Advertising On Acorn

[scwebsites]

If advertising is cheap it will be abused. £10 for an advert and you will get lots of adverts but the quality will likely be poor. For what I would like to advertise, a banner simply would not allow me space to explain my services.

Yes I think adverts should be closed, to stop negative replies and more importantly, to avoid advertisers constant bumping their ad to the top.

I really hope you at least trial this.

[scwebsites]

Or why not please everyone by allowing advertising posts at £10.00 and 1 month sticky posts for £50.00 or something like that. Then have a maximum of six sticky posts running at 1 time.

Just an idea.

That would be your best revenue model I think.

[peter_w]

I really don't see what the harm is in just changing "Services Wanted" to be "Services Wanted and Offered", with a minimum post count applicable to post Offers.

£50 to post in an advertising section on Acorn would be, frankly, absurd.

[scwebsites]

Allowing free advertising would be nightmare for admin and other members. There would be hundreds of adverts in no time, most of which offering web hosting for £1.99 a year or something equally boring.

The fewer adverts, the better for everyone, but the ability to advertise for a decent fee would be good for the site, they need revenue, as does any website, and good for serious advertisers.

[jimm]

Smaller amounts wont mean it will be abused. Just look at other similar quality forums and you will see pleanty of examples where it works.

Originally Posted by peter_w

I really don't see what the harm is in just changing "Services Wanted" to be "Services Wanted and Offered", with a minimum post count applicable to post Offers.

Neither do I but I also dont begrudge paying a reasonable amount either.

[peter_w]

Any kind of "fee" based barrier, whether it's £50 or 50p, will limit the number of ads being posted to only a handful. I honestly think you are over-estimating the impact of a "cheap" way of doing it. As it is now, people are effectively free to post adverts anyway in the Services Wanted section, yet it isn't over run with low quality offerings or hundreds of threads being bumped.

Originally Posted by scwebsites

Allowing free advertising would be nightmare for admin and other members. There would be hundreds of adverts in no time, most of which offering web hosting for £1.99 a year or something equally boring.

The fewer adverts, the better for everyone, but the ability to advertise for a decent fee would be good for the site, they need revenue, as does any website, and good for serious advertisers.

[Sussexite]

Why not allow all members just one "services offered" post in a new thread. This can then be edited by members as they change what they are flogging.

If the services offered are blatantly off topic, then the right of that member to use the service is revoked permanently.

Not everyone will take this up, so hopefully this wouldn't be too onerous.

[Edwin]

Why should admin offer people anything else for free? There's already an amazing amount of free publicity offered via this site, for names that are for sale or to lease (whether primarily listed here or elsewhere). There's also the chance for service providers to approach those requesting services via the Wanted forum, again for free. Frankly (wearing my "commercial hat") there's already too much that's free on Acorn, given the amount of transactions that take place through here...

[scwebsites]

Originally Posted by peter_w

Any kind of "fee" based barrier, whether it's £50 or 50p, will limit the number of ads being posted to only a handful. I honestly think you are over-estimating the impact of a "cheap" way of doing it. As it is now, people are effectively free to post adverts anyway in the Services Wanted section, yet it isn't over run with low quality offerings or hundreds of threads being bumped.

Yes, but I think the reason for that is that people are not aware that you can advertise there, in fact it is not even clear that you can, I would feel like I was spamming if I advertised there.

[scwebsites]

Originally Posted by Edwin

Why should admin offer people anything else for free? There's already an amazing amount of free publicity offered via this site, for names that are for sale or to lease (whether primarily listed here or elsewhere). There's also the chance for service providers to approach those requesting services via the Wanted forum, again for free. Frankly (wearing my "commercial hat") there's already too much that's free on Acorn, given the amount of transactions that take place through here...

Precisely why I am suggesting it be a paid service.

No matter how much it is discussed here, there will be conflicting views, we will just have to see what admin decides I think.