We shouldn't be seeing ads like this

During my week as a nonsubscriber, I only saw the Dead Island ads.

Im a full member, but I approve of guess dat ass. Its challenging and rewarding

@Azteck said:

I don't get ads. Hooray Europe!

Not for long! Hurray Advertising world wide! http://www.giantbomb.com/news/if-youre-not-in-the-uk-dont-even-read-this/3725/

solution "ad blocker"

I want ass adds

Makes me appreciate my shiny gold medal under my ava even more :)

Giant Bomb uses Google AdSense. The ads that you see are provided by Google as "appropriate" interests based on your recent and most popular search queries.

@Chadster said:

After doing some... research... I can confirm that it's Kim Kardashian's ass.

I confirm the results of our fellow scientist.

That's Kim Kardashian's ass, by the way.

@EuanDewar: God loves his children!

@ZombiePie said:

Giant Bomb uses Google AdSense. The ads that you see are provided by Google as "appropriate" interests based on your recent and most popular search queries.

BOOM!

@ZombiePie said:

Giant Bomb uses Google AdSense. The ads that you see are provided by Google as "appropriate" interests based on your recent and most popular search queries.

That can't be true or all the ads would be about naked cartoon pussy.

@ryanwho said:

@ZombiePie said:

Giant Bomb uses Google AdSense. The ads that you see are provided by Google as "appropriate" interests based on your recent and most popular search queries.

That can't be true or all the ads would be about naked cartoon pussy.

They are also vetted by Google for being Safe Search appropriate as well as torrent free.

@Dagbiker said:

Please people if your going to complain please use the right word at least, ads not adds

ads = things that get put in front of your quicklook just to annoy you.

adds = the thing you do to annoy the subtraction guy.

if you're going to complain about people complaining, at least use the correct form of "you're."

Will Smith has spoken. From the Tested Forums: 

 I get it. We're filtering out the worst offenders as we catch them, but the overall ad market has changed dramatically since Giant Bomb and even Tested launched.

Basically, the ad market is in the toilet. While we make good money on subscriptions (Thanks guys!), ad revenue remains an important part of our business strategy. The bad news that we're kind of an awkward size right now. We're too big for small vendors to be able to afford our ad rates and not big enough for large campaigns from car companies and soda vendors. As a company, Whiskey is growing at a good pace to reach a size that's interesting to those big advertisers, but until we get to that point, there are probably going to be some crappy ads.

The good news is that we do offer a convenient and easy way to opt-out of advertising on our sites. For less than $5/month, we won't bother you with ads anymore.

Unfortunately, it really isn't as simple as going out in the world and saying "hey we do this thing that's rad, you guys should give us money". People who buy ads do it based on some really straightforward math. Unfortunately, at the size we are now, the math doesn't always work. We're moving in the right direction to get to that point, but until then, the third-party ads are something we had to do. When we launched Tested and were talking about the types of ads we'd run, I don't think any of us anticipated the massive change the advertising market is going through right now.

There are two basic kinds of ads on our sites, ones people inside our company sell and ones that are sold by other people, outside our company. We've found some campaigns, like the NTSF:SUV:SD thing on Screened a few months ago, that have worked well. Those types of ad deals open the door for other things in the future, but it takes time. In the meantime, the third-party ads we're running do make money for us. The only problem is that the third party ad networks aren't a buffet, where you can pick and choose the ads you want to appear on your site. Your only option is to accept everything they give you. If the network gives you the right to remove ads that you don't like, you got a pretty good deal. We have a pretty good deal with our third-party provider.

I don't like running shitty ads on the site, and I worry that they could impact our ability to attract new users to the sites. More importantly, I don't like breaking a promise I made to readers. Unfortunately, it's a necessary thing for us to do if we want to prove that we can make a functional business out of this crazy thing we do. All I can do is apologize and hope that you guys will forgive us.

@rebgav said:

@ZombiePie said:

Giant Bomb uses Google AdSense. The ads that you see are provided by Google as "appropriate" interests based on your recent and most popular search queries.

Perhaps GB should switch to contextual targeting, it's unlikely that people want trashy ads served up specially for them regardless of their interests. Seems like interest-based targeting only works if there is a large enough pool of advertisers that you can block all of the egregious ones.

This is something you should be saying to Daniel our director of marketing and sales and not me.

I really like the idea of Guess That Ass.What if we made that a weekly forum competition, where you had to name the video game character who the ass is of.

Hey folks,

First off, sorry that some of you are seeing shitty ads on the site(s). Some of these are unacceptable, and as the dude that runs our ad operations, it's partially my fault that they have made their way onto the site, and for that I'm sorry.

2 months ago we started an ad relationship with a network that handles our U.S. advertising. They're not a premium network, meaning that they don't do big budget ad campaigns for clients, but rather pool a bunch of ad sources (agencies, and other networks like them) to do a more or less ad sales marketplace. Buyers (agencies, networks) bid certain dollars to have their inventory show on our network. Some make it, some don't, depending on how much they're willing to spend. Sometimes, bad ads make it through the system and end up on our site. It's my job to make sure as few as possible do. Every day I report bad ads to our network and tell them to ban a certain ad or agency delivering that ad, sometimes both. It's an ongoing process, and I'm refining our ban list so that we get the best, most relevant ads possible on the site. Also, I'm working on some other deals to get the premium advertisers on the site, which will allow us to turn down the volume overall on our lesser quality networks.

