just got in
I'd better clarify the advertising points as there are questions
Very occasionally the ad deals are negotiated direct with the advertiser, but a while ago I recognised I needed expert help to assist blonde in making the most of its fast growing traffic, and in the last six months we've come to a couple of arrangements with two media suppliers
The need to do this became clear earlier this year. Our card-room was beginning to struggle, it wasn't acheiving the revenue for us that was needed to a) pay staff...(and none, absolutely none, of the staff earn what I would describe as "fair" rates for the job they do..for all of them to some extent its a labour of love) and b) cover the costs of the forum, doing live updates, promoting the company, putting bashes on, adding value to card-room leagues etc . The reasons for this struggle are referred to elsewhere but over and above anything else I suppose competition in the marketplace for big rakers became even more intense than before, and the top end of our rakers disappeared elsewhere as we couldn't match what they were being offered..
I mananged to get some sponsorships and board tenancies in Jan and Feb, but it didn't do everything we needed money wise
So the next step, and it was one taken a bit reluctantly, was to monetise the traffic on the forum
With specific regard to the ads, we're paid (our will be when we fulfill the deals, often they are post-paid) on a Cost Per Impression basis....ie at £x per 1,000 impressions. If you have a forum with for the sake of illustration only 1m impressions a month at £5CPM then that's worth £5000 and this might be over typically a number of months. Don't take this as a figure we're earning per advertiser, its less..its an illustration
So to answer one question, you don't need to do an "action" by ordering a product for us to get paid (you would do if it were payment on CPA, Cost per action). An impression on the forum page is enough. What does help though is the ratio of clicks to impressions on an ad...if we have a good % of click throughs then we are more likely to a) get renewals and b) charge higher rates. Unique users are important too. A characteristic we have (I call it the Boldie effect) is that we have some users that impress a lot, but the more uniques we have the better as some deals are on frequency cap..ie only your first few impressions in a given period count for the deal, and thus rewards higher numbers of uniques compared to comparatively few people who look at a lot of pages.
One media seller handles our business for gambling related advertisning and another handles our business for non-gambling advertisers.
Specifically for the latter we have a rate card, and the supplier a list of customers prepared to pay that rate and the agency chooses from that "pool". The fact that there are currently "Erection Product" ads in their two slots is not a conscious decision of mine, or anyone at blonde its from the "pool" of advertisers.
I'm a bit embarrased by it, not because of the subject matter as such but because I don't think, as a number of people have pointed out, that it sits too comfortably with our community ethos. Indeed I've asked my contact if ads of a suitable value from another advertier could be used instead.
On a wider issue, blonde isn't rolling in money. Far from it. At the moment our costs are way higher than our non advertising income and the ads are a means to an end. In an ideal world we wouldn't promote third parties, and we'd have a card-room that made us self sufficient. It doesn't, despite an awful lot of hard work to help it happen. We could reduce costs, whether that be people, bashes, live updates, whatever. I'd like to avoid that because I believe all areas of blonde have a good future, and potential.
I'm acutely conscious that commerciality doesn't always fit with a community. Its a tricky balance to strike especially when I have shareholders who need a fair return on their investment. If they don't get that then logically I'm not here, and someone else will have a go. Or the shareholders decide that the company needs to go in a different direction.
hope that helps
Just a point with regards to the shortage of money - was there really a need to cover the WSOP? I mean, it was availiable on the net anyway, and before it was posted on blonde in most instances.
What exactly did this "trip" cost Blonde? - Do you really think Blonde benefit from this sort of update because I dont.
Same goes for the EPT - the ones that are abroad.
This would be the first thing I would cut to save revenue.
Maybe you should balance the "we are not making enough money, please play at our cardroom" posts , with "Do you want us to spend £xxxx's to cover xxxxx event? or do you think the money could be spent more wisely"
Also, where is "blonde" company registered please?
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