Follow up - Adverts on LES

AnthonySmith

Hi Folks,

Further to the previous discussion https://lowendspirit.com/discussion/11180/les-update-where-we-are-what-is-next-and-more-changes I am forking the advertising side of that discussion into this thread.

The support was good, and the overall feedback was positive, which, given that we are talking about the A word, is a bit of a surprise but shows good support for making this place grow.

What I have done.

I have plugged the karma system and FastSpring (card, PayPal, Venmo, Google Pay, Apple Pay, etc) into an advertising square system on LES.

It is a bit different to how it is done on LET who use BuySellAds, they only allow hosting related adverts and only allow adverts in general, they charge $125 per 125x125 square, LES who has probably only around 20% of the traffic is charging $7 per 150x150 square, which works out at about 2 - 3% of the cost per pixel for the same amount of traffic

We are also allowing any members to take a square, and on top of that, you can use your good karma to pay for them instead of money. If you have been active here and contributed well, then you have probably built up a lot of good karma (thanks), and now you can spend it on this, the price is 70 karma per month per square.

It is also different as you can buy a 1x1 a 2x1 a 1x2 or a 2x2 square, or as many of any configuration as you want, if you have a 300x300 image to show or space to use, you can take a 2x2 and you can add or remove as many as you want at any time and your subscription will update accordingly.

When is this happening

I am just waiting for the final conversion to go live from the FastSpring rep, so I expect probably at the end of this week at the latest, its just the flip of a switch on the backend now, and it goes live, and the link shows up.

What is allowed

Well, its for anyone, so you can advertise your hosting or services, you can advertise your kite shop, your personal website, another hosting related forum, your reddit group, your facebook page, really I dont care, the only rule is that it must be suitable for all age groups: nothing offensive, political, or anything trying to skirt a grey line "an adgitation" so to speak.

If you abuse it, it's a direct ban: zero warning, zero appeal, just gone along with the advert and your account, if you are unsure if something is ok you can always ask; no excuses accepted.

How it works.

You have a few choices: first, you select your square size and how you want to pay (FastSpring or Karma)

Then you can either upload your image (max frames = 2 hard cap) or you can upload multiple images and set unique links for A/B testing OR you can simply set the square not to display i.e. remove that square from the site.

You will get stats on how many impressions you get and how many clicks etc, it will also be broken down into what we can pretty much guarantee are human impressions vs 'could be bots, could be some sort of privacy extension, unsure if human though' rather than pretend the numbers are sky high by counting LLM page crawlers like other places do to inflate value.

With karma, you can book the square for up to 3 months in advance; you need to manually renew within 14 days of expiry to keep it.

With direct payments, you set up a subscription which you can manage from here and cancel or increase at any time, that is taken monthly on the date you set it up recurring, when possible there will be a pro rated cost if you add a square on the 1st and then want another on the 10th for example, if the fee is lessthan $2 then that is charged as a minimum to cover fees and to allow all endpoints to accept the transaction.

Squares are shown on the side menu only on desktop, and on mobile a 2x2 block (can be made up of 4 1x1 or 2 2x1 or just a single 2x2, every 7 posts or at the end of a thread with <7 posts per page.

Tax and VAT invoices and Payments in general.

FastSpring is a merchant of record; you are never a direct customer of lowendspirit, you are a customer of FastSpring, and FastSpring is our only customer, so we never need to store your personal information here at lowendspirit.

FastSpring will charge you any applicable VAT or local/state tax due at the point of transaction, and that tax will be paid directly to your EU member state or local state government office by FastSpring, all valid exemption numbers are accepted, if no tax ro VAT is due, none will be charged, if you use a VPN during payment, you will likley be either treated as a member of the origin state of your IP or rejected if you flag a risk factor for completing a purchae via a datacenter registered IP locatioed far away from your payment method.

Obviously no tax on karma.

Can I block it?

Probably and trivially, and I am genuinely not concerned if people do; it's just not worth worrying about. If you do not want to see adverts or content or links or pictures of pants or links to people's projects, no problem; that is your choice. I am not going to provide an on/off button, though.

