23 replies to this topic

[Grumpy]

In continuing attempt to see what alternative means of ads we can run, I've now enabled pop up (mostly under) on web comic format chapters. This replaces the existing two banner ads. They will popup on click.

 

The popup will only happen once a day. Not as in every 24hrs, as in once each day at most based on UTC/GMT timezone.

 

I've been running popups in beta with fair bit of success and hopefully it'll be good in live as well. The goal is to see if this is a viable alternative to banner ads which:

• Take up space in viewing area
• Cause loading delay
• Loading large number of ads, increasing probability of unwanted ads.

 

The objective of this test is to have less ads in total, annoying the users less. Popups are indeed more annoying, but given the ratio of 1 each day vs 2 every page, this seems less annoying in the end.

 

 

ps. I'm aware this makes adblock's whitelist impossible since the popup itself will be on another domain.

[Mattkun]

I'd absolutely be good with that. I prefer that to what we have currently. I can't count how many times I've accidentally clicked those banner ads because they're at the top and different sizes sometimes. Go for it. 

[GooglyElmo]

I really want to help batoto in any way I can, but I'm a poor fucker who can only read free manga so I'm totally OK with this. 

[Subbed]

This is definitely a plus for all active daily users of Batoto, which the staff should naturally aim to please first. Rational and wise decision made, as far as I can see. Now if only the ones who frequent Batoto but don't excessively use the forums won't potentially panic too much, I guess it's all good.

Though you could say I'm interested in what the difference in the overall income from the ads will be like with this change taking action. Do you think you could let us (or me via PM if you'd prefer to have it private) know after, let's say, a month what the income from the ads was like in relation to the month prior it took action? I'm only interested in x/y ratio, no exact numbers are necessary.

[Grumpy]

Though you could say I'm interested in what the difference in the overall income from the ads will be like with this change taking action. Do you think you could let us (or me via PM if you'd prefer to have it private) know after, let's say, a month what the income from the ads was like in relation to the month prior it took action? I'm only interested in x/y ratio, no exact numbers are necessary.

My goals is to actually match the previous earning rates. Which in total yields close to breaking even with costs. If I earn a significantly more than the costs, I reduce the ads. It's how it's been done for a while now.

I don't know if 1 a day is enough or too much. It's a number based on very early and small sample size of results. So, it was necessary for me to increase the sample size to get a more accurate predictions.

[Django]

This is definitely a plus for all active daily users of Batoto, which the staff should naturally aim to please first. Rational and wise decision made, as far as I can see. Now if only the ones who frequent Batoto but don't excessively use the forums won't potentially panic too much, I guess it's all good.

Though you could say I'm interested in what the difference in the overall income from the ads will be like with this change taking action. Do you think you could let us (or me via PM if you'd prefer to have it private) know after, let's say, a month what the income from the ads was like in relation to the month prior it took action? I'm only interested in x/y ratio, no exact numbers are necessary.

Any chance of the donator system coming back in any capacity? I would like to send some revenue to you guys for the work you do, but I have an aversion to advertisements. (I know noscript/adblock hurt advertising revenues)

 

Derp, there's a button at the top. Good job me.

Edited by Django, 27 May 2015 - 07:47 PM.

[powha]

Any chance of the donator system coming back in any capacity? I would like to send some revenue to you guys for the work you do, but I have an aversion to advertisements. (I know noscript/adblock hurt advertising revenues)

If you click the Donate button you can see the all the available donation options and get rid of the ads that way.

[Strelok]

Yeah, I'm okay with this.

[Yan Q]

Any chance of the donator system coming back in any capacity? I would like to send some revenue to you guys for the work you do, but I have an aversion to advertisements. (I know noscript/adblock hurt advertising revenues)
 
Derp, there's a button at the top. Good job me.

But... you're already a donator? Unless you did that just now. I'm cool with the webtoon stuff, 'cept on Beta, you don't get the pop-up with webtoons cos there's only one strip per chapter.
The moment I click a regular chapter though, the intersec-tell-thing ad comes up.

[doufu]

Would it be possible to change the flash ads to html5 ones? The flash ads make loading pages much slower.

[Opal]

...Oh my. Please forgive my straight-forwardness in the following words, this simply touched a nerve.

 

I detest pop-up ads. Absolutely hate them. They disturb my viewing experience, sometimes leave ugly trails on my browser history/cache (y'know, like a poker-pop-up, which has a fake "X" and if you click that, you're redirected to yet another suspicious place, or an "X" which causes infinite reloads of the ad, or an online RPG ad you can't turn the noise off of, etc. These happen to me way more often with pop-ups than any other form of online advertisement), and are one of the main things that make me "fly the coop" of any web page. I consider pop-ups a sign of the site itself not being trustworthy.

