Hey,
Thanks for taking the time to do a long post.
I’m afraid I don’t agree with most of it though, I have always been managing paid advertising on my sites for years so I know what is needed to do it and I don’t mind, I have quite a good system which makes everything automatic, I paid a coder to do it last year and it emails any advertisers that have their campaign ending soon and includes all the latest stats automatically.
I really don’t mind about the managing of advertisers, I think its worth it.
Right now I have no problem selling ad space on my site, its very rare that I have a space available and when I do, its normally bought it very quickly.
What I am trying to do though is get long term advertisers, maybe smaller rooms that want somewhere to advertise and have a partnership with the community they are advertising on.
I am trying to change over to “package” deals which give advertisers a lot more (Each gets their own space everywhere on the forum and their site is included in all emails sent to members) – I am trying to create a partnership with the advertisers and the community.
Totally agree with you about the expectations of some advertisers though, I get that on all my sites.
Another thing advertisers don’t think about is advertising is also branding – Advertising gives their site exposure and branding.
How many times do you see an ad before even paying any attention to what its selling/advertising?