This is not just about ads; it’s about finding sustainable ways to grow the HIVE economy, support content creators, and enhance the value of our platform. Every dollar from ads goes back into buying and burning HIVE, creating a positive impact for all Hive users.
Amazing Community Support!
We were very encouraged by the overwhelming support to test ads that came from the peakd user base. We were also surprised to see no comments on Discord or elsewhere complaining about the ads, especially considering how often such changes spark discussions or concerns in online communities. Perhaps because our users read that this was a test, or perhaps because you all know that the funds earned through ads will be used to buy and burn HIVE... or perhaps just because our users never saw the ads. Regardless we are encouraged.
OUR FEEDBACK FROM ADS TEST ONE
To be honest the first test economically would have not helped Hive much at all... not nearly enough to justify keeping ads it and we would have removed ads all together. Without great improvement this next test could be our final test. If this approach doesn't work out we may abandon the ads pursuit. However we have reasons to believe/hope that the changes we did may be enough to bring significantly better results that should make a good impact on Hive. We understand the site is operating with some limitations to ads (as described at end of post) but we think even with those we can have enough success to make an impact on Hive and HIVE.
YOUR FEEDBACK
We are adding logged in users into the test in part to get more data but also to get more feedback. There are many things we could do to tune the experience and perhaps to give some controls over the experience so it's not simply ALL or NOTHING. Instead of guessing what users would want we will let you share what you think would be helpful. Perhaps an ad size or placement could be tweaked to make you appreciate it even more... let us know.
Also we hope you have a very noticeable improvement of ad quality ... we have noticed this but our team is a small sample size
QUESTION: What is your favorite ad placement? And which one you will remove as it makes your experience worse?
A Different Approach
Our first run through test with Ads on PeakD for visiting users was very insightful and we learned a lot. Thanks to the support we've received, the insights we've gained, and the potential we see to help HIVE, we are moving forward with another test. We won't continue to test forever, ads need to make a real impact on the HIVE economy or we will likely discontinue. However we need to give ads a more fair shot by improving their quality and placement and try testing with users.
We still do not put ads on many different pages but we have added them to a couple of feeds as well as the posts themselves.
Working With a New Partner
In the meantime we started consulting with a new ads company. They have helped to identify what can be done to increase effectiveness of ads on the pages we have chosen to test. They have a vested interest in seeing us succeed and our experience has been positive enough we have switched to using their code meaning they'll be the new ad provider (note: they will still use mostly google ads)
Recap of This Test
- New ad provider
- Different ad sizes
- Different ad placements (you will notice a sticky footer ad that has a slideshow)
- Ads in topic feeds
- Opt-out option
ABOUT OPT OUT: In our Last test we let logged-in users choose if they wanted to see ads by toggling the option in their settings. This time, users can still opt out through their settings page https://peakd.com/me/settings/general.
UNDERSTANDING THE LIMITATIONS OF THE AD TEST
There are many factors on PeakD.com that limit the impact of ads. Some of the key limitations include:
- High number of visitors that use mobile
- High percentage from countries with low ad revenue
- High percentage of users that use Brave or other ad blockers.
- A major limitation was the exclusion of logged-in users in the first test. (unless they opted in... which some of you did)
- Also the content spread across so many genres makes it more challenging as well
- We also don't put a high quantity of ads on pages
- We also have only chosen a few types of pages to put ads on: Posts, snap posts and topic feeds primarily.
- Meaning we don't have ads on the majority of our pages: profiles, communities, badges, lists, search, publish/drafts, proposals, witness, wallet, dashboard, ai, polls, maps
- We don't have ads on the following feeds: "following feed", Feed in Communities, My "communities feed", badge feeds, User List feeds, Most viewed posts, snaps feed
- Also Ad providers tend to want their ads to be on certain types of content. (which can sometimes be highly viewed content)
Images created on https://peakd.com/ai (ideogram 3:1 aspect ratio)
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FEEDBACK
We value your feedback and want to hear from you! Whether it’s about the types of ads, their placements, or overall experience, let us know so we can make this process even better.