Lock down discord advertising

[Annie]

So to release my company https://xilla.net I contacted a bunch of discord advertisers, and I had to not use a few as they wouldn't accept G&S. Anyways I bought two discords ads off this one user, this was Everyone to an 800 member discord and a 3.2k member discord. I got 0 members and I asked for proof he posted it and he sent me a screenshot, when I went to join the discord both invite links were invalid and the user is now ignoring me on discord.

I then hired another discord advertiser to advertise in a 5k member discord at 4PM EST and this is how that went.

When I brought this up to the user I bought the ad off of on MCM their reasoning was "Well I just bring them clients, I don't handle the ads". Why is this allowed? I'd say 60% of the people I contacted for discord ads were a friend selling ads for the owner of the discord. This makes things confusing and when the owner of the discord scams it's not fair to ban the MCM user but there's nothing else MCM can do.

Basically I am proposing that you must be an owner of the discord to advertise or sell discord advertisements. I've been scammed for discord advertisements too many times and when I'm not they are such a pain to work with.

Please note I am not complaining about being scammed, I will open scam reports within 24 hours if the users do not resolve these issues. It's just every time I buy discord ads it goes like this. I was supposed to have ~15k people see my ad when my company released. Instead only 5k people did and the rest of my money was wasted. (Keep in mind, the only ad I know that got sent was by my friend for free, not paid for off mcm)

OR (if you disagree) Here are some other options users have supplied that might work just as well or better.

Capaldi "The only thing that I personally think should happen is members must specify that they are advertising on behalf of someone else. If they don't, they should receive some sort of punishment such as 1.10.

If a user specifies that they are advertising on behalf of someone else, it is up to the buyer to ask questions such as who the person is that they are advertising for and how the payment goes (if the payment is being sent to the OP or the seller)."

 

[Annie]

If person1 advertises for person2 and person2 does something like scam, person1 is held accountable because person1 was advertising on behalf of person2.

You are able to submit a scam report on the OP of the thread even if they did not scam you as they advertised it in the first place.

I am aware, but nothing stops them from having another staff member open an account and post. As most discord advertisement posts don't link to the discord until you DM them

 

[Connor]

In situations like this, it may be beneficial to have some sort of verified discord advertising servers where people can purchase from. Therefore, in practice, this would eliminate any sort of scamming or misconception. It would also hopefully remove any servers that have just been purchased and turned into a advertising discord, leading to possible hardly any members joining.

With something like this in place, it gives you peace of mind that you are purchasing something that will actually benefit your server/business. Without the hassle of seeing if they are legitimate or if they are making the thread on someone on behalf of their "friend".

I'm guessing you purchased that ad on Minecraft Central and have yet to see your ad published especially as the person you were speaking with, is still on their marketing team.

 

[Areeb]

Just don't buy Discords Ads at all. Yes they 'grow' your server, but to what extent? No real user engagement, they're really not worth it, avoid them if I were you

 

[Annie]

*This is a general view/opinion on advertising on behalf of someone else, not solely for one section*

You deal with people at your own discretion. The only thing that I personally think should happen is members must specify that they are advertising on behalf of someone else. If they don't, they should receive some sort of punishment such as 1.10.

If a user specifies that they are advertising on behalf of someone else, it is up to the buyer to ask questions such as who the person is that they are advertising for and how the payment goes (if the payment is being sent to the OP or the seller).

This might be a better solution, I'll add it to the post[DOUBLEPOST=1583166338][/DOUBLEPOST]

Just don't buy Discords Ads at all. Yes they 'grow' your server, but to what extent? No real user engagement, they're really not worth it, avoid them if I were you

I wasn't doing the discord nitro giveaway ones, just standard ones, I was aiming to bring back just interested users not tons of people who will never be active. It costed me $20 for ~15k people to see it (if they all worked) which would have been a fairly good deal. Even with a 0.1% clickback I'd have a couple users.

My big concern is the one ad I did with a 5k member discord got me ~20 members. My other ad with ~4k users in 2 discords got me 0 users (However they might not of even posted the ad). And the other one is refunding me after wasting my time and hurting my companies release.

 

[Mick]

Quite a bit aspect of advertising is people being ads managers and handling promotion for others. In most cases it works perfectly and so I don't want for us to remove that entire aspect.

Ultimately what I think it comes down to is doing your own due diligence. Understand and agree on terms and then if they aren't met get a partial or full refund. While personally I'd stay away from discord ads and don't think they're very good, the people promoting them are still accountable for the ads they promote.

Denied, thanks for the suggestion