Screenshots so you know what to expect:

How will this benefit LES.

• It will cover and recoup the costs mentioned in the previous thread
• it will allow the LES infrastructure to expand and become more redundant with a better backup system
• it will allow me to start hunting for VPS servers to review and bring new content into the community, not just from the regulars.
• I will be able to start doing bulk deals with hosts to buy down offers, which will be exclusive to LES.
• I will be able to do more work to try to advance some of the free service providers that post here to make life better for them and have them provide more resources to LES members.

Finally

I understand not everyone will like this; sorry, it is going to happen anyway, as this is the best idea I have to advance the community as a whole. If you have better ones, you have also had a lot of opportunity to present them; for now, try to live with it. If you can't, I understand.

If this fails, no one is interested, or it just ends up being a giant long-term karma-based block to hide all squares, I also understand. I am not going to try to fight it; it is what it is. I will take that as a sign.

I am still open to any other feedback and ideas, as always. Angry throwaway comments that add nothing of substance are generally mentally filtered out now, though, so feel free to throw them at me too

ahnlak

Does that imply that one can buy a space and simply not use it (which would seem to resolve your 'donation' issue)?

AnthonySmith

@ahnlak said:
Does that imply that one can buy a space and simply not use it (which would seem to resolve your 'donation' issue)?

yes exactly

Basically makes the square transparent so it never shows up.

cmeerw

@AnthonySmith said: Then you can either upload your image (max frames = 2 hard cap) or you can upload multiple images and set unique links for A/B testing OR you can simply set the square not to display i.e. remove that square from the site.

Can these be updated during the month?

AnthonySmith

@cmeerw said: Can these be updated during the month?

Yes, any time you want, as many times as you want.

edit:

Maybe its handy just to show the A/B testing too

To change it any time, you select the square and click Remove (you still own the space) then just re-add your new image and link and mouse over test/alt text

david3

This looks pretty good. Is it a custom setup that you wrote (or had done)?

AnthonySmith

@david3 said:
This looks pretty good. Is it a custom setup that you wrote (or had done)?

Yeah, I have been working on it; it's all based around FastSprings subscription API. It's basically the Karma store smashed together with the Tierhive payment system code and modified for vanilla and squares instead of tokens or Karma images.

AnthonySmith

Slight update on this, I had to put a manual approval process in place for squares (images and links) to make it compliant with the MOR system, this applies to new squares and edits, there is an auto trust built in after 30 days of having a live square for those with a provider tag so that edits and new squares are instant and I can also add users to the do not modderate list on demand if I feel the risk is close enough to 0 that you will break the rules.

Running testing now/tonight, hopefully live tomorrow

AnthonySmith

Its live now.

They need to be admin-approved before they are globally visible.

cmeerw

Excellent, seems to work. Just for the fun of it!

AnthonySmith

@cmeerw said:
Excellent, seems to work. Just for the fun of it!

brilliant, you have no idea how funny it was to me and also proud that this was the first square by a member hahaha, while I am not a big netbsd fan, I appreciate it!

Not_Oles

Yaaay! Congrats to @cmeerw and to NetBSD!

davide

Ahah it looks bizarre, I crunched a few bloody fingers today doing car repairs and still managed to smile at this :D

AnthonySmith

You can thank @Neoon for the 'irregular'

Neoon

@AnthonySmith said:
You can thank @Neoon for the 'irregular'

Fake news.

DrNutella

How does one earn karma?

DrNutella

@DrNutella said:
How does one earn karma?

Found the answer upvoting. Cool idea @AnthonySmith really smart gamification

dgc1980

Thank you for finding a great solution, I will buy a blank space to show my support

mizzik

Someone said they didn't want to be like OGF, but in the end, they're doing the same thing (make money)

PS: Give me a down vote

AnthonySmith

@mizzik said:
Someone said they didn't want to be like OGF, but in the end, they're doing the same thing (make money)

PS: Give me a down vote

I will give you an upvote, because I think you often just do not understand and find the wrong conclusion.

I explained all of this, in detail, many times, over many months, I am sorry that you missed it or did not understand but you are welcome here anyway.

mizzik

@AnthonySmith said:

I will give you an upvote, because I think you often just do not understand and find the wrong conclusion.

