Another small point is that it’s the weekend and the tech bods are on their days off so it’s not going to happen overnight.

Lots of moaning here but people forgetting that Singletrack is a business. The primary purpose of a business is to make money and deliver profit, not just cover overheads.

If some of the bigger, more interactive ads from major brands deliver greater revenue than other income streams, the business has a duty of care to maximise this stream.

Unless users are prepared to offset that profitability (not just cover overheads), they need to accept a commercial entity functioning as a business. It’s not a charity or community organisation.

Leave the ads alone as I like them loud and in your face! Reminds me of 90s.

I like it when my colleagues asked me what I was viewing on STW coz they thought I was viewing some dodgy stuff. No matter how serious they are I try to break their concentration by pretending to be serious … 😆

Despite claims to the contrary, they’re not restricted to one pop per day. And yes, I reported it.

Do STW report these adds to the advertising provider?

I would have thought it would be in everybody’s interest to crack down on these annoyances. If I was selling advertising onto customers websites, I wouldn’t want that advertising to trash my customers website. I am amazed that type of advertising can be effective, when it has happened to me I haven’t even noticed what the advert is for as I shut it down.

I am also a little surprised that they continue to work in apples “walled garden”, isn’t stopping this kind of crap exactly the reason they want to keep such control of their enviroment.

Do STW report these adds to the advertising provider?

A little info here.

Mark – Resident Grumpy
The ad is vital to us. Sorry. That’s the price of the website you are typing on. That said the ad is deliberately hobbled by us at 1:24. Which means you should see it once in 24 hours. The agency supplying it would live us to relax that cap. They have a large budget they would gladly send our way but we capped it as tightly as we could anyway to minimise the disruption. But fact is. No ads. No site. The choice at our end is easy.
They sent us another campaign yesterday that they wanted to run at the same time as the Tudor watch campaign. I explained we wouldn’t have two at once. We have compromised by setting these campaigns to run in alternative hours of the day. However after I set the ad live I spotted it was auto playing audio. I have paused that campaign now – at cost to us – while I wait for the agency to fix the audio playing issue.

We think carefully about how the ads work and how the affect your visit to our site carefully. We turn away high paying campaigns often if we think they cross a line. But we need the money to exist. £1.49 makes it all go away for a month.

It’s just Mark trying to strongarm us into paying for the forum. I’m sure he has graphs that he shows to the owners about how successful he’s being. Meanwhile, the thing that makes the forum what it is (the contributors) are getting more and more annoyed. (Just look at the amount of threads about this).
It happens with many, many forums, they thrive for a while then the owners try too hard to monetise it and everyone goes elsewhere and it may well happen here if somebody doesn’t get a grip of Mark.

I think that the ads replay if you shut them down whereas if you let them run their course they presumably only go once a day

(I don’t have an ipad so no idea, really)

Annoying as hell!

It’s just Mark trying to strongarm us into paying for the forum

It really isn’t.

If they wanted people to pay they’d introduce that.

It’s just Mark trying to strongarm us into paying for the forum.

Yes, I’m sure that’s exactly what it is. That’s totally a viable, scalable long-term business model.

I liked that Israeli magazine that has made people pay to post.

people could just buy 100 posts or something and then number of ads could be cut and lurkers could view for free with less ads to see see.

people could just buy 100 posts or something and then number of ads could be cut and lurkers could view for free with less ads to see see.

Hmmm! Make a profit off those who spend all day arguing. I like it.

Introducing mandatory subs would decimate the ad value of this forum.
I may not be right about the approach (and it seems I’m not!) All of a sudden the forum NEEDS pop ups? I Don’t see it.

All of a sudden the forum NEEDS pop ups?

So have you read the quote I posted up there?

1:24 is clearly not working unless this means a minimum of 24 pop ups per day

Amazing reaction to so many people getting pissed off.

Yes drac, I just don’t see why. It’s not entirely convincing (we just need it ok?)
Is the mag struggling? Grit must have cost a few quid, and that doesn’t seem to be on fire.

1:24 is clearly not working unless this means a minimum of 24 pop ups per day

Amazing reaction to so many people getting pissed off.

I’ve highlighted this thread so hopefully that will be looked at. Sorry it’s not working how it should and sorry but I can’t do anymore about it.

Is the mag struggling?

It will if they don’t get revenue. Like Mark says it’s either one or other, however I know Mark doesn’t like the intrusive ads so tries to keep them to a minimum. If they’re no behaving how they should he will try to fix that.

As I said earlier, we don’t have visibility of that sort of detail beyond what Mark chooses to share publicly on the forum (and he seems more up front than most about that sort of thing IME).

