- Swen Lorenz - https://www.swen-lorenz.com -

Why you will never see banner advertising on this site (warning: contains rant)

Why you will never see banner advertising on this site (warning: contains rant)
10 August 2017

Are you as tired of online advertising as I am?

I’d be happy if I never saw another banner ad, pop-up ad, or auto-play video ad. Most of the advertising on the internet is ugly and intrusive. It hurts the user experience and has become a serious impediment to enjoying being online.

Virtually all internet advertising awakens my strong desire not to buy the advertised product. It would pain me to think that my purchasing decision pays the salaries of the marketing executives who created this obnoxious shite.

Most of the advertising on the internet is ugly and intrusive.

Obviously, there are ad blockers. But not everyone has the time and nerve to add yet another app or software tool. Some of them open up new problems.

This blog is primarily a networking tool

On the other hand, I love…

  • Finding new products that have a high chance of being relevant to my life.
  • Reading in-depth reports about such products and making informed decisions.
  • Following recommendations from friends and trusted sources.

In this very spirit, I have decided to keep this website entirely free of conventional advertising.

This blog earns its keep as my online CV and networking tool. Even if I never made a single penny from writing, I’d continue to publish on this website. I do it because I enjoy it and because I find it useful for networking and other purposes.

Where I’ll make exceptions

However, you should never turn down the opportunity to earn some additional money if you can do it in a responsible, sustainable way.

You will probably, over the years, see me signing up to one or the other carefully selected affiliate marketing programme. That’s one of the very few forms of internet advertising that I find acceptable and sensible (another one being native content). If I do go down this route, then that’ll be fully disclosed to you. I’ll only do it if I find a product that I genuinely, wholeheartedly feel will bring value to some of my readers.

If I have ONE goal when it comes to monetising this blog, then it’s to find entirely new ways to go about it.

Also, you’ll see unusual ways for monetising blogs. E.g., I recently organised a VIP tour of the Galapagos Islands which I marketed among my readers. The entire margin from this trip, some $20,000, goes to a UK-based shark charity as a donation.

If I have ONE goal when it comes to monetising this blog, then it’s to find entirely new ways to go about it. Which, in itself, will then also be another interesting subject to write about!

At some point in the future, I might also sell a book, or ebooks and special reports. That’s an option I want to keep open. Generating some form of income from this website will also be in the interest of its readers. It’ll justify investing yet further into the blog, which in turn will make it yet more useful for you.

The website of an advertising refusenik

Be prepared, however, to never finding insulting banner ads on here. Or pop-up shite. Or videos that auto-start as soon as you hit this website.

It’s simply time for the more intelligent among us to draw a line under the era of intrusive, conventional internet advertising. Let’s make the years leading up to 2020 the era when internet advertising was put back into the box.

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