Archive for November, 2004

Some readers have noted that I’ve been playing around with some new ads over the last week. My apologies, I’ve just been trying to figure out if going with any of the ad networks is actually worthwhile. Apparently it isn’t. The only ads I’m keeping from these advertisers is the internal “archives” ads, which will appear directly above the comments.

Basically I have been trying to figure out some creative ways to bring in some more ad dollars in a way which is unobtrusive yet still valuable for advertisers. I’d like to think that up until this week I’ve been able to do that as basically the only advertising that was offered was the SideBar ads and Sponsored Posts.

I’ve decided to try and experiment with some other ad formats though, as you’ll see at the bottom of the Ensight Advertising page.

I’d like to call attention to a few things both in order to get feedback and in order to, well, draw attention to them.

Please be aware that I’m merely floating these ideas. They don’t need to stay. So far the response to the current ads has been very understanding, but if this is overboard then I’ll back off, no problem.

RSS Feed Sponsorship: I am offering Advertisers the opportunity to sponsor the RSS Feed. As far as I can tell, the RSS Feed is read by roughly 3000 people on a daily basis, or at least it’s downloaded by that many IP’s. Anyways, this will be an unobtrusive ad: basically a horizontal line at the end of the feed and “Ensight is sponsored by [x]” type of thing. The rate for this advertising is lower than the rest, to see if there is interest.

Because I know some people won’t like this idea, I’m offering a simple solution up: if more than 50 people are willing to “donate” 1$/month (ie: automated PayPal payment), I’ll do away with this completely. Otherwise if there is advertiser interest I’ll go ahead with this and likely, at some point, offer users a cheap way to opt out of all ads (say, 1$/month :p).

Archives Page Ad: As many readers have noted, I’ve added “normal” ads to the individual posts, right above the comments. Realistically I’d like to sell this to actual Ensight advertisers instead of the current fairly crappy ads. The rate for this advertising is lower than the rest, to see if there is interest.

Full Site Sponsorship: Because I’m offering several new types of ads, I think it’d be interesting to offer a “One Day Takeover”. The cost is cheap, considering what you are getting: all the sidebar ads (ie: use that much space in a reasonable way), the RSS Feed sponsorship, archive page ads and an announcement at the top of every page letting users know who the daily sponsor is. It’s perfect for advertising a special or a time-limited type of offer. The limit is 1 day at a time, and I don’t want more than 2 days a month being used in this way. This isn’t a commercial site, and only advertisers that I feel will bring value to users will be allowed to use this. Please let me know your thoughts on this.

Basically, I’m looking for feedback first and advertisers second. If you’re interested in any of these, or in the various packages I’ve also noted, please let me know.