Advertising

We are going to start experimenting with advertisements throughout WeGottaEat. Our goal is to see what revenue can be achieved with ads. You'll see ads come and go. At first we will be using ads from Google but we hope to provide better ad content as we reach more advertisers. The placements and content will change as we get results. WeGottaEat will always provide free recipe management and tools like we do today. That's great, however it also means if we want to make any money, we'll need to do it in other ways. Hopefully the other ways can be beneficial to us and our members. As always, please give us feedback and any suggestions.

will they be on the sidebar and innocuous? i don't mind them and understand that it's needed for raising revenue for the site's upkeep and to make your hard work worthwhile; i just don't want the clutter. i really like the new V2 because the design is so clean and aesthetically pleasing to my eye so don't want anything to take away from the design. thanks and good luck Dave!

They are on the sidebar right now, but we are only testing them out. It's possible we will try them in other places along the way too. The last thing we want to do is clutter up the site (which is why we haven't really used them until now). One of the ideas we've thought about was only showing ads for non-members (since about two-thirds of our traffic is from non-members). Another idea is to have premium memberships that would require a minimal membership fee which, as one benefit, would remove the ads for that account.

I think ads are ok. Its when they get put in the middle of a block of text (dividing two paragraphs), or when they are stupid animated ones that take forever to load. Static ads are much better and don't look cheesy. I actually click on them once in a while as well...

I personally don't like the ads at all. Maybe for some websites they are ok, but they seem to really distract from this one. Maybe it's just me or maybe it's that our website has a very minimal look and feel. And maybe if the ads were better targeted to the needs/wants of our users they would not seem so intrusive. Your feedback is appreciated.

i support your idea of having ads display only for non-members!

What if we hide ads for "VIP" members, where "VIP" members are those that have made a donation to the website?

members who make a donation should definitely not have to see any ads. so are you thinking that non-paying members will see minimal ads and non-members will see even more?

Do you still have ads? I still haven't noticed them.... Where can these ads even be found?

We pulled the ads on all member pages. The only time you'll see an ad is when you view a recipe from a Google search. We are going to put any ad-testing on hold until we get some other stuff done. Although if you really want to see them we can enable them for your account ;).

Your discussion regarding ads reminded me of the stealth product placement by rhodesbread. Has anyone else noticed it? http://wegottaeat.com/rhodesbread/recipes

I notice now, but I think that's kind of a neat way for a company to keep their name out there. Although, I can't say I've ever seen a Rhodes product in my local Kroger. I haven't been looking though either... Smart move by Rhodes.

this is free advertising for them. are we getting anything out of the deal? how about free bread for members? sneaky bread people. surprised they don't have better linkage to their website or decent images to bump up their popularity points.

Please make it STOP moving. At least on my home page. Headache inducing. I could not finish entering a new recipe.

Having the ads makes it difficult to add new recipes as the click parts are hidden behind the ads. Also distracting. I would pay for membership just to avoid seeing them.

it was less jarring when you had it on the sidebar, small and less obtrusive. guess you've removed for now. happy labor day...preferably with less labor as possible!

Good job with the ads. They aren't bothersome like the ones that jumped around. The left sidebar placement on the page works for me.

I think adds are a reasonable way to make revenue on this site. The site development has been excellent and I love the idea of keeping it free for users.