📝[Discussion topic] Overview of Bitcointalk Signature-Ad Campaigns📝

[joker_josue]

Mixer ban indeed affected the post count in the forum. It is foolish to think otherwise. We can discuss mixers but we can’t promote them which is how people can make money. No money = no incentive to post

It looks like the forum is on a constant decline. If more people lose interest in the forum, In a few years we might end up losing sig camps completely.

The end of the mixer campaigns may have helped. But that only happened this year - 2024. And the forum has been losing activity since 2022.
We are currently posting 60k less than we posted 2 years ago.

[Solosanz]

Mixer ban indeed affected the post count in the forum. It is foolish to think otherwise. We can discuss mixers but we can’t promote them which is how people can make money. No money = no incentive to post

It looks like the forum is on a constant decline. If more people lose interest in the forum, In a few years we might end up losing sig camps completely.

I don't think my post is hard to understand, I said "they will move to other campaigns", which mean they will have incentive to post and they can post whatever they want including discuss about mixers.

It's an exception for users who only want to promote "non gambling project" but it's only 5%-10% of them, after all there's always an user willing to promote anything, so the traffic will not go down.

[pawel7777]

I don't think my post is hard to understand, I said "they will move to other campaigns", which mean they will have incentive to post and they can post whatever they want including discuss about mixers.

It's an exception for users who only want to promote "non gambling project" but it's only 5%-10% of them, after all there's always an user willing to promote anything, so the traffic will not go down.

Are you implying that for every banned mixer campaign some "other" campaign magically popped up? Because that didn't happen.
Some managed to get a spot in a different, non-mixer campaign, but if the total number of available spots is much lower, and if pay rates are in decline, there's less overall incentive and the activity goes down.

Just because there still are some campaigns operating, doesn't mean banning mixer campaigns had no impact on activity as you previously stated.

[d5000]

And the forum has been losing activity since 2022.
We are currently posting 60k less than we posted 2 years ago.

I generally see a (small, but perhaps steady) quality improvement in the last years, or at least a reduction of spam, the not-spam/spam ratio is going up at least for me. Let's face it: The "surplus" in posts we had in 2017-21 compared to now were in its majority spam posts. The "Bitcoin Discussion" forum was almost unusable, and now here and there interesting topics pop up, although there's still a lot of spam.

Regarding signature campaigns: For an advertiser, what's important is not the post count but the amount of potential readers. The Ad slot stats are not looking too positive but also not that bad. What has decreased is mostly the number of unique logged-in users (i.e. mostly "signature campaign participants"), while the number of unique logged-out users are growing at least since 2023, and also the impressions per slot are steady or slowly increasing.

Of course, I believe the forum's quality needs an even more significant boost if the decreasing trend in signature campaigns should be reverted. Everybody can contribute. It would also perhaps help to create "shareable" threads, i.e. threads with such high quality that you can share them at Reddit, X or whatever, attracting more potential readers. It would of course help if there was at least a slightly more beautiful theme. Perhaps the community can do some custom CSS and offer it to theymos?

[JeromeTash]

It looks like the forum is on a constant decline. If more people lose interest in the forum, In a few years we might end up losing sig camps completely.

This is my thought too. There will come a time when signature campaigns are no longer a thing. I think the whole thing started with Theymos stopping that periodic adslot campaign where services would try to auction for the slots, Maybe there was something he saw that we hadn't yet seen. After the mixer ban, a few years later, you can tell that the only remaining popular advertisers here are the Bitcoin casinos. Most of them are starting to have their own forums and a number of the OG casinos of this space have already moved on

[LTU_btc]

It looks like the forum is on a constant decline. If more people lose interest in the forum, In a few years we might end up losing sig camps completely.

This is my thought too. There will come a time when signature campaigns are no longer a thing. I think the whole thing started with Theymos stopping that periodic adslot campaign where services would try to auction for the slots, Maybe there was something he saw that we hadn't yet seen. After the mixer ban, a few years later, you can tell that the only remaining popular advertisers here are the Bitcoin casinos. Most of them are starting to have their own forums and a number of the OG casinos of this space have already moved on

Yeah, in the long run such thing can happen. If activity on Bitcointalk will continue to decline, forum will struggle to attract new users, signature campaigns can simply disappear because there will be not much point to advertise here. After all, it's not that cheap way to advertise and probably not the most effective one.
Not sure that whole thing started when theymos stopped to auction ad slots here, but anyway, I see it as wrong decision which doesn't helps to forum. But that's just my opinion.

[Findingnemo]

It looks like the forum is on a constant decline. If more people lose interest in the forum, In a few years we might end up losing sig camps completely.