I can always use the help of the community on this as well. If you guys see any offending ads that you feel are bad enough to report, please don't hesitate to contact me. If you can, please shoot me a screen cap of the ad at daniel@whiskeymedia.com and I'll immediately look into it.

Thanks.

@Daniel: You're awesome, man. If you saw a post I made earlier in this thread about my ad blocker, just know that I've altered my view thanks to you and Will Smith's posts regarding these ads. I've disabled my ad blocker once again for whiskey media sites. I can't afford a membership, but I can afford to deal with crummy ads for now.

@AjayRaz said:

i only get dead island ads

@Akeldama: Yep, only U.S. and Canadians should be seeing the Dead Island ads.

Well now this is getting really weird... I'm not a subscriber/member, and I don't get any ads AT ALL. Now that I've seen what these ads look like, they are very different to what I thought, I must have some sort of software blocking these ads.

@TEHMAXXORZ: Where do you live? We're not currently showing ads anywhere but US/CA.

@Daniel: I live in the UK. That must be the reason, oh well can't blame someone for not knowing...

@EuanDewar: THis needs to be a t-shirt meme

I almost never see ads. Haven't in almost fifteen years. There have always been solutions (currently, adblock plus is pretty good). I ran my large site for over a decade with no advertising. It was an intentional choice, because I didn't feel like bombarding my users with them and wanted to maintain the integrity of my site and service, instead of selling out for a few fucking pennies.

However, some sites definitely need the revenue as they're an actual business (as opposed to your mom, trying to monetize every last post about cookies on her fucking blog that nobody reads). In those cases, I try to chip in where I can, rather than subject myself to ads. So, I'd suggest that you pay for a subscription or use adblock plus or do both (which is what I do, here).

Advertising on the internet is a pretty difficult way to make money and stay afloat. It is not as lucrative as people like to believe it is. I don't know the details behind any GB/WM deals, but I do know that a lot of times you are stuck in the position of having to run whatever you can make money running, rather than only running awesome related ads that nobody is really paying you to run in the first place... :/

@YoThatLimp said:

@Subjugation said:

@VilhelmNielsen said:

What bothers me are the ads on the live stream. It's "Premium Content", I'm already paying for it, why do I need to get these horrible ads?

I've always been told it was Justin.tv, not Giant Bomb, that was in charge of ads for live streaming content.

And yeah, those ads, especially the last, are pretty tasteless. I hope your financial situation puts you in a position to subscribe soon OP. Probably a better investment than I realized on my college student budget.

Its definitely justin.tv not giantbomb.

Yeah, I figured, but as a site with so much content going through justin.tv, they ought to make some deals, until they finally make their own streaming-service or make a switch to another.

@Daniel: Thanks for your reply. I appreciate that you guys at least listen to our concerns. I hope to see more honest ads for real products and services soon, not these shady, bordering on NSFW ones.

And to the people telling me to use Ad Block, I know. Thing is I like to turn it off on sites I enjoy because it helps them out, and that's the least I can do as someone who would have a hard time justifying a subscription.

@dudeglove said:

C'mon folks, it's time to set aside these petty squabbles about ads and start making photoshops out of them. I'll go first.

I click and nothing happens. :(

You Brits filled out a survey right? Expect these soon :)

@Snapstacle said:

@dudeglove said:

C'mon folks, it's time to set aside these petty squabbles about ads and start making photoshops out of them. I'll go first.

I click and nothing happens. :(

Click harder! Jeff is now my friend :)... and my computer seems to be telling me I have a virus? strange

@Atramentous said:

@Jimbo said:

So, whose ass is it?

Vinny's

So a value ad, then.

Totally agree, 100%.

@penINC: http://www.tested.com/forums/bug-reporting/13/congratulations-are-you-kidding-me-whiskey-media/10991/

They know. Or at least, Will does. It sucks, and honestly I think there is absolutely a way for them to stop with that shit, like by getting more than one fucking game related ad campaign, but that seems to be the official stance on this stuff.

Just wanted to say that I think it's a little odd that the premium members are complaining about the ads more then the people who actually get ads

@dudeglove: I would love to photoshop with you, but my laptop doesn't have it :(

Remember when they said they wouldnt have ads like this? Those were good times...

Yeah, I remember getting one of those "Congratulations you are the 10,000 viewer of this page!" type of ads on here before becoming a subscriber....no quality website should have those type of shady ads on their site

I'd rather have a Giantbomb with shitty ads then no Giantbomb at all.

@Jimbo said:

So, whose ass is it?

yours. surprise!

Just wanted to drop a little update. In the past few days I've encountered far less shitty ads, in fact I want to say I've seen none, so I assume you guys made good. Great that Whiskey will actually respond to stuff like this. Thanks!

No, there's still some crappy ads. Not as many, but they still slip through. At least where I am.