By Chuck Woodbury
FOUNDER AND PUBLISHER
For many months now, I have been perplexed about the advertising in this newsletter and our website. We have received complaints from readers who say the advertising is so intrusive that they will unsubscribe. So, last week we asked the readers of our free editions (who see the most ads) what they think.
I was surprised. Only three percent (26 readers) of the 850 readers who responded by Thursday were so offended by advertising that they were considering unsubscribing. Nearly 9 of 10 readers were okay with the ads. Half said the ads were fine as is, and another 40 percent said that they were “a bit annoying, but okay.”
Our tech people tell me that readers who are most annoyed by ads popping up everywhere are using a device infected with a virus. It is not our doing. We do not allow pop-up ads and only devote about 18% of our total space to advertising (most healthy consumer magazines devote at least 50 percent).
If you are seeing pop-up ads on our website, it is your computer or other device. Not us (the only exceptions are subscription pitches that mostly non-subscribers see).
As long as we are forced to rely on advertising because only a small percentage of readers support us with a voluntary contribution (one time or monthly), we are stuck with ads, which provide about 50% of our revenue. Reader donations provide about 30%, and another 20% comes from commissions from affiliate programs, mostly Amazon.
Frankly, I would prefer to cut way back on our advertising or get rid of it entirely. But until we can increase our revenue in other ways (we are trying), advertising is necessary for us to survive in ethical ways: Resorting to clickbait or cranking out generic articles with A.I. is not acceptable to us.
Those readers who have helped support us with a donation do not see ads in their weekend newsletters. That costs us lost revenue, but it’s okay: the support of those readers is far more important to our bottom line. And their support boosts our confidence that our hard work is worth more than “free.”
It’s a challenging time for us as we enter our 26th year. Google is now delivering search results with A.I. answers instead of sending traffic to individual websites. That could kill us—as it has many small websites already—if we did not have a large mailing list and many loyal readers (thank you!). But it has made life for us more difficult than ever, as we must work much harder to find new readers to replace those who move on.
My daughter, Emily, and I, along with our small staff, would appreciate it very much if you would help support us with some level of financial support, no matter what size, big or small ($5 to $10 a month is most helpful). If you already contribute, then we thank you from the bottom to the very tippy top of our hearts.
Be safe out there! And thank you for being a part of our very special RVtravel.com community.
RVT1267
