Post by Randy on
Happy Friday Montana! Lets talk about the history of merchant advertising that has appeared at this site, how it's evolved and where it's currently going. Local businesses who don't want to post featured ads or even join the site who support us but don't need an account, may want to advertise to us as a targeted local audience but have no easy way to do it so far. I believe we've found the solution. Just like our membership, will take years to grow. The seeds have been planted. Now we just need to water them. History Before they went completely anti-gun we actually used google adsense ads on this site to help pay the bills. Crazy right? It never made enough to support it completely but it helped. At that time there were zero such systems that were not anti-gun and not browser intrusive. When they banned gun sites I swore we would never again use such systems. Especially those that were so browser intrusive like Google. That was nearly ten years ago. Avantlink We then went with Avantlink because a majority of firearms friendly merchants were advertising through affiliates like us there. They don't do pay per click or pay per impression (CPM) cost per (mille) - latin for 1000 ad impressions. They only do commission on sales after a click through our links like those I often share in the affiliate sales group. That commission ranges from 3-15% depending on the affiliate. Avantlink is now more firearms friendly than they have ever been. They dont' flaunt it. They are depoendent on it. They don't want to lose it. If you take a peek at our affiliates feed page at https://montanaguntrader.com/affiliate-feed/ you will see hundreds of merchants we currently affiliate with through Avantlink. Before browser cookie blockers took over the internet this system worked great. That revenue helped cover about 30% of the costs at this site. Like the flick of the switch, it stopped with more browsers aggressivly stopping cookies by default. Partly from ad blockers but also the economy. People simply aren't coming here to buy new stuff unless they can get it cheaper from a private seller. I've shared banners and affiliate sales links for months with minimal return. It simply isn't worth the time until the economy changes. We will stay with Avantlink, that won't change. I'll still share sales of items that peak my interst if you subscribe to that affiliates group. A click through and then purchase still helps fund this site and it's development. Armanet A new firearms indutsry focused platform similar to adsense now offers a CPM (cost per 1000 milles/impressions) system JUST for the firearms industry. They are called Armanet. I've watched them grow over the last year or so and they are growing quickly with a similar mission to ours. To offer firearms friendly options online where noone else does. As you know the internet overall is NOT firearms friendly and likely never will be. When merchants use Armanet, they know the leadership there is firearms friendly but comes from the same tech background. They were luterally shunned out of the tech industry. It is their core purpose now to serve us. We have teamed up with Armanet to offer a billboard type system on this site that recieve tens of thousands of impressions daily. You will now see advertisements/placements you've always seen here now also displaying Armanet ads. If no Armanet ad is currently available, a fallback ad I designate appears there. Currently a MGT "advertise here" banner will appear there until a merchant purchases a placement. You've seen a few so far. None have done a direct buy here yet. A few national brands arr. We're hoping to drive that to get more Montana merchants with placements here at an affordable price. You can see the Armanet placement impressions and clicks stats summary at https://montanaguntrader.com/armanet/ You can find us in the Armanet network at their site. You can also purchase Armanet placements/billboards based on CPM (cost per 1000 impressions) on the advertise page at https://montanaguntrader.com/advertise/ If you have questions about this new system, I probably won't have the answer. Ha! This system is new. But we'll figure it out as we go. Please send me a message on my profile and thanks for looking! Good luck on the hunt this weekend! Be safe! Send your business owning friends to us here and click advertise or have them join Armanet!
