Nobody Wants to Buy an 88x31

[JLogan]

This a post / rant I made on ForumPromotion yesterday. I figured some of you might enjoy it as well.

A few minutes ago, I went browsing through the advertising marketplace and I have to say that I am disappointed in a lot of you. Most of you don't even include analytics or other traffic information in your advertising sales threads. Also, some of you are trying to sell 88x31 affiliate button spots, which is pointless.

An 88x31 affiliate button is called an affiliate button for a reason. It's a little banner that people are supposed to use to AFFILIATE themselves with other communities and to pat each other on the back. It's not something that is meant to be sold. Literally, no advertiser who is looking to get results is going to buy an affiliate button spot unless the forum is getting A TON of impressions and unique visits. Whether you want to admit it or not, most of you who are trying to sell these affiliate buttons don't even get enough traffic to make a $1 on adsense, so trying to sell these affiliate spots is just a waste of time.

The size of an affiliate button doesn't even give brands or businesses enough space to advertise what they are selling. Even for a dollar, it's not worth it. If an advertising block doesn't offer enough space for a blog, website, business, or brand to convey their product, then it's worth nothing to advertisers and they aren't going to buy the space. Not to mention, most of you shove the darn affiliate buttons in the footer and that's even more reason not to buy them.

If you want to make money with your forum, blog or website then you need to offer legitimate sizes. Big enough sizes where people can actually convey what they are selling, whether that be a product or a website. Advertisers are interested in sizes like these 468x60, 728x90, 300x600, 320x100, 300x250 and these. Start trying to offer spots like these if you want to make money. Even if you're a smaller forum, you'll have a better chance selling one of those legit sizes compared to an affiliate button. And, don't shove ads way down on the page. Advertisers are interested in spots that are closer to the top of the page, because those have better CTRs (Click-through rates).

Also, for those of you selling ads, start including traffic stats in your sales threads. Advertisers need this information, and providing it from the start makes it easier on advertisers. A lot of Businesses and advertisers skip over sales threads that don't include stats just because they don't want to waste time to request that information.

So, yeah. Stop trying to sell those 88x31s because a majority of people do not want to pay real cash for those.

 

[xpl0iter]

Some people just try to do anything in their mind to make money. If only they would spend a little time to think about what they're doing, they will stop wasting their time, our time, everyone else's time!

It was a fun read anyway! xD

 

[proxynvpn]

I have to laugh at what people will try and do to make money. Affiliate spots are supposed to be there as you say to help each other out not to be sold to make a profit. Eventually they will realise that nobody will be willing to make a payment to have their affiliate button added to a site when they know that they can get it done for free elsewhere and people will just give up.

 

[Jem]

People have really confused 'affiliates' with 'affiliate commissions'. I'm from the old days, back before the web finished cooling when it was kind of wild west out there. Back when we used 88x31 and 100x35's for what they were meant for - affiliating with other websites. As in swapping links, exchanging.

I really think this all went crazy when 125x125's become the net's go-to for affiliate commission links in sidebars and such. After that, any button link was fair game and before you know it the whole web's plastered with tiny buttons linking to hosting companies no one wants to buy hosting from.

I just realized how much I love to gripe.

 

[cortana]

What was your website back in the day?

My friends and I ALL traded 88x31s. That was back in the good ol E/N days when we didn't care about traffic, we just linked to each other because it was cool. Then making money ruined everything...