deftronix

No need to boycott all vendors, some of them are awesome! I've privately emailed several vendors letting them know that even if they had a product I want, I would never purchase from them specifically due to their forum practices. AR doesnt even bother to respond to questions in a thread and just robo bumps and moves to the next forum subsection . JBSpeed bumps his threads religiously every 48 hours and when it starts looking ridiculous with 50+ bumps he deletes and starts over. It's a couple vendors ruining it for everyone (ruining it for the good vendors too).

I agree, when on other forums I visit the vendor classifieds all the time - without the anger & resentment. It would work out better for all parties involved.

FLC63s

admins and mods,

why not have sponsors etc post links, announcements, etc in a single post to the items etc in the marketplace ??

i enjoy the community here and have been helped by many and feel that i have been able to share with others as well.

although at this point, i dont even care , i used to check/post multiple times daily, now your lucky if i check weekly or so.

its outrageous on some of these ads are just one after another and another

///Bruce

..... Sure seems like it. No way to unsubscribe from vendor ads day after day.

Stunna02

After taking some time off from this forum until after the Holiday break, coming back and seeing the wall of from vendors with now clever new ways of talking about their products... this is yet another excuse to why I don't want to include this forum anymore with my morning cup of joe.

///Bruce

The proprietors of this site have been bought and paid for. Sad commentary.

FLC63s

Maybe we all should move our discussion threads over to the marketplace - since vendors apparently dont post there..

SJGetsome

Hahaha. This cracked me up.

///Bruce

It's about the $$$$$$$$. One of this site's moderators said in a reply last year that they could not run this site without monetary support from the vendors and hawkers of garbage. This, unfortunately, is why they can post and then repost over and over and over and over and over all day every day. It gets old trying to find real posts from real MB enthusiasts looking for help or offereing help in between the endless crap for wheels, headers, intakes and the like.

mstraka

So we can recognize vendor posts from member posts, can a different type font be used for vendor post titles, or perhaps a different color for the vendor post title? It's getting very bad.

FLC63s

yea thats not going to happen... and even if it would/could they would find a way around it..

I am almost done looking into doing a NON Advertised solution to this..

As @///Bruce mentioned, companies like, Internet Brands (that own this site along with others) make it seem like its a massive expense, and although there is a cost, its minimal compared to operating cost.
(example, the amount of money made on a site from google or targeted ads, with this type of traffic would more then cover the cost of hosting and software (1 time license fee for Vbulletin) ... BUT... then they wouldn't me making a "large profit" .. )

So the main issue with sites like this is, the company wants to make more profit vs having a community support itself and knowledge.

AlexZTuned

I've worked in digital marketing my entire professional career. If anyone at Internet Brands or mods on here is listening - SERVE UP YOUR ADS BETTER. There is no excuse whatsoever to destroy the user experience at the expense of ad spam overload on the boards. Have you folks ever heard of the concept of marketing fatigue? That's one of the easiest ways to quickly destroy your base and lose subscribers, customers, etc.

There are plenty of alternative ways to monetize this site with ads (both internally and externally). You're welcome to hire me as a consultant if you want to learn how to do it right. This is a classic case of marketing fatigue and to not act on it when you have some of your most active members and contributors complaining about it, you are failing (and deserve to) by not addressing it.

FLC63s

@AlexZTuned I will PM you if you do side work.. I have tons of projects :-)

As for your response, I agree 100000% - I have even messaged sponsors on here, and told them, create a single POST - with your company name as the title, and post your deals and specials in that thread.. and only in that thread.
then let the customer go to that thread to see whats new etc..

The sponsors that just repost and repost and bump bump, are the same companies that have "NEW GRAND OPENING " on there window for the past 5 years.. They dont realize they are hurting there business more by doing it and upsetting the support group, vs thinkning they are converting a new user.....

I know for a fact, I have "referred well over 400K worth of product add ons, and sales to people (suppliers) that are NOT spammers .... Example, I had 4 people ask what my suggestions were on there cars.. 2 of them purchased DP', Tunes and In-Take system.. Sure in hell didnt send them to the companies that sit here and back to back post and post...

And yes the companies I referred them to are listed and or members on here... but they dont blast the forum, they chime in when they are responding to knowledge request, and when they make a post, its not bumped every day.

Kurzweil

I agree with all that's been said. I have a background in brand marketing, and seeing the endless spam here makes me wince.

