Advertise on Something Awful!

Before you mail us at advertising@somethingawful.com let me take a moment to explain some of my current issues with internet advertising.

1. Nobody seems to care about targeting our audience. We're all white males here, aged 16-34. We're nerds, we keep up with the tech industry, and we know how to use Google. STOP SERVING US "FREE IPOD" ADS, FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST! Our users aren't idiots, we don't want free screensavers, free iPods, free PS3s, free ringtones, free mp3s, and all those other shovelware flashing ads of Flash garbage nobody with half a brain cell would ever click.

Perhaps it's simply not economical, but advertising networks hardly ever try to personally work with us and serve relevant ads to our users. Why is that? Why does it seem most networks simply don't care about appealing to their viewers? Is it really that outrageous to serve ads people click on, not through deception or annoyance, but out of interest for the product or service being promoted?

Shoveling out aggravating ads for horrible consumer surveys and pyramid scams is a losing cause. The website publisher does not benefit, since nobody clicks on the ads and generates revenue. The users do not benefit, since they are not interested in flashing "YOU WON A HOG!!!" epileptic nightmares of gif. The ad network does not benefit, since people start adblocking all images from their servers. The userbase grows alienated and begins outwardly moving away from the website, advertiser, and advertising network.

So what's the point? Why do so many ad companies seem hellbent on working with these crummy companies and strewing their worthless ads across the internet? In many regards, the ad serving industry functions just like it did back in 2000; disorganized, impersonal, and wasteful to all parties involved. I'd like to work with advertising networks actually interested in serving relevant, targeted ads. I want our users to see ads for products and services that appeal to them. I do not want to waste space and bandwidth rotating rectangles of failure, hoping to con or trick dumb people who stumbled upon this site after dedicating their life to professionally punching monkeys.

2. I hate flashing ads. I hate shaking ads. I hate auto-expanding ads. I hate ads that play music when they load, followed by some woman informing me I have won an exciting mysterious contest and will receive a cargo truck full of iPods. I hate ads that pop up, pop under, pop through, pop over, pop across, or pop anywhere within a 100-mile radius. I do not want to be tricked or annoyed into accidentally clicking an ad; I want to click it out of interest in the advertisement.

3. This is a humor site. This means we use adult language like "fuck" and "ass" and sometimes even "titties." Most advertising networks seem to crouch behind bizarre and poorly written ToS contracts regarding "inappropriate material" or whatever subjective definition of "naughty stuff" some 85-year old white CEO dreamed up in his private yacht. I have no idea what "inappropriate material" means, or who determines what is considered inappropriate, but I refuse to edit or filter any content our writers produce. This is a comedy site for adults, not children, and our writers will not treat our audience as such.

This concludes my pet peeves of the advertising industry!

We don't do popups, takeovers, crap that plays horrible noises upon loading, and any other trash designed to annoy people beyond the boundaries of their ad zones. We don't do CPA garbage, direct marketing scams, or any other of that shady junk. As a general rule of thumb, we're only interested in serving advertisements that our viewers will be interested in.

If you're still interested in advertising, mail us at advertising@somethingawful.com!

– Rich "Lowtax" Kyanka (@TwitterHasBannedAllMyAccountsEver)