A well done banner ad is a thing of beauty, but a lot of them are just way too flashy for their own good. I would have to admit blinky banner ads DO force me to look at them - but I'm not sure it's the good kind of attention. I would say I am far less likely to click on one if it is the least bit annoying. More often than not, I sense a blinking banner and tune it out while I read the page. I will take the earliest opportunity to scroll down the page until it's off the top of the screen. Lots of times, I find myself glancing at the banner for that split second as I'm leaving the page. Then sometimes I think, 'ooh... wait.. what was that?', and when I go back to the page I find another randomly assigned ad in its place. Then all I can do is hope it turns up again sometime later in my visit. On those occasions, I wished there was some sort of ad index page.

If you've mined the data and it shows text ads drive significantly more click-throughs - that's what you need to offer. Instead of, or in addition to, the banner ads. There's no reason you couldn't tell advertisers the text vs. banner click-through stats, offer both, and charge accordingly.

My perspective from the cheap seats...

The banner ads do look cooler, and interest me more cuz I see something, but honestly neither one is more likely to have me click. The banner just puts the image in my head and I eventually end up reading/recoginzing about it in mag or catalog. I will become junk blind to both. But I did almost click the dangerous one, cuz I thought it was a link on someone's post. But whatever keeps this site going is what I think is best, even if you do have both styles, that's cool w me.

I don't have a ton of money but I wouldn't be opposed to donating to an annual fundraiser ala PBS, or something. Maybe have a songwriting contest or something? Where it's a super cheap entry fee, andeveryone gets a critique, and the winner gets a song mix/mastered by the audiokid himself? Or another one of the highly experienced mods around here? A lot of the podcasts I listen to, have a discount code, where you type it in the box, and they get a kickback on the purchase. For instance discount code RO, the buyer gets a discounted price, and the seller gets a product sold, and RO gets a kickback. Its another thing that helps the companies buying ad space keep track

I'm sorry to admit I keep handy a re-sizeable always-on-top window that I can use to cover any ad with motion in it, as I find movement in my peripheral field when I'm trying to read main text distracting and counter-productive. RO is a long way from being the worst offender in this respect. I know audiokid has to maximize site income to help cover operating costs, but I am much more likely to pay attention to well-designed static ads than moving ones.

Good stuff!
This is exactly the comments we need here. I will show the manufacturers this but I'm still beta testing. I wonder how gearslutz, ProSoundWeb, SOS etc do for advertising income, and what the manufacturer satisfaction stats really are:cry:
Any Pro Audio Dealer reading this who has used one of those sites to advertise, please feel welcome to discuss this here. We're all in this together.

My bet, no manufacturer is happy with banner ads. Even when we were viral back in the day, banners did very poorly. These text ads are out performing banners hands down.

Regarding removing ads all together,
I can actually create a specific "ad free" group (a subscription).
I've thought about this but wouldn't that be a destructive disservice to the manufacturers?

We now have a link at the bottom of each posts. It doesn't bother me but if it could be seperated from the post, it would be nicer. Let's say a line before the link or just some space. ;)

Hi pcrecord, I agree.

I've tried that but the forum software removes all white spaces in a post. The ad software I'm using is actually meant to place a banner there with the option for text, I'm choosing text!
I haven't tried this but I may be able to edit the template where it goes. Is that what you would do? and, what would you put?
?

I've tried this: <br><a href="{url}">{text}</a></br>

And there is also a custom hook that I may be able to add something in there for this placement, do you understand this?

Looks like this worked <br><a href="{url}">{text}</a></br>

Nice ! It will seem less like the continuity of the post.. :)

Thanks!

Here is another interesting part to this. I have been battling over using Tapatalk for months. Its not only proving to be continuously unstable but get this, in order for me to be able to advertise our clients, they want $826 a year from me. You have to pay them to allow our links to show up on your mobile phone.

Insane?
We no longer support Tapatalk here.
FYI
The forum looks great on a regular browser. We are 100% responsive. Please don't buy into this BS. FB, now this money sucking distraction. Their plan is to use our forum traffic and your email to profile us all, sell you ads that follow your surfing habits.

:mad: Fuck you Tapatalk