I explained all of this, in detail, many times, over many months, I am sorry that you missed it or did not understand but you are welcome here anyway.

Thank you for the welcome... but as for explanations: I believe that actions speak more than words

mikho

@mizzik said:
Someone said they didn't want to be like OGF, but in the end, they're doing the same thing (make money)

PS: Give me a down vote

Look at it this way, a provider who interacts with the forum, might get enough Karma ro actually buy a square with said Karma-points.

No money exchange hands.
Thats kinda win-win for both sides, forum gets more attention, provider gets it marketing. Without money.

But then again, can't please everyone.

AnthonySmith

@mizzik said:

@AnthonySmith said:

I will give you an upvote, because I think you often just do not understand and find the wrong conclusion.

I explained all of this, in detail, many times, over many months, I am sorry that you missed it or did not understand but you are welcome here anyway.

Thank you for the welcome... but as for explanations: I believe that actions speak more than words

Then please, take action, and read, if you disagree with the reasoning please tell me what specifically you disagree with.

Is it the fact that you can pay with Karma?
Is it the 2% cost of LET?
Is it the fact that I welcomed you to block them and it's trivial to do so?
Or should we not bother with off-site backups and paying hosts to increase the free offers and exclusive deals?

Or ...as I suspect, you saw an image and that = hate with no further consideration?

mizzik

@AnthonySmith said:
Is it the fact that I welcomed you to block them and it's trivial to do so?

explain publicly how to do it

AnthonySmith

@mizzik said:

@AnthonySmith said:
Is it the fact that I welcomed you to block them and it's trivial to do so?

explain publicly how to do it

I already did, have a read.

davide

The blinking ads are so annoying to be frank that mine should be the only obnoxious one allowed :P

But... maybe gif animations should be verboten?

phart

The blank squares look a bit weird like something didn't load. I think it would be funnier to force people to just upload any random image rather than removing the square.

mikho

@phart said:
The blank squares look a bit weird like something didn't load. I think it would be funnier to force people to just upload any random image rather than removing the square.

That would only end up with blank images uploaded 🤷🏻

MichaelCee

Karma price too cheap

AnthonySmith

@MichaelCee said:
Karma price too cheap

Idk seems fair enough to me for those that have stuck around and invested time in the community.

Not THAT many people in the 1000's

MichaelCee

@AnthonySmith said:

@MichaelCee said:
Karma price too cheap

Idk seems fair enough to me for those that have stuck around and invested time in the community.

Not THAT many people in the 1000's

I will change my mind when I run out after approx 28 months. Just worry that you will end up with ads without actually monetising them

mikho

@MichaelCee said:

@AnthonySmith said:

@MichaelCee said:
Karma price too cheap

Idk seems fair enough to me for those that have stuck around and invested time in the community.

Not THAT many people in the 1000's

I will change my mind when I run out after approx 28 months. Just worry that you will end up with ads without actually monetising them

Lets downvote you a couple of times then, see how you like that

davide

Need to buy the 4x4 space to upload this:

MichaelCee

Agree about the blank spaces. Can they be forced to be OCD friendly?

Also is there a link anywhere for lessquares so don't have to always click Buy This LES Space to get to the page?

Bought 2 more so my Karma will be gone very soon and you can milk me like the cash cow I am

AnthonySmith

@MichaelCee said:
Agree about the blank spaces. Can they be forced to be OCD friendly?

Also is there a link anywhere for lessquares so don't have to always click Buy This LES Space to get to the page?

Bought 2 more so my Karma will be gone very soon and you can milk me like the cash cow I am

I will add it to the user menu tomorrow

AnthonySmith

@MichaelCee said:
Agree about the blank spaces. Can they be forced to be OCD friendly?

Also is there a link anywhere for lessquares so don't have to always click Buy This LES Space to get to the page?

Bought 2 more so my Karma will be gone very soon and you can milk me like the cash cow I am

Done, menu link and at the top of the side bar.

