Sponsor Advertising

[Dave]

As most of you know, Pocket GPS is an extremely popular website, costs for server and bandwidth are enormous, and this doesn't even include the amount of time we spend on the website, courier costs in sending products back, testing products etc. Rather than making Pocket GPS a subscription based service (which we have always been against) we had originally placed sponsor adverts on the right hand side of the website. These have become very flashy over recent months, we have received a few emails from some of you saying that they are becoming a little distracting, and we do agree however no money to support the website operating costs means it will disappear over time.

We will try and find a balance to both make adverts work for us, and to make them less annoying for you, so starting this month we will be experimenting with some text based adverts, from today you will start to see some text adverts appear at the top of the page (with a smaller Pocket GPS Banner). Over coming weeks we may move or add these to other areas of the website to see what works and what doesn't. Obviously if people aren't clicking on adverts then there's no support for the website, which ultimately means no way of keeping the website alive and in return there's not much point running those adverts. Unfortunately it's a fact of life, the free internet is over, and we can't get free internet services from our ISP's (nor would we expect them), so we do have to pay a lot of money in keeping this website alive! Up until now, all money has been out of my own pocket, but with redundancy looming, you've got to put things into perspective!

Text based adverts have been shown in the past to be highly successful on other websites, being easy on the eye whilst making them more attractive to click on, so we'll see how things go.

We thought it best to let you know we're experimenting with advert placements as you will see the website change a little over the next few weeks if we start moving these around, and didn't want you to think someone's hijacked the website

Thanks for all of your past and continuing support! Pocket GPS will remain a free non-subscription based service!

[gpsfan]

Thanks for being open about this, I for one don't have a clue how much it costs to run a website, hope it's not too bad!

Just wondering if clicking on the text or banners is enough to support the site or do you only get something if people buy after clicking?

I do find the text banners more of an eyesore than the right side banners. Could the font be made smaller or maybe reduced to 2 or 3 so as not to "maim" the banner too much? Just a thought.

[Dave]

It does cost thousands to run and that's not including having to send products back to manufacturer because it's requested under NDA or review, or sending the units are faulty using insured couriers, we also don't get paid for the extensive time and effort we put into the website either. The advertising should keep Pocket GPS free to everyone which is one of our core objectives. It will also give us more ability to get to some of the far out trade shows and report from these with the latest and greatest products.

We're currently experimenting with the text banners, I'm not sure the text banners alone will be enough to support the website, but we'll see how it goes.

I find it strange you find the text banners more of an eyesore, most people hate the flashy adverts because they're always drawing your attention away from the content ? Unfortunately under Google's T's and C's we can't change the font or size of the text.

Thanks for the understanding!

[gpsfan]

Thanks for taking the time to reply and sorry for that other post. I guess I pay more attention to text than to rotating pictures. Maybe I need to have my eyes examined :|

The "thousands" is quite an eye-opener! Hope you can keep it going even though you're not getting any benefit other than having access to all the latest receivers 8)

I for one don't mind clicking on the Google links but I'm still wondering whether that's enough to help the site or if it only really counts if I then on that site.

[Darren]

The Google Ads produce revenue on a per click basis, the more visitors who click an Ad link the more money we raise to cover some of our costs. You don't have to buy anything, it's just a method for advertisers to measure how much additional traffic they get in response to advertisements.

You don't want to know how much a popular site such as this costs to maintain, the traffic alone means our hosting costs are high coupled with server charges etc. Luckily we're all technology mad and as enthusiastic about GPS as our readers
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Darren Griffin

[catken96]

Dave,

You do WHATEVER is necessary to keep the site going. You are providing a very informative (and free!!!) service, and I am amazed that anyone would have the bl##dy cheek to complain about the adverts. Anyone with a bit of commonsense would realise that the ads help with the running-costs. Ignore the whingers, and DON'T apologise.


Tom.

PS. Hope the bawdy language doesn't get you closed-down.

[Steveg]

Hmmm

Only just got around to reading the "historical" messages on these forums (usually spending my time making or answering the latest queries) I agree wholeheartedly that you should do whatever is necessary to keep the site running and your personal costs at zerop (or at least negligable).

I for one, after reading this thread, have embarked on a campaign of clicking on a sponsor site at least once every visit - if this slight diversion for me means that this site continues in the way I have now come to enjoy a great deal then so be it, I urge all other users to visit the sponsor sites too. After all we need to look up prices of equipment etc from these people anyway, so why not link from here and help maintain this site?

Thanks Dave for all your efforts, I hope I speak for all in these forums when I say that you and the other people who run this site have done and are doing a tremendous job

Kind Regards

Steve Gillen

We see you’re using an ad-blocker. We’re fine with that and won’t stop you visiting the site.
Have you considered making a donation towards website running costs?.
Or you could disable your ad-blocker for this site. We think you’ll find our adverts are not overbearing!