Advertising On Acorn

[scwebsites]

Hiya

Have you ever thought about having a board where users can pay to advertise services to the acorn community?

I have services that I know some of you members would be interested in, but I don't want to SPAM by mentioning them where I am not supposed to, so having a place where we can pay to advertise would be great.

Or am I missing something, is there a place to do this already?

[peter_w]

People tend to offer services in the "Services Wanted" section. http://www.acorndomains.co.uk/services-wanted.html

[scwebsites]

Yeah I have seen a few people do that.

Can a mod or admin confirm for me that it would be OK to do that, or let me know of an alternative, as I have mentioned, I don't mind paying or making a donation for advertising.

[Blossom]

There was a thread about it but no real resolution reached: http://www.acorndomains.co.uk/forum-...d-section.html

[admin]

You can't advertise here for free as a general rule, especially domain related services, forums, etc. but I do allow members to do some stuff in their sigs as I'm too soft really.

I can add a "Sponsored" forum on a pay per post basis but then people expect that I has personally vetted everything advertised which is not the case.

What rules should I put around it?

I am hesitant as I am getting some reasonable banner ad revs here that I wouldn't want to dilute the value of if people can post anything for say £10 in a forum.

Admin

[peter_w]

If there was a 100 post minimum before you could post your service, I assume that would weed out most of the dodgy service offerings?

[scwebsites]

Well my suggestion would be that you charge more like £50 per post in a sponsored forum. I would buy one right away.

I think £50 a post would make it worth your while, and would make sure that particular board only attracted people who were serious about advertising.

Plus a £50 fee would mean less adverts for more revenue for you. It's more attractive to advertisers too because less advertisers means more time near the top.

Somehow disabling bumping on that board would be wise too, perhaps by locking threads and making people use PMs or email to respond to adverts.

Perhaps a minimum post level too, as peter_w suggests, though I would make it a bit less than 100 posts.

[scwebsites]

Another suggestion...

Make the terms of advertising say that adverts will last a minimum of 30 days, that way of the board didn't work out for you, you could stop taking adverts and close it 30 days later.

[admin]

Originally Posted by scwebsites

Well my suggestion would be that you charge more like £50 per post in a sponsored forum. I would buy one right away.

I think £50 a post would make it worth your while, and would make sure that particular board only attracted people who were serious about advertising.

Plus a £50 fee would mean less adverts for more revenue for you. It's more attractive to advertisers too because less advertisers means more time near the top.

Somehow disabling bumping on that board would be wise too, perhaps by locking threads and making people use PMs or email to respond to adverts.

Perhaps a minimum post level too, as peter_w suggests, though I would make it a bit less than 100 posts.

That's a good point, what if you pay for as ad and someone disses for product / service or says no try competitor X for example.

Maybe the ads should be closed?

[jimm]

The problem with making it so expensive is that you are only going to get a very limited amount of takers.
Some of the stuff I sell off cheap which could benefit to members here (eg second user servers) there isnt enough margin to pay £50 to advertise and people here dont want my expensive stuff (rightly so, its not targeted at them).
If you look at other decent forums like uk business forum they still chage a premium (£150 per month for a small add) for proper adverts on the whole site yet the ability to post adverts is £40 per year! Even my own forums (admitidley a very different area - 3 car forums) can command £500 per month for banners, even with people able to post adverts in an advertising forum a lot cheaper.
The reason being adverts in a specific forum are a lot less effective than proper adverts on the site where general browsers will more likey view.