Advin

Personally, I think the ads should be smaller and have gaps to them, it feels a bit weird having them be flush with each other. Also, I don't see a place to update the image used for my ad so now I have 2 eagles on the sidebar (which is fine, but maybe it would be better if there was some diversity!)

AnthonySmith

@Advin said:
Personally, I think the ads should be smaller and have gaps to them, it feels a bit weird having them be flush with each other. Also, I don't see a place to update the image used for my ad so now I have 2 eagles on the sidebar (which is fine, but maybe it would be better if there was some diversity!)

Thanks for the feedback, You just click remove at the bottom, and you can then change the image, I should probably make that more clear or accept clicking on the image as a trigger.

Advin

@AnthonySmith said:

@Advin said:
Personally, I think the ads should be smaller and have gaps to them, it feels a bit weird having them be flush with each other. Also, I don't see a place to update the image used for my ad so now I have 2 eagles on the sidebar (which is fine, but maybe it would be better if there was some diversity!)

Thanks for the feedback, You just click remove at the bottom, and you can then change the image, I should probably make that more clear or accept clicking on the image as a trigger.

Ah I see, yeah I was expecting to click on the image

AnthonySmith

@Advin said: Ah I see, yeah I was expecting to click on the image

I am making it more obvious and adding the change image option only by clicking the image, marking your own homework in public is no fun eh haha.

Neoon

To be honest, right now, it looks like 1:1 compared to LET ad's.
I didn't expect there be so many.

AnthonySmith

This is around 48 hours of data now, obviously not many squares at this stage etc so almost guaranteed above the fold and this also counts the public none logged in views (which is actually higher by number most of the time than logged in views, so via google etc) :

In 30 days, I am going to publish this as a rolling update on the actual page https://lowendspirit.com/lessquares

People can see their own individual stats, including clicks, obviously.

AnthonySmith

@Neoon said:
To be honest, right now, it looks like 1:1 compared to LET ad's.
I didn't expect there be so many.

I expected more; it's picking up now, though, and I have not sent a message to providers yet about it.

The vast majority are karma paid, though, and that's fine; it is wanted, and I think it's great to be able to do it that way.

davide

My ad got 1 click thru the last 12 hours

AnthonySmith

@davide said:
My ad got 1 click thru the last 12 hours

haha, i see 14 in total since you made it live, I guess some was testing, but then again, you do have a very strange "advert" a picture with no context of a dead robot, cool, but erm... well, not sure haha.

davide

@AnthonySmith said:

@davide said:
My ad got 1 click thru the last 12 hours

haha, i see 14 in total since you made it live, I guess some was testing, but then again, you do have a very strange "advert" a picture with no context of a dead robot, cool, but erm... well, not sure haha.

It's not dead yet, its leg pumps are gone, lithium battery is on fire, but it's still holding its position in an 80mm mortar pit next to the vodka factory. It would be terrific and cool to see footage like this coming from the front lines some years in the future.

davide

Actually the ad got 4 clicks in 12 hours, measured by referer: 1 from www.lowendspirit.com and 3 from lowendspirit.com. The past few days have got little to no sales, weekends in general are worse than weekdays for VPS sales. Mornings are terrible too for any given month. Afternoons are also quite bad. Night website activity is lower than daytime. I'll try to focus on the positive side of it

AnthonySmith

@davide said:

@AnthonySmith said:

@davide said:
My ad got 1 click thru the last 12 hours

haha, i see 14 in total since you made it live, I guess some was testing, but then again, you do have a very strange "advert" a picture with no context of a dead robot, cool, but erm... well, not sure haha.

It's not dead yet, its leg pumps are gone, lithium battery is on fire, but it's still holding its position in an 80mm mortar pit next to the vodka factory. It would be terrific and cool to see footage like this coming from the front lines some years in the future.

Oh well, when you put it that way.... that instantly makes me think... "I need a VPS price comparison site"

MichaelCee

I have to say, I went to OGF to compare and their ad section is a little bit cleaner. Mostly because they only have 2 types and they are all in order of size. Just a thought

imok

I need thumb up/down buttons for ads 😜

MichaelCee

@imok said:
I need thumb up/down buttons for ads 😜

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