This is my thought too. There will come a time when signature campaigns are no longer a thing. I think the whole thing started with Theymos stopping that periodic adslot campaign where services would try to auction for the slots, Maybe there was something he saw that we hadn't yet seen. After the mixer ban, a few years later, you can tell that the only remaining popular advertisers here are the Bitcoin casinos. Most of them are starting to have their own forums and a number of the OG casinos of this space have already moved on

Yeah, in the long run such thing can happen. If activity on Bitcointalk will continue to decline, forum will struggle to attract new users, signature campaigns can simply disappear because there will be not much point to advertise here. After all, it's not that cheap way to advertise and probably not the most effective one.
Not sure that whole thing started when theymos stopped to auction ad slots here, but anyway, I see it as wrong decision which doesn't helps to forum. But that's just my opinion.

If I am not wrong theymos doesn't need anymore revenue via advertising for development of the forum he already has more than enough in the reserve so he just thought no more ad slots which actually should increased the campaign via signature and it happened too via mixers by increasing payout rate more than others now they are no longer allowed here for advertising the dynamics have changed.

Regarding casino advertising the sig campaign is not cheap but the real reason they are discounting is they moved to bigger picture like becoming sponsor for franchise that is who new level like in few million which is too much compared to how much they are spending now.

And I guess bitcointalk reached certain threshold and people are running out of interesting topics to get into discussions.

[mindrust]

We gotta work harder, share more, post more, write more, think more in order to

Make bitcointalk great again.

[JeromeTash]

If I am not wrong theymos doesn't need anymore revenue via advertising for development of the forum he already has more than enough in the reserve so he just thought no more ad slots which actually should increased the campaign via signature and it happened too via mixers by increasing payout rate more than others now they are no longer allowed here for advertising the dynamics have changed.

I mean, think about it for a moment. If there's more than enough in the reserve, then why not just give up those weekly slots to Open source non-profit Bitcoin projects and service?

Maybe advertise Electrum, Bitcoin core, The new forum software etc

[bhadz]

We gotta work harder, share more, post more, write more, think more in order to

Make bitcointalk great again.

Looking at your avatar, it's him that I am hearing say that.

[examplens]

We gotta work harder, share more, post more, write more, think more in order to

Make bitcointalk great again.

I'm not sure where the critical point is, how many activities and users are needed for Bitcointalk to maintain relevance in the crypto world. Is it even possible to predict something like that?
btw. Glorifying any public figure, just because he said something positive about Bitcoin, is the wrong direction. At least that's my opinion.

[Findingnemo]

If I am not wrong theymos doesn't need anymore revenue via advertising for development of the forum he already has more than enough in the reserve so he just thought no more ad slots which actually should increased the campaign via signature and it happened too via mixers by increasing payout rate more than others now they are no longer allowed here for advertising the dynamics have changed.

I mean, think about it for a moment. If there's more than enough in the reserve, then why not just give up those weekly slots to Open source non-profit Bitcoin projects and service?

Maybe advertise Electrum, Bitcoin core, The new forum software etc

It is his decision and he may consider about promoting non profit bitcoin related service in the ad banner but for now he is not even interested in making any tweaks that people are asking for years.

Bitcoin core is always pinned at the news so I guess it's covered pretty much.

btw. Glorifying any public figure, just because he said something positive about Bitcoin, is the wrong direction. At least that's my opinion.

Politicians may flip any time and he just use Bitcoin as another tool for now but even if he gets elected I don't think there won't be any relaxation regarding crypto frameworks in US.

btw, I love the guy as an individual.

[Poker Player]

Mixer ban indeed affected the post count in the forum. It is foolish to think otherwise. We can discuss mixers but we can’t promote them which is how people can make money. No money = no incentive to post

It looks like the forum is on a constant decline. If more people lose interest in the forum, In a few years we might end up losing sig camps completely.

I already said something similar in other threads.

We gotta work harder, share more, post more, write more, think more in order to

Make bitcointalk great again.

It seems unbelievable you say that wearing that signature and avatar. Supply does not increase demand, if anything it lowers the price. As things are, people are not going to post more, because there is more and more economic incentive, but if they did, and seeing the payments of campaigns that there are currently, as soon as a company comes to advertise it can hire quality posters for between 50 and 80$ weekly. In fact, I've already seen some ex-CMs getting paid that.

I don't see a scenario where companies start competing to take the best posters with payouts in excess of $100 a week and as high as $150 or more like a year ago.

[mindrust]

It seems unbelievable you say that wearing that signature and avatar. Supply does not increase demand, if anything it lowers the price. As things are, people are not going to post more, because there is more and more economic incentive, but if they did, and seeing the payments of campaigns that there are currently, as soon as a company comes to advertise it can hire quality posters for between 50 and 80$ weekly. In fact, I've already seen some ex-CMs getting paid that.

I don't see a scenario where companies start competing to take the best posters with payouts in excess of $100 a week and as high as $150 or more like a year ago.

It is all situational.

This forum didn't have any sig camps in the beginning when people were sharing the good stuff.

The sig camps arrived later.

 After that, people started to post only to get paid.

If the sig camps go away, only the same old people who attracted the sig camps in the beginning might post again.

[d5000]

Supply does not increase demand, if anything it lowers the price.

"Post more" (simply in the sense of "more posts") is indeed not what advertisers need.

What advertisers need is more readers, more potential customers for their services.

