be taken into account.
so, TLDR if you don't click an ad then ultimateluy no revenue flows. Maximising the clicks and revenues is really hard to do and when left to AI and algos it means some users will get a poor UX. I try and please everyone all the time by making changes where I think it will help. But even if there is just one ad on the page and it doesn't animiate this will not suit everyone.
I hate programmatic ads more than you do. But they added £40k to our bottom line last year. I want to replace that with subs revenue but fiscal drag is what stops me from just turning them off - so I have to tread very carefully.
Oh and I forgot to add... The nice ads from bike brands that don't track and look pretty are at the whim of marketing people in the bike industry and when they get hit by increased costs and uncertainity in global operations due to some ****er in the whitehouse having a spasm it means they get really nervious about signing nice long term marketing contracts with the likes of us. So there's that then 🙂
Our most stable and secure revenue stream is subscriptions.
This is becasue they are essentially a commodity market. We don;t set the rates - the advertsiing market sets th erates based on advertisers and agencies at the front end bidding on keywords and other targeting factors.
theres an extremely interesting episode of Word of Mouth about the micro auctions around internet searches. Quite good fun as it involves taking lines of poetry and calculating the price advertisers would pay to give their sites prominence for each word
Without wanting to spoil the ending ... if you could create anxiety amongst mountain bikers about asbestosis you'd be quids in.
Without wanting to spoil the ending ... if you could create anxiety amongst mountain bikers about asbestosis you'd be quids in.
[Waits for pinned post from Mark]
An internet mtb forum as quiet as this shouldn't be costing anywhere near 40 grand per year to run.
So unless they've made some monumental budgeting mistakes singletrack seem to have been using these ads to acrew revenue to support the rest of the business. No?
The old, forum subsidises the magazine angle.
Nope. It doesn't. This forum is not quiet. There have been over 2k posts in the last 7 days. There are much busier forums for sure but this one is not quiet. 50k posts since 1st January.
The fundamental point, which I have made many many times, is that Singletracvk is not in the forum business. We are in the cycling media business. I could choose to shift us to just a forum and to be fair that would probably suit me personally just fine, especially now AI can do a lot of the heavy tech lifting. I reckon I could earn a modest income from just this forum and a few ad spots.
But here's the truth of it. I just don't want to.
I have chosen to head up and run a media brand that pays salaries and commission to a team of people that I like. This is my personal choice. I like doing that. I don't want to run just a forum. That's boring to me. I like the realtionships and interesting work that comes with running a media brand.
Is that ok?
And another thing.... 🙂
It IS quiet in here right now.
It's really ****ing sunny outside right now
there is no paywall at the guardian nor are there pop up ads. there is a pop up asking you to subscibe,
The pop-up asks you to subscribe or accept "personalised" advertising.
but you do not have to and you get the same experience no matter what you do
the guardian is very unusual and a poor example.
Anecdotally, Pinkbikes whole forum is broadly as busy as STWs bike forum, so not including the STW chat forum.
It IS quiet in here right now.
It's really ****ing sunny outside right now
And the reasoning in the winter was that fewer people were posting because they weren't riding so much. Shouldn't it be busy at the moment, like tennis courts during Wimbledon? Or is it just that the forum has strayed so far from being a mountain biking based place (or even a cycling place) that it's irrelevant whether people ride bikes or not - it's just work avoidance for the terminally bored.
it genuinely staggers me that £40k of ad revenue is generated by user clicks.
Who are these people?
unless it’s accidental clicks trying to close the ad blocking most of the content…
Weather has an affect. Time of year has an affect. Consistently for the last 25 years the busiest day of the year is the first working day in the new year. Middle of winter, right after Christmas. A wet spring can bring in the traffic - a dry spring can reduce it, at least during the daylight hours. There's always people at desks, not working, whatever the weather - none of these factors are all or nothing but they do interact to create patterns of behaviour. Forums are powered by a small number of users. Typically the ratio is 90:9:1 which means 1% of a an online community will start a topic. 9% will interact by way fo a reply or a like. 90% will lurk and read only and not engage beyond that. That's a widespread ratio accross nearly all online communities. The numbers I see here generally verify that theory.
younger demographic and young folk don't tend to use old style forums. Init?Anecdotally, Pinkbikes whole forum is broadly as busy as STWs bike forum, so not including the STW chat forum.
Pinkbike engagement and comments on articles will absolutely destroy the numbers here.
Thanks again. Mark
I'm definitely a high earner for singletrack on that front.Who are these people?
unless it’s accidental clicks trying to close the ad blocking most of the content…
Closing Ads little Xs with my clumsy fingers on a phone screen is like playing whack a mole in the dark.
younger demographic and young folk don't tend to use old style forums. Init?
Maybe so - but the trouble with Facebook groups and the like is it's so hard to find a topic or old post. SM algorithms really like to push new content.
There's a structure here that us old folk can cope with!!! 🤣