And as a new owner of a C63s, the sponsors who spam should know that their marketing is having the opposite of its desired effect. I would never do business with a company that is so desperate they're clogging up forums with spam. To me, these "promotional posts" are just giving me a list of aftermarket companies who are desperate. I would never consider doing business with them.

Much of advertising is about demonstrating to prospective customers that your company is already successful, and therefore trusted and popular. Spamming message boards just says, "I'm broke, working out of my basement, I'm out of ideas, so let's just post to message boards over and over." That tactic may get a couple quick sales, but the longer term damage to the brand is more costly.

There's a book called "Permission Marketing," which more eloquently makes the case against this "Interruption Marketing," and the sponsors should grab a copy.

///Bruce

I came upstairs to print out a recipe for Creamy Chicke with Potatoes and Chorizo. Afterwards, I updated this page. This is what I found for "updated" or "new" posts:

There were a total of 32 'new' posts as highlighted in bold black type. Of those, seventeen (17) of them were from Vendors. That's MORE THAN HALF..... I feel like shouting out like Chris Berman for football highlights, "Come On Man!".

wings02

I would not be adversed to paying a nominal/reasonable fee for membership on this forum to eliminate the many advertisers posting in the wrong sections. We all must admit it takes time and patience for the moderators to run this site. I totally agree that advertisers must be moved to a different category to eliminate the deluge of ads we see in this section. I'm basically new to the MB World forum but I fail to understand all of the complaints from some members about the contents this forum. Yes, you do have to navigate around the many advertisers, but the information that members provide is invaluable to me. A lot of the other MB forums I have seen show such little response to questions and comments. It's common to see questions that have been posted for several weeks or months without a response. Paying a nominal fee for better categorizing of content on this forum would not offend me

///Bruce

To your point, this is one of the better forums for MB. That is why the other(s) forum is slowly dying.

And that forced me to start this thread. Because it’s the best site, it should be honed to the MB enthusiasts and not to every company that wants to hawk their wares here.

ShaneN.

I didn't have anything to say or contribute until I just noticed one of the sponsored companies is literally just replying to threads with emojis and/or 1 word replies and just to include advertising within EACH REPLY!? Simply using it as another place to leave advertising. Now I think ive seen it all.

AlexZTuned

That’s the problem with forum post advertising. When you have 10 vendors, each with their own “sponsored” thread, the only way to keep it visible it by bumping each post to the top of the page.

Essentially, MBWorld has pitted its own advertisers against each other in order to compete for ad placement space at the top of the page - similar in concept to SEO and paid search add with Google. But in a disgusting, sloppy way that makes no sense.

There are so many flaws in allowing this - it results in a poor user experience (just look at the complaints in this post...), and forces advertisers to compete for visibility/space on the forum. Honestly, I’m surprised that we’re the only ones complaining about this. If I was a paying advertiser, there is no way in hell I would accept this ad practice because it will result in brand negativity and reeks of desperation when all the posts are bumped with meaningless emojis and garbage.

There is no engagement from vendors in actual discussions outside of their own sponsored threads (with the small exception of a few that do it right). They bring absolutely zero value by contributing nothing outside of their own sales threads. The ones that actually engage in regular discussion like the rest of the members on here are the vendors that are the most respected in my view because they are contributing to this forum, not destroying it.

///Bruce

Did it again. It's 3:39PM Central Time. I just refreshed my page and only counted the highligted threads. There were 35 'new' threads. Out of those, 15 were ads for, yeah, you guessed it. The same wheels. The same header ads. The same ***** from the same vendors. Nothing new. Just a 'bump' of the same stuff.

I believe two days ago, I did this and it was 32 posts with 17 bumps by the same companies for the same stuff. Nothing's changed.

Rock

We are actively discussing this topic with IB so please be patient. They are aware of the problem and are receptive to making changes.

hyperion667

I simply refer to them as vultures trying to make a buck off well heeled Merc owners But that isn't fair to Vultures lol.

JRHolt

If we had the option to block posts from certain members, that would work. That way each member could filter the content of the forum as they see fit

hyperion667

There exists a 'like' tab, how about a "DISLIKE" tab?

4dr.no

iTrader: (1)

I'll say it again - simply do not buy anything from spammer vendors, do not even ask a questions in their threads. I cringe every time I see a member ask them something - all that does is encourage them to keep re-posting. If they get crickets long enough, they will go away.

tobeit

I am about to start a branding campaign for a new product...if you like to chat, PM me.