Email advertising from Bored of Studies (1 Viewer)

[jdennis]

Hey everyone,

I just received two emails this afternoon from Bored of Studies which were advertisements for ADFA and Excel textbooks. I just wanted to know what people think of whether Bored of Studies should do this (hence why I created a poll).

Now firstly when I signed up to the site there was no mention of my email address being used for advertising purposes. While it has not been sold or provided to an external company I still think a mention of this should be made (or if the rules have changed since I signed up, I should have been notified). I have also tried to look at the Privacy Policy to see if there is anything on this but the link doesn't seem to work for me at the moment.

I am quite happy to look at ads on the site while browsing as I understand that it can't run for free and some form of income is required to keep it going. But I think emailing ads to users is going a bit too far - when I'm not on the Bored of Studies site, I should not be seeing ads from Bored of Studies.

Please vote and let me know if you have ever received similar emails and what you think of them.

 

[brent012]

You would have agreed to the rules and conditions when you signed up to the site, under "Advertising Disclaimer" the first thing it says is "By registering to this website, you authorise BOS to send you related advertising material".

 

[jdennis]

You would have agreed to the rules and conditions when you signed up to the site, under "Advertising Disclaimer" the first thing it says is "By registering to this website, you authorise BOS to send you related advertising material".

I understand this and I've found the relevant part of the disclaimer just then. However, I'm unsure as to why the disclaimer shown when you register is different to the disclaimer you can find linked at the bottom of every page. The former says you agree to advertising while the latter makes no mention of it. The message seems a bit ambiguous.

The disclaimer on the register page also says there is an unsubscribe link in every advertising email. One of the two I received today has no such link and the other has one, but does not make it clear whether it is part of the advertisement or the BOS email - and takes you to an ambiguous page with an obscure link that simply says "you have been unsubscribed".

I am confused as to what the policy actually is on this because there are two different versions of the same disclaimer on the website currently - not to mention the fact that neither of them seem to be being followed.

 

[brent012]

The disclaimer in the footer is the site (which has recently had some work done on it and is still having changes made) wide disclaimer rather than the forum specific one, but I will let someone know about the inconsistency and we will have it fixed up as soon as possible.

I will have to also pass on your concerns regarding the lack of an unsubscribe link in all of the emails to the people in charge of advertising and marketing, but the disclaimer does give you the option of making a Contact Moderators thread OR clicking an unsubscribe link - not that each campaign will have an unsubscribe link. Thanks for bringing it to our attention though.

 

[jdennis]

The disclaimer in the footer is the site (which has recently had some work done on it and is still having changes made) wide disclaimer rather than the forum specific one, but I will let someone know about the inconsistency and we will have it fixed up as soon as possible.

I will have to also pass on your concerns regarding the lack of an unsubscribe link in all of the emails to the people in charge of advertising and marketing, but the disclaimer does give you the option of making a Contact Moderators thread OR clicking an unsubscribe link - not that each campaign will have an unsubscribe link. Thanks for bringing it to our attention though.

Ok, thanks for your help and it would be beneficial to have those inconsistencies cleared up. Thanks for the quick replies and coming up with a solution.

I would like to make one comment though, which I don't intend as criticism as much as an observation. While I understand that I did agree to the terms and conditions, which did include allowing BOS to send advertising emails, I do wonder what the need is to do so. I am not aware of any other forum or site that I am a member of that does this in addition to displaying ads on every page (which I agree is necessary for a source of income). With BOS being one of the largest if not the largest educational forum in the state the viewership of the online ads would be high, and they seem to be targeted to the age group of most viewers.
I don't expect any reply to this point but I thought it was something worth contributing to the discussion.

 

[Absolutezero]

Ok, thanks for your help. I would like to make one comment though, which I don't intend as criticism as much as an observations. While I understand that I did agree to the terms and conditions, which did include allowing BOS to send advertising emails, I do wonder what the need is to do so. I am not aware of any other forum or site that I am a member of that does this in addition to displaying ads on every page (which I think is absolutely fine by the way, and necessary really.) With BOS being one of the largest if not the largest educational forum in the state I'm not sure why this has to be done.

BOS emails are uncommon, and they are usually offers designed to benefit students directly, rather than just generic advertisements.

That being said, monetisation of a website is a difficult process. Email marketing is becoming increasingly common, particularly for tie-in products. It's not the nicest model, but until a better model surfaces, it's likely to increase in the future (though not necessarily on BOS, that is a decision still to be made). Most websites make surprisingly less than their size would suggest.

 

[jdennis]

Most websites make surprisingly less than their size would suggest.

This may be true, but many smaller sites seem to survive financially without needing to advertise to members when the members are not directly interacting with the site (ie through emails). I think that members should be able to leave the site without being bothered by its advertisements.

I'm not trying to say that BOS should somehow just exist without making money but I do think this approach is slightly unfair.

 

[anomalousdecay]

BOS emails are uncommon, and they are usually offers designed to benefit students directly, rather than just generic advertisements.

That being said, monetisation of a website is a difficult process. Email marketing is becoming increasingly common, particularly for tie-in products. It's not the nicest model, but until a better model surfaces, it's likely to increase in the future (though not necessarily on BOS, that is a decision still to be made). Most websites make surprisingly less than their size would suggest.

They only come once every few months lol.

Nothing to worry about.

Though I remember when I got the one from ADFA a few months ago, the link in the ad was dead (yes I was interested in it).

IDK if BoS or if UNSW need to fix this.

 

[brent012]

IDK if BoS or if UNSW need to fix this.

Kind of hard to fix an email once it's sent. The link most likely worked when the emails were sent but UNSW or defence force changed it.

 

[anomalousdecay]

Kind of hard to fix an email once it's sent. The link most likely worked when the emails were sent but UNSW or defence force changed it.

Yeah makes sense now.

Because it comes up with the error message of "Error 404: could not find web page" from memory.

If you need I can take a screenshot (just have to dig it up from my e-mail account somewhere).