Adverts, is it just me?

I thought you got adverts as a "free member" as your status suggests

Can’t you just ignore them like what I do?

Free members get ads - has always been that way.

I’m a fully paid up member, or I thought I was! Just noticed it says free member, I’ll contact subscription’s tomorrow..

Thanks all, it looks like my subscription that usually renews automatically hasn’t, I’ve tried online with no success so I’ll email/phone tomorrow. It’s worth far more to get rid of those chuffin adverts!

The ads have changed since earlier today. Site is unusable.
They are over the top of the page rather than embedded and killing the site.

My subscription expires today I’ve discovered and the price goes up tomorrow! I’ve tried updating, no luck, it’ll be a glitch. I’m sure it’ll be sorted at some point, adverts are bonkers though, I’d rather go cold turkey from the forum than put up with those.

It's the Korean Kimchi ads on telly that perturb me, where do you buy it and how much ? 🤷🏻‍♂️

I got some from Sainsbury’s, on my once a year trip. I’ve no idea how much I paid, I chucked it away after a few forkfuls. Hopefully saved you some money?

Zoe - the subscription fairy - sorted it today, I thought it was my age making me go around in circles trying to renew my subscription after changing bank accounts. Apparently it was a bug that the hamsters have now devoured and all is good, subscription renewed indefinitely and no adverts!

Glad that's all sorted for you.

You were not wrong about the ads. They are/were a bit mental. A lot of our ads are automatic and in some cases we don't specify exactly where they appear. I kind of set loose rules around ads appearing, like not in the shop areas, on login pages etc. I also have a control (literally a slider bar) in our ads dashboard (Provided by Ezoic) that allows me to prioritise user experience or revenue. I slide it to the left and it's all about the user experience so there 'should' be fewer ads and in less intrusive places. I slide it right and more appear and they are more intrusive but earn us more. I literally have to find the balance point and there's no real science behind it other then me looking through the site logged out and watching for your comments.

The biggest issue right now is the season. It's what advertisers refer to as Q4 ie. the last and most lucrative 3 months of the year. The demand for ads goes way up and with a lot of our ad spaces being put in the hands of Ezoic's AI that can result in ads all over the place.

The good news is I've waded through the controls I have at my disposal and tried to dial it back a bit. I've taken that slider and whacked it all the way to the left (UX). I've also tried to put some filters in place to stop the mental ad AI from sticking ads in places that look gash. It's an ongoing job and I'm making daily adjustments. I have to watch the results closely - in the past I've made what seemed to be small adjustments only to see our daily ad revenue totally tank. But UX is very important and I'm trying to give that the priority right now while trying to maintain a decent amount of revenue flowing.

Thanks Mark, definitely been much better today

So if I log out and click on some ads (disabling some cookies) it’ll make you more money? I’m up for that, anyone else?

@Mark

So if you were to push that slider all the way over and let the ads run riot, do you still make more revenue despite the user experience?

It seems all local news/media websites are practically impossible to actually read the clickbait article concerned with all sorts of tricks such as adverts posing as a video related to the article (and we are all used to watching an ad before seeing a video so they really get you there) and adverts posing as a next page button, plus ads over the top of the content. Do you think they actually earn more revenue despite visitors spending less time on the page? (I'm usually lucky to get through the article let alone stay and click through to other parts of the site!)