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Site banner ad's

PostPosted: Mon Mar 21, 2011 10:58 am
by edp
Probably a question for Chris - So I found this this morning to be a bit creepy - big brother-ish......

I glanced up at the banner ad above the post I was reading & noticed it was for the Hotel Deluxe which I just stayed at for the weekend in Portland Or., ( went to the Street rod show - pretty cool show), how in the hell does a site link content ad's to an individual? I know (so I read ) the Kinect game system lets Mocrosoft watch & record items/information in your home while your playing the games which can then be used for direct marketing but AB101???

How does this occur? I was a bit surprised to see it. Anyone know - chris?

thanks, Evan

Re: Site banner ad's

PostPosted: Mon Mar 21, 2011 11:23 am
by chris
Evan, do you mind moving a little to the left of the window you are sitting near? I can't quite see your computer screen at this angle.

:rotfl: :rotfl:

So...here's the story on the ads. Believe me, it's not AB101 with the targeted marketing -- it's our friends at Google. I noticed the same thing starting about a month ago -- I was looking for a special (dealer) tool I needed on a Volvo I'm working on...then I come back to AB101 and there are all these Volvo ads. Other sites that channel Google ads are behaving the same way.

Google is leaving 'cookies' within your browser so it knows what sites you've recently been to. Then it brilliantly sends targeted ads based on where you've been.

My goal is to one day be able to shut off all advertising here. Right now it is paying for my caffeine habit and covering the hosting expenses so unless it gets to be too much of an issue I plan on letting them stay. I can't stand sites that charge a "membership fee" so this seemed like the best alternative...

-Chris

P.S. moving this to the "forum usage" section instead of body & paint...

Re: Site banner ad's

PostPosted: Mon Mar 21, 2011 11:45 am
by edp
bastards! that means all my porn habits will show up soon as well :wink: :wink:

I know you cant see me Chris - I dont have a camera on my monitor :happy: It is a bit strange though, especially since i just was there this weekend. I did send in a customer response survey card earlier this
AM, thats probably where Google picked it up from. Do other search engines do this as well?

Re: Site banner ad's

PostPosted: Mon Mar 21, 2011 11:50 am
by OldDupontGuy
,,,sick old man.

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Re: Site banner ad's

PostPosted: Mon Mar 21, 2011 3:03 pm
by tmyoungjr
Bahaha! Yeah don't forget Google and others can view the cookies left behind by other sides or even in some cases get at your history. This is why you'll see ads all over showing you things you've recently looked at!

Chris,

No need to charge, but how about offering the option to donate. Those who do get one benefit over everyone else, removal of ads. Otherwise nothing else changes.

Re: Site banner ad's

PostPosted: Mon Mar 21, 2011 6:41 pm
by chris
I'm going to guess that more people will be "offended" by a request to donate than they are at seeing ads. Plus the code work required to integrate that type of function versus the number of people who would actually donate is probably not worth the investment.

I hope I'm reading things right here and the ads are not that intrusive/offensive. Plus you never know when you might want to "ask a mechanic online" or "get your free credit score" :rotfl:

-Chris

Re: Site banner ad's

PostPosted: Tue Mar 22, 2011 3:13 am
by vwbobby
Welcome to the world of direct marketing. ;)
Luckily I haven't had any bad ads or anything pop up on this site. I keep my computer pretty clean.
A good program is CCleaner. It is free to download/use. This will do a more thorough job of clearing your cookies, internet history and temp files than doing it manually. :)

A lot of sites have a little PayPal "Make a donation" button on the home page. I don't think that would be too offensive, but you never know.

Re: Site banner ad's

PostPosted: Tue Mar 22, 2011 6:39 am
by tmyoungjr
chris wrote:I'm going to guess that more people will be "offended" by a request to donate than they are at seeing ads. Plus the code work required to integrate that type of function versus the number of people who would actually donate is probably not worth the investment.

I hope I'm reading things right here and the ads are not that intrusive/offensive. Plus you never know when you might want to "ask a mechanic online" or "get your free credit score" :rotfl:

-Chris


Fair enough :) Ads don't generally bother me because I get it and have run my share of sites and forums over time.

They're certainly not intrusive here

:allgood:

Re: Site banner ad's

PostPosted: Tue Mar 22, 2011 6:42 am
by tmyoungjr
edp wrote:bastards! that means all my porn habits will show up soon as well :wink: :wink:

I know you cant see me Chris - I dont have a camera on my monitor :happy: It is a bit strange though, especially since i just was there this weekend. I did send in a customer response survey card earlier this
AM, thats probably where Google picked it up from. Do other search engines do this as well?


edp,

yes. but you'll only see it for targeted type stuff. if you were log into a hotmail account, you'll see ads targeted towards what your email has in it. same with yahoo or gmail.

advertising is a huge business, so of course the advertisers do what they can to make sure you're clicking on their item so they use whatever means they can to make sure they're appealing to you and one way to do that is by using data already on your PC (now mind you in *most* cases it's harmless and they're not doing anything to steal info).

Re: Site banner ad's

PostPosted: Tue Mar 22, 2011 11:14 pm
by edp
you just cant get away from marketing, it's insidious.

I was just so surprised to see something so targeted as a boutique hotel in Portland, Or. staring at me, I haven't had that happen before so it was an eye catcher for sure. Chris, I'd bet you'd get more people who were willing to donate then you'd expect & if they're offended by you asking, who cares. That is unless your making millions from running this site - which I suspect you are :goodjob: :goodjob: and the ad's dont bother me either.