Okay, we're all familiar with the method and process of advertising and affiliation. But there are so many different methods used around the web? Which one works best? My HP forum is small but active. I don't mind who advertises on it as long as it isn't offensive and they have a guest friendly forum where I can link back. I don't mind putting up other peoples' banners first in order to affiliate with them.


HOWEVER! (LOL, I have a point here!) I do get annoyed at what I deem "powerplay" by some sites. I don't see why I should have to post their advert on my forum first before I get to advertise on theirs. It puts me off advertising altogether and I just leave that site. While I really don't mind putting up affiliation banners, I think it is only good manners for our banner to be placed on their site in return. I get irritated when I go back to an affiliate to find that their button has been on my site for a couple of weeks or longer and they havent bothered to put mine up even though it is clear that staff members have been logging in! *rolls eyes*. I know this seems like a rant. But I genuinely want to hear others' opinions on this. Am I being totally irrational?

What rules do other admins out there have for advertising and affiliation on their sites?


Ise

I allow guests to advertise and they don't have to put a link back to us but if they wish us to put up their affiliate button I would like ours to be on their site to. But I know that some would not affiliate with us if they have to put up our banner, they may not have enough room or it may be to much bother for them.

I agree. I can't stand places that ask you to advertise for them, if you advertise there. The way I see it (and maybe that's what they want) if I post an advert on my own board, it's like I'm vouching for the quality of the place somehow, so heck no, I'm not doing that.

Also annoying was when I was reading someone's rules and they were saying that if you advertise there, then you have to advertise them on your own board, they said something about how it was only fair and a you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours thing. Ummm, no, no it isn't. It's me scratching everyone's backs.

On affiliation, I'm less eager than most sites seem to be these days. It's entirely possible that I've lost out on potential members because of it, but truth be told, I won't affiliate with any site unless I'm a member there, good friends with their admin, or (sometimes) the admin is a member of my own board.

I have in the past (and might be again) been a real active affiliate. However, I get around to all the sites at least once a month to check for activity and to make sure our banner's up there as well. Generally, I get my affiliates through this board. However, I can think of one board in especial who never put up my banner, though I posted in their thread here and also checked in three times on their site, each time asking that my banner get put up, giving the code each time. The fourth month I returned to that site and did not see my banner, I closed the window and removed their banner from my site. Affiliation can be a pain, especially when you're working with second-party software, I can appreciate it, but damn, it's annoying when people don't even bother to uphold their end.
I have a guest-friendly forum now, but I don't require a linkback. Heck, I don't even have an ad up there for people to take away. I just figure they'll advertise, feel good about it, and go on ;)

I agreewith you on that one. All that I require for the other site to advertise on my board (As a guest, mind you) is that I can go to their site and do the same, as a guest. I should not have to register and the forum should be easily found. If not, I will edit the post to say something like "Your ad will be replaced when I can post my ad on your site as a guest." Or something liek that. They have about a week t odo so, and if that doens't happen, the thread gets deleted.

I actually have three forums. Affiliations, Member Ads and Guest Ads. Affiliations get their mini button at the top in the Affiliates Marquee and must have 50 posts before they can become affiliated. Member Ads can be done after 20 posts. Once they are approved, I post saying so. The guest forum has a warning label on it that says the sites within are not always reviewed by a member of staff and may contain content that is unsuitable for younger audiences. Wow. I just sounded like a TV ad. But that's the jist of it.

We haven't set up a guest-friendly forum yet, but I definitely intend to in the near future. I don't think I'd advertise on sites that force you to post their ad first or make you do it manually because they're too lazy to do it themselves >>; I would actually rather just post my ad and have them post back, and vice versa. So much simpler.

I had trouble with affiliates one time. This one person was looking so I offered and put up all four of his sites. Those links must have been there for two or three weeks and he STILL hadn't added my site so I just gave up and removed him. >>; You know... It'd be nice if people could have the same courtesy, or send a PM or something saying, "Hey, sorry I haven't done it yet; I've been super busy." But, that's life I suppose.

I have a guest-friendly ad board on both my RPGs that only requires that ppl who post ads have a like board where I can post back, WITHOUT filling out a form. I hate forms and frankly don't see any point to them on the ad board of an RPG. I don't require any forms so expect the same freedom when I link back.

I expect anyone who wants to affiliate with me to put my button up before they make the request. I put anyone else's button up first on the rare occasion I request affiliation from someone else. It's only courteous. Besides, I've had many problems with people not putting my button up even after I'd been to their site and requested affiliation several times for over a month. No response. It gets really annoying to have to go through the box and clear out folks who either never put my button up or, for some odd reason, had it up at first and then took it down without any prior notice! Little sneaks. :p

I also don't like sites that require you to put their banner up to advertise on them. It comes off as really snotty. Also sites that put you on a marquee but require you to put them static. How is that fair? I just stay away.

Thanks for the replies guys! makes me realise I'm not alone while also helping me to realise that it may be pointless getting stressed about it. I certainly don't understand forums that make you fill out a form when you could just cut and paste your ad. Who has the time??

I think if I don't see my button up on some of those sites that I've put buttons up for, I'll just take down their buttons too. And a quick reply to each person:

Angel-girl and Elenlond: You gave those affiliates lots of time to get your banner up so you made the right choice.

Silver-wolf: Is your affiliation section only for members then? Is that better? Maybe it is, at least you are sure that the affiliations will be reliable......

Wynnyelle: As I said above, I agree totally. Forms....who has the time? It seems silly when all the info they want is there in your ready made coded advert anyway!! I agree with your thinking about the affiliation button, but my HP forum has only been going since February and I find there are a lot of snobby sites out there who assume that I should be grateful even to have their advert. Why should they put my button up? Consequently, I feel like I have to put theirs up first and wait! Maybe I can change my rules now that we're more active. Thanks for the input!

