renting avatars and sig spaces

[Blazingpie]

recently on Digitalpoint I received two pms with range original (to me at least) requests. The first one was offering me something like $100 a year to rent my sig space, and the other was an offer to rent my avatar for about $15 a month to advertise sevenseek.com

The sig space offer got rejected because I didn't like the idea of being associated with sites I didnt like. Plus the fact that he'd only pay through paypal and we cant receive payments in SA :(

The advatar offer got rejected for similar reasons.

Out of curiousity though, do any of you think renting sigs and avatars would be effective marketing? Its an original idea, but other than some minor link juice from the forum sigs, I dont see much point. To me, most traffic may just be curiosity clicks :(

[Paz]

If you have a ton of postings, sig links can help with serps in yahoo. I have a feeling they work in Google too, but the link has to be from a relevant forum.

The thing is though a DP sig link would likely bring a lot of traffic. Maybe we should sponsor DP links to bring some traffic here.

[Koz]

I think its a novel idea but might just be the newest fad. So if you go for it, rather take the upfront yearly payment just incase the fab doesn't last. :lol:

[Jocelyn]

Some people have loads of posts there... it's more a visibility thing to get visits... DP is like really really busy... you make a thread in some sections and the same day it sunk on the second page.

The sig thing has been around for a while... the avatar one is new... well, I added this forum on my sig at an other forum... have a look at the logs to see if you get hits...

[Blazingpie]

I think its a novel idea but might just be the newest fad. So if you go for it, rather take the upfront yearly payment just incase the fab doesn't last. :lol:

yeah, i was also thinking of that. It'd be better to make a quick buck. One thing i want to know is how do they expect to stop you from simply changing the sig or advatar once you've gotten the money? Take you to court over it? lol

[Jocelyn]

yeah, i was also thinking of that. It'd be better to make a quick buck. One thing i want to know is how do they expect to stop you from simply changing the sig or advatar once you've gotten the money? Take you to court over it? lolSome make you sign a contract, well when it's for links on a site... but there's nothing but your honor to make you keep the links really...

[Chatmaster]

Risking my reputation based on something out of my control simply isn't worth $100, infact not worth any money imo. From their side they are also taking a risk of associating themselves with that forum member, very stupid imho, not something I will do...

[Blazingpie]

Risking my reputation based on something out of my control simply isn't worth $100, in fact not worth any money imho. From their side they are also taking a risk of associating themselves with that forum member, very stupid imho, not something I will do...

yeah, i agree with you 100% Still, i think they were approached ppl they believe to be trustworthy or whatever. That's if I was to give them the benefit of the doubt :p perhaps they really just don't care where it comes from? eg they're just trying to get as much exposure as possible or something?

It does raise the question about the untapped advertising methods, or perhaps the lack thereof if they have to try to rent sigs and advatars and whatnot. Taking this situation to it's logical extreme, it'll reach the point when there's nothing new to advertise on and everyone would be ad-blind to the rest of the methods (an advertiser's nightmare :P). While I can understand the need to find new ways to advertise, personally I wouldn't like to live in a world where just about everything is an advert :/