Topic: About the Chart
Audio Ads, or No Audio Ads? That Is The Question. A new form of advertising promises to provide funding in sufficient amounts to keep this website afloat. The question is, how would you readers feel about having it on our pages?by Walt Thiessen
(Libertarian)
Friday, January 18, 2008
This question is for all Nolan Chart readers and not just Ron Paul supporters. I say that because Ron Paul supporters have been a large part of our readership growth, and we plan to be around long after the 2008 election is history, helping to continue the revolution that Dr. Paul's minions have started. So obviously how Ron Paul supporters feel about this question is important to us. Nevertheless, our aim is to appeal to all political camps, not just libertarians, so this question is for all our readers, no matter what camp you're in.
Our readership continues to grow at a phenomenal pace. We've already gone through two server upgrades in one month trying to keep up with the growth. Unfortunately, server upgrades mean higher and higher costs. Currently, we're barely breaking even. Obviously that needs to change. In order to sustain that growth and provide easy, free access to the articles and reader comments published by so many here, there has to be a sufficient revenue stream.
I've been investigating various ways to increase our revenue via advertising on the website. Today, I received an unusual offer about a newly developing form of advertising called Pay Per Play. It has the potential to greatly increase our website's monthly revenue, making it possible for us to continue to grow along with our readership.
It's a bit of a shock the first time you hear it. Apparently, they're proving to be quite popular among major advertisers.
So here's the question: if the Nolan Chart website were to include such ads on its pages, how would you feel about it? Would you hate it? Would you find it to be acceptable? Would you be willing to keep coming back, or would it drive you away screaming into the night?
As you probably already know, we have regular display ads on our pages, but we don't allow pop-up ads and pop-up windows. I made the decision not to offer pop-ups to advertisers on our site (despite the fact that pop-up advertising is very lucrative, about 5-10 times as lucrative as regular display ads for publishers like us) because I thought they detracted too much from the reader's enjoyment of what we have to offer here. So while the revenue would have been a welcome relief, I bit the bullet and said no to pop-up ads.
The question I'm asking is how would you feel about these audio ads? Would you not care about them, or would you absolutely hate them? Or would your opinion be somewhere in the middle?
Tell me by leaving a reader comment below. You can use the form at the bottom of the page to leave your comment. I'll make my decision only after I hear from you, our loyal readers.
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2008 Walt Thiessen, all rights reserved.
Published: Friday, January 18, 2008
Last modified: Friday, January 18, 2008
The views expressed in this
article are those of Walt Thiessen only and do not represent
the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. Walt Thiessen is
solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an
employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
I could live with it as long as the ads don't exceed 5 seconds. The funding of web sites with an orientation such as this is an ongoing challenge, and I commend you on how well it functions.
Frequent visitors could learn to turn down their speakers if the ads bothered them. It seems easier to aviod than visual ads overlying the readable text or blocking your ability to navigate the website. Your banner advertisements on the left of the screen have never bothered me either though.
I don't see any reason audio ads should be necessary, I think you should be able to make much more money from AdSense text ads if you redo your layout. Audio ads might turn off potential readers immediately. You should start by implementing the ideas in this article:
Posted By: Walt Thiessen
Date: 2008-01-18 17:37:34
Adsense revenue has been increasing, and it may perhaps end up continuing to increase the way pavlina's income did. I can't say for sure...our track record isn't as long as his is. We've only been up and running for five months.
Still, that doesn't mean we should expect all our revenue to come from one source, does it?
(We'll probably end up dropping some of the other PPC ads on the site, which are proving to be relatively poor income producers.)
The real question is the one I posed in this article: would audio ads be too much of an annoyance to readers?
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2008 Walt Thiessen, all rights reserved.