Uh. Me?

I will fill out forms, I will search through three forums to see if my bloody advert is there already, I will put a key word at the bottom of my advert and I will even be nice enough (but only if you request it) to put LB in my description line.

Why? Because it's no skin off my nose. I happen to have the 30 seconds it takes to cut up my advert and paste it into a form.

The only thing I won't do, is advertise a board for someone else unless it's an affiliation or I'm part of the game and they need my help. This is not good manners. This is not community building. It's laziness and I won't help promote it.

All in all, I'm a pretty lenient woman. People can post on my ad forum so long as I can post on their's. They can post any genre of board they want, at any level--provided there is a warning in place in the subject line. They can repost as often as I can repost on their site, and so on and so forth.

I want to make this painless.

However, if someone comes onto my game and breaks the advertising rules, they're gone in a heartbeat. I don't delete the advert for a week, usually. I edit the advert to reflect what rules were broken, then I give the link to the board who posted it. I leave it up for a week and then remove it. I've never had it come back and bite me in the arse.

As for affiliates? I dislike being affiliated with a game whose admin(s) I can't contact. That feels impersonal. How can I pimp their game to other people if I have no idea what the people are like who are running it?

I also do random affiliate checks for activity and my button. Each time I do a run through I lose at least one board, which is unfortunate, but there are a solid few that continue to prevail.

That's great that you have the time to do that Panda. When I find forms, I don't find that I can just cut and paste mine into a form, I seem to have to start from scratch. But maybe Ive just been unlucky and Im obviously not as quick as some people. It would take me longer than 30 seconds to fill something out. When I said "who has the time?" , perhaps it sounded flippant and generalistic and I apologise if thats the way it came out but I was only referring to my own experience. I dont have much time to dedicate to my site which is why I found another admin to help with it and she does a lot of the advertising. I agree with your points on affiliation definitely!

Thanks for your input.

A good idea. I don't let others advertise on my site if I can't reciprocate. I mean, come on. That's just rude, right?

For the most part, yes. Affiliation, to me, is more than just being able to find a random site to post a link on. Affiliation means that the site is trusted by me and my staff and I can feel fully confident in letting anyone view the site without coming to some kind of harm. It means I trust the member who posted the affiliation enough to showcase their site on my own, which took a lot of hard work over the four and some years it's been active. I take pride in my site, and therefor do not want something that makes it look bad. And my affiliates can do that.

Now, there are a few affiliates who are not members. These are the ones whom I've spoken with here on RPG-D. This is the only exception sicne I can interact with them here. Naturally, I go through the same process, and expect them to do so as well. And I always check every month or so just to make sure my button and whatnot is still there and working.

I'm not picky about whom I affiliate with, especially now that I added a marquee to affiliate with anyone who only has a marquee {and that's a lot of people}. The whole reason I participate in affiliating is to bring in new members, and the way I see it, the more affiliates I have the more players may by some chance see my button and decide to check it out.

I do however question whether affiliation is an effective means to bring new members in. It doesn't seem as effective as adverts...but advertising is soooo much more work, plus the effects of even a good-sized advertising spree only last a couple weeks at the most before guest numbers fade back into background levels.

My biggest irriating is people blatantly not reading the rules of my site. I don't have time to delete advertisements with the wrong coding, especially because my members have posted int he :link back" section of some of those forums. Why don't people at least preview their post first?

When I post on other sites, I skip over the ones with a lot of requirements, too. I don't like posting in forms, it messes up the ad and seems to frivolous.

Affiliates I am trying to be more picky with...I am not mostly adding sites I would join myself.

Yeah, but really, this isn't your problem, is it? The only person that's going to look bad for the incorrect coding is the ad-poster. It will reflect badly on a game because let's face it--Rpers are superficial these days. Don't sweat it--just worry about getting your advert right.

I have a rule that says "no extraneous punctuation in the title"; I could say it's there because it makes it easier for me to put them in the ad masterlist, which it does, but mostly I think it's just annoying and juvenile. I'll edit it out if I'm in a good mood, or I'll just delete the ad if I'm in a bad one (which doesn't happen too often). But I don't take the time to fix people's codes- it says very blatantly in the forum description and the advertising rules that IPBFree doesn't use IF coding, and that preview is your friend. If they can't be bothered to make sure their ad looks nice, why should I do it for them?

Well, I just advertise anywhere I'm allowed to, but there's a few exceptions. I won't post somewhere that requires me to post their ad. That's just lame and lazy. I also won't post anywhere that has a blacklist of sites that didn't follow their advertising rules or threatens to spam sites for whatever reason. I don't condone that kind of behavior, and I don't want my site to be associated with it.

The problem is that those such abusive sites often post at our nice law-abiding sites first, thus they get somewhat of a free ride.

I used to be a big fan of 88x31 buttons but that is too bothersome to maintain. Now, the advertising system that I find most fulfilling is a single board with a pinned topic that includes my advertisement. I allow guest posting so random visitors can post links to their site. I have not made an RPG in about 3 years and advertising systems have changed a lot. When I was advertising my new RPG yesterday, I was shocked by the amount of effort that people are putting into their systems. People have one forum for affiliates, another for "link backs" and another for "first time linkers". I'm sorry but that is just way too much work for me hehe. I like my single board, and by the looks of it people know enough to put "LB" when they are linking back. It's a pretty simple system but it works the same in my opinion. If people don't put "LB" in the subject line, I can assume they are a first time linker and that having ten billion subforums is very unnecessary. Oh and another thing that I find so unnecessary, is an ad masterlist. I think the forum is enough of a masterlist in itself.

@ beta pleated sheet: I agree, I will not advertise anywhere where I am required to post their ad.