But what attracts new readers to the forum? Good content. So a type of supply (posts, thread) that can attract new readers is probably the only way to make advertisers get more interested in signature campaigns. In general thus I agree with @mindrust if "post more" means "post more quality content". Even better if it's "shareable" in social networks or so, to begin to attract people from other platforms here, as I wrote in my last post here.

Spam posts achieve exactly the opposite.

[Poker Player]

This is a somewhat theoretical discussion but I am of the opinion that especially in this case it is demand that attracts supply and not the other way around.

If the sig camps go away, only the same old people who attracted the sig camps in the beginning might post again.

If signature campaigns go away this forum will look like a cemetery. 15 years ago people hardly used social media compared to now, and forum traffic was much higher. To think that good campaigns will come back without taking this into account is to leave out an essential part of the equation.

What advertisers need is more readers, more potential customers for their services.

I agree with the latter but not with the former. Nowadays a new cryptocurrency exchange, to give an example, is going to get a lot more customers if it advertises on a Youtuber with millions of followers than by advertising on the forum.

Raising the quality of forum posts will not change that.

[examplens]

What advertisers need is more readers, more potential customers for their services.

I agree with the latter but not with the former. Nowadays a new cryptocurrency exchange, to give an example, is going to get a lot more customers if it advertises on a Youtuber with millions of followers than by advertising on the forum.

Raising the quality of forum posts will not change that.

Earlier, new projects were conditioned to have their ANN on the Bitcointalk forum if they wanted to be listed on CMC. It wasn't a bad idea at all, because that way they were forced to have an open channel of communication. It also had a significant impact on the increase in forum activity.
I think that changed sometime around the time when Binance took over CMC, they probably didn't want to contribute to the development of another authority.

[mrust_mobile]

The recipe is simple.

Quality over quantity. Quality posts attracts views. Low quality posts are spam which achieve nothing.

When it is

Quality x Quantity = The views will grow exponentially.

Most good youtubers follow this exact basic math. If they post 2-3 good quality videos, their chances of attracting many subs is still very low. When they post good videos periodically, then they will eventually get to where they aimed.

Since this is a forum not a youtube channel, the posters need to work collectively. Only then the glory days of the forum will come back.

No need to lose hope. We gotta fight. We gotta fight hard. Fight till the end. Be like Trump.

Never surrender. Fuck altcointtalks

[hugeblack]

I think the current problem is about diversity. The forum still attracts more than 6 signature campaigns, but most of them are gambling campaigns. In the past, options were available between ICOs, crypto exchanges, mixers, tokens,...etc, but since 2020, most of the promotion has moved to social media. Then the options became between mixers and gambling, and mixers were banned.

If gambling campaigns find another place to promote, they will inevitably stop promoting here, regardless of the quality of the posts. This is what happened with mixers, which was moved to another forum, although the results was not guaranteed.

The beginning of solving this problem is to rewrite the forum code and attract more beginners (activating the YouTube channel).

[d5000]

This is a somewhat theoretical discussion but I am of the opinion that especially in this case it is demand that attracts supply and not the other way around.

The crucial question is however what attracts demand (by advertisers).

Nowadays a new cryptocurrency exchange, to give an example, is going to get a lot more customers if it advertises on a Youtuber with millions of followers than by advertising on the forum.

Even if the traffic of Bitcointalk is of course lower than the traffic/followers on the "crypto YouTuber" scene or "crypto TikTokers", the equation is the same on YouTube/Instagram/Tiktok than on forums. On big social/video platforms reaching out to a large number of readers/followers is not cheap. (edited to make the point clearer)

In addition, a forum has some advantages with respect to particularly video platforms. Videos often get most of the views in the first days, while forum threads have often a longer life. This is of course not true for spam megathreads, where people only view to post (and they will only view the last page). Spam megathreads are thus a substantial threat to this advertising model, and it's quite good that their importance is slowly decreasing. Video ads are also often more easily ignored (by fast-forwarding, if the ad is too long) or blocked.

There is also link building and brand building. Link building is one of the few cases where even spam may work for advertisers, but its importance has declined in recent years as search engines have found ways to deal with the link spam problem, which of course is not limited to Bitcointalk but the whole web. Brand building is in contrast benefitted by high quality content.

I also have observed that forums were declining mainly in the period between 2010 and 2016-18, then they seem to have stabilized again. In the last 5 years I saw not much variation in market share between "forums" and "big centralized social platforms". It was more a shift from Facebook to Instagram (in-house) and TikTok, and it's possible that the decline of Twitter/X in recent years is a chance for more decentralized platforms, including forums, to grow again.

This seems also to be confirmed by the ad stats I linked above: reader volume (total impressions & unique IPs of logged-out users) even grew since 2022. Only during the bull market peaks in 2017/18 and 2021 the activity was notably higher, and if comparing the 2018/19 crypto winter and the the 2022/23 crypto winter these numbers didn't differ substantially. Logged-in users have declined a bit but not catastrophically, this could be an effect of the mixer ban.