Which means you should see it once in 24 hours

I reckon it is closer to once an hour. Send them a bill for 24x at the end if the month then you can turn them off for 2 years. Win win.

I am interested in what CEO of Lloyds private bank thinks about the damage to his brand (sic) coming from this type of crass mass marketing.

I am interested in what CEO of Lloyds private bank thinks about the damage to his brand (sic) coming from this type of crass mass marketing.

Aye this publicity of Lloyds bank is the worst on record.

Will people who block or regularly clear cookies see the ads more frequently?

Of course, part of the amusement here is the inanity of the ads in question. The most recent sources of the biggest complaints have been;
Audi – OK, stereotypes aside, it’s hardly the brand of choice for most on here, especially not to buy from new!
Tudor watches – While £2,000 watches are lovely, again, hardly the right target market for the majority here.
Lloyds Private Banking – Laughable! Not only is the “entry criteria” almost certainly beyond all but a very select few here, but they’re not even one of the good private banks out there! Hardly a Hoare’s or Fleming’s are they? 😉

Understood, but don’t other advertisers object to these pop ups driving readers away from the site?

Understood, but don’t other advertisers object to these pop ups driving readers away from the site?

I can’t answer if they’re lost visitors due to these ads as I have no figures than you do.

Apart from a server, you only need a web-developer/sysadmin for running the site.

Perhaps the web adverts pay for their salary, instead of drawing money from the printed magazine pot?

I get the bank pop up nearly every time I browse …

Just to add a couple of comments regarding things said above, and which I’ve stated on a previous thread about these pop-up ads.
First, and fairly important, I have no issues with adverts on this site, they really don’t bother me at all, which is why I’m not bothered about paying the subscription to be rid of them.
I AM bothered by pop-ups that render my chosen way of viewing the site totally unusable, by effectively locking my screen because the advert scales beyond the screen and will not respond to any attempt to clear it.
This is either crap design by the agency responsible, or deliberate, to ensure people have no choice but to be directed to the advert. I hope that’s not the case, but, having dealt with agencies in the past, I wouldn’t be too surprised…
Also, even after activating the Premier account kindly gifted me by Pick’n’mix, I was still getting the ads, although they did seem to have stopped after a while.
It does seem that the agencies producing these ads should have it firmly pointed out to them that their chosen business method is counter-productive, as evidenced by the number of threads they’ve spawned.
FWIW, I really like Tudor watches! I’d actually take the time to look at their site, too.
I just object most strongly to being forced to do so by such shitty ad creation.
That’s all.
🙂

But is it? I’m not in advertising but maybe they’ve crunched the numbers and worked out that this approach really does work?

Maybe the advertisers know better?

Tudor watches – While £2,000 watches are lovely, again, hardly the right target market for the majority here.

It doesn’t have to be the majority on here . It just needs to be enough to justify the cost of advertising

Lloyds Private Banking – Laughable! Not only is the “entry criteria” almost certainly beyond all but a very select few here, but they’re not even one of the good private banks out there! Hardly a Hoare’s or Fleming’s are they?

See above

Audi – OK, stereotypes aside, it’s hardly the brand of choice for most on here, especially not to buy from new!

There are enough threads asking about that end of car for it to peak some interest.

Tudor watches – While £2,000 watches are lovely, again, hardly the right target market for the majority here.

There is a about a monthly what expensive look how much I spent on a watch thread so again target market tick.

Lots of sites now use ads, plenty have full sound on video ads which is great when you open lots of tabs at once. In some cases when searching for something I have had the same supermarket video ad playing over itself 10x.

All of this here costs money. How do you pay for it?

Odd way to promote premium branding then?

But then at least two have only aspirations to be premium brands. Who would go to lloyds for private banking services?

teamhurtmore – Member
Odd way to promote premium branding then?

Honestly it seems to be working, even those of us who don’t get adds now know about Tudor watches and that Lloyds do private banking.

Lloyds? Do they do private banking then?

Ask Russell Galley….although quick google suggest that he is hardly in control. Swiss private banking still core Russell?

….apparently so, feel the quality of the product offering….may be there is a place for a LIDL approach to rip off private banking?

They must be having orgasms on profile hits …..just wait of the conversion stats though!!!!!!

These pop ups are putting me off the site, on my iPad the only way to escape/clear them seems to be ‘go back’ a page, though I have had to close the app a few times! I may well rejoin again to avoid them but I don’t drop in as much as I use to as I feel I’ve been here so long that we keep coming back to old ground….

just curious, but are most of the pop-up ads on iPads?

I am on here all the time on my PC and I don’t get any.

I’m in the USA, but don’t think that would make any difference

IME, yes

just curious, but are most of the pop-up ads on iPads?

No, also on my Hudl. But none on my Blackberry.