Now this may be because I live in Finland, we have relatively secure internet connections, and Batoto for example doesn't pose any loading problems for me (maybe once in six months, which is nothing), but in my opinion, there hasn't been any problems with the side bar ads. Yes they constrict the space, however on my screen the scanlated pages are already like double the size they're in a volume. xD But I guess the problem stems from touch-screen device users, I can see that's where you end up clicking ads when you don't mean to.

 

In the end, though, I have no special IT skills, when you post about updates I'm one of those you kinda lose pretty soon into the "techy stuff". xD So I do trust you to make the best decisions for Batoto and am very thankful for all your hard work that's put into making this page an exceptionally good experience among online manga readers. <3

[Grumpy]

Whelp...

 

I'm gonna end my tests now. And unfortunately, pop-up is a no-go. (or fortunately for above poster...)

 

Between high ad block usage percentage and inability to allow popups from batoto, simply not enough percentage of the people are getting the ad. And it's FAR less than what I expected. It's reaching less than 5% of the users actually sent. Which is a crazy high number of adblock users for any site. Either that, or the ad networks like to scam me on counts... But it's been fairly consistent between the two, so I don't think that's it.

 

To match what I was expecting, the frequency would have to be changed to 1 per chapter. At that point, I'm not sure if there is a significant advantage that I was seeking.

[svines85]

Spoiler

Whelp...

 

I'm gonna end my tests now. And unfortunately, pop-up is a no-go. (or fortunately for above poster...)

 

Between high ad block usage percentage and inability to allow popups from batoto, simply not enough percentage of the people are getting the ad. And it's FAR less than what I expected. It's reaching less than 5% of the users actually sent. Which is a crazy high number of adblock users for any site. Either that, or the ad networks like to scam me on counts... But it's been fairly consistent between the two, so I don't think that's it.

 

To match what I was expecting, the frequency would have to be changed to 1 per chapter. At that point, I'm not sure if there is a significant advantage that I was seeking.

 

I don't know if this is related to this topic, but since I encountered this on a webtoon (actually all the webtoons I checked after seeing it) I thought this would be the place to mention it. 

 

As of today I've begun getting an ad on webtoons (not manga).........which is odd, seeing as I'm a lifetime ad removal subscriber and have never had them before (i.e. it wasn't there yesterday or ever before then   ).

 

Spoiler

 

Keep in mind I still run adblock so the ad doesn't actually show anything........if you actually need that information I can turn it off and find out what they actually are.  

[Grumpy]

I don't know if this is related to this topic, but since I encountered this on a webtoon (actually all the webtoons I checked after seeing it) I thought this would be the place to mention it. 

 

As of today I've begun getting an ad on webtoons (not manga).........which is odd, seeing as I'm a lifetime ad removal subscriber and have never had them before (i.e. it wasn't there yesterday or ever before then   ).

 

Spoiler

 

Keep in mind I still run adblock so the ad doesn't actually show anything........if you actually need that information I can turn it off and find out what they actually are.  

 

Ooops. Seems I forgot to have it check for donator status. Should still be a blank gray box even without adblock. Will fix soon.

[svines85]

Ooops. Seems I forgot to have it check for donator status. Should still be a blank gray box even without adblock. Will fix soon.

 

Yes, you're right, once I looked at it again (like, the next morning when I wasn't being as lazy   ) with my adblocking turned off, yeah, it's just a gray box. Everything else I looked at site-wise is fine, it's apparently only appearing in the longstrip version of the reader (even on the webtoons it seemed to disappear when I switched to page by page format).

 

Sorry to bother you

[spaz]

hmm, all i get is a grey box with no close button. im viewing on an ipad. I would be fine with this save for the fact that the grey box appears over the top of what im trying to read.

love the site BTW

[PervySageChuck]

hmm, all i get is a grey box with no close button. im viewing on an ipad. I would be fine with this save for the fact that the grey box appears over the top of what im trying to read.

love the site BTW

 

I have the same problem on my PC.  I'm a donator and I am getting this grey box on ALL webtoon chapters that I follow.  It is really annoying when I can't even find anything to click on to get rid of it.  I probably wouldn't mind it so much if it weren't blocking some of the webtoon images.

[Yaomo]

I have the same problem on my PC.  I'm a donator and I am getting this grey box on ALL webtoon chapters that I follow.  It is really annoying when I can't even find anything to click on to get rid of it.  I probably wouldn't mind it so much if it weren't blocking some of the webtoon images.

uh huh.

would like to get back the option to close it.

button disappeared for some reason, yesterday or the day before.

[Daktyl]

For now, there are two options:
1) use the beta reader, which doesn't have it (for reasons)

2) Install Stylish and just use the 3-line script I wrote a minute ago: https://userstyles.org/styles/115629/batoto-webtoon-grey-box-fix-donators-only-please

 

Both should just be temporary solutions. I wasn't going to write the script, but it's been over a week since the problem first popped up, so I had to do something >.<

[Yaomo]

that's... so cheaty.

might end up using it if the problem doesn't disappear before next week.