Data analysis - gaining subs but losing views

Kamikaze 2016-02-02 04:46:55 UTC #21

The best answer I have for you @keii4ii is: Binge Readers.
Seriously. With Kamikaze, we separate our comic into 5 acts - 0 through 4. When we hit an act break in the comic, we post the fact "Hey! This entire act is done!" and the views come FLOODING in at an alarming rate. It's...frankly bizarre to watch, but kinda cool to know that people are waiting so long to get their fix. xD

Marvin 2016-02-02 10:47:49 UTC #22

Really ? Interesting... Maybe I should post a message at the end of each chapter too !

keii4ii 2016-02-02 19:38:16 UTC #23

Where do you make that announcement, and where do you notice the flood? (e.g. main site VS Tapastic)

I think the archive bingers too should be divided into multiple categories:

a) people who are actually waiting to read a big chunk in one go
b) people who FORGOT about your comic, and needed the reminder

There's nothing I can do about a) other than sending an announcement through appropriate channels, but I wonder if there's something I can do about b).

Jabbage 2016-02-02 23:05:02 UTC #24

If you want one small point of data in your stats explained, I personally am subbed to your comic on Tapastic, but prefer to read it elsewhere because load times are quicker. I also enjoy archive binging and reading chunks of the story at once because I find it immersive. I think that's especially true of established comics where I trust that the creator isn't going to vanish and that I'm going to enjoy reading when I get around to it - its the newer, smaller comics where i'm more likely to to be picking at reading every update to figure things out.

Not that I'm saying that in any way explains your stats... I might be a bizarre outlier, the only person who reads comics this way!

jonufele 2016-02-02 23:22:57 UTC #25

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shazzbaa 2016-02-03 00:08:18 UTC #26

I didn't even think of this, but I do this too! There are a couple of comics I'm subbed to here but prefer to read on their website for whichever reason (that's the link they post on twitter, website is ahead of tapastic, etc.) so I'll come on to Tapastic and just mark my notifications as read since I already saw the update.

Is it hurting them to do this? That honestly hadn't occurred to me!

Kura 2016-02-03 00:09:47 UTC #27

I REALLY try to read on here because of the ad rev thing, but yeah with the slow loading/crashing/and freezing I do this too (read on other places the comic is hosted on, EVEN if it's behind on those ones) x.x

Jabbage 2016-02-03 11:08:29 UTC #28

Yeah, it's not something I really want to do for ad revenue reasons, but my internet just isn't fast enough to load Tapastic properly. I can't really even see if my own comics look ok on the infinite scroll, I just upload them and hope they're fine!

elixiadragmire 2016-02-03 12:48:29 UTC #29

A touch, it depends on HOW MANY others are doing that too ... not just ad rev but exposure within the site, such as the algorithm to get the comic on 'trending' or 'poplar' relaying on reader interaction with the updates. So if a comic has tons of sub but few views, comments or likes i'll never appear on trending or popular. Meaning it more or less gets buried within the platform.

PotooGryphon 2016-02-03 14:23:28 UTC #30

There are cases of people using bots, and it's terrible messes things up. First of all, when the bot users get caught, they're band from the site. And it effects EVERYONE's ad revenue causing Michael Son to go crazy spending days to get it back to semi normal again. Bots are very bad. If you happen to catch suspicions bot like behavior, best to report it to Tapastic.

I can see it hurting only in the sense if you rely on Tapastic ad revenue, however, if you also make ad revenue off of your main site, then I can't really imagine it hurting all that much. A reader is still awesome no matter which profile of yours they visit.

Marvin 2016-02-03 14:41:26 UTC #31

I'm not very familiar with bots... how does that work exactly ? Someone uses a bot to create a ton of fake profiles to increase their own views ?

PotooGryphon 2016-02-03 14:51:54 UTC #32

Michael plans on releasing a post about bots and their affects soon, however, as it was explained to me:

Basically, the offender finds a third party service that offers traffic for less than the eCPM that Tapastic offers (that's very much cheating the system). The big problem with this is that most don't think about how suspicious it looks to the staff, don't really understand how bots work, nor consider how it effects everyone else's tapastic ad revenue.

The use of bots basically "nukes" Tapastic's eCPM for a couple of days. Which sucks for all of us and sucks for the staff to have to clean up.

Same thing with sites like google adsense. If a person is caught using bots on that site, then they'd be blacklisted for life.

Bots suck basically D:<

elixiadragmire 2016-02-03 14:56:08 UTC #33

ah well i don't have a proper running site yet with adrev, all I have is Taps at the moment. I SHOULD look into it but I have zero code knowledge and not sure if I have the admin time for it (last one i had to had to remove 10 spam comments a day) and the money yet to run one ....

This is something to look into but but I'm not sure where to go, who to ask and what or how to go about it.

Marvin 2016-02-03 14:58:23 UTC #34

Sounds like it Thanks for your explanations !

PotooGryphon 2016-02-03 15:01:51 UTC #35

Wordpress does most of the work for me. The setup took time, and there are occasions where I have to figure out some complex stuff that hurts my head for the day. However, for the most part, all I do is post and leave it be. Wordpress blocks all my spam and I approve actual comments as I get them, which has been fine. ProjectWonderful provides me with code to add to an empty widget that I can place on my site. No big hassle there either. The Plugin Jetpack handles most if not all my site's needs. Highly recommend it.

elixiadragmire 2016-02-03 15:06:43 UTC #36

I had a look at word press and .. i have to admit instantly confused. I wasn't sure how to use it as a comic setup (i know i have to install comic press but i don't know how) and a lot of tuts i found assumed you knew basic code to get going >.> I think me being dyslexic might of been the barrier to understanding how 'do it'

Kamikaze 2016-02-05 04:43:42 UTC #37

Usually we make an announcement on our Facebook page, our Twitter feed, and we've begun to do the same here on our Tapastic page. I have noticed that our main site traffic, as well as our tapastic traffic does go up when those announcements are put out. I wish I could get you numbers but I'm not sure how to separate them out from 'normal readers' vs 'binge readers'?

PurpleGround 2016-02-06 07:33:50 UTC #38

Something had been bothering me. I saw a few accounts with weird letters name, was it the default ID set if new account was not given a proper name or was it something else? It goes like this "u31328odr03" or "ue958123". I didn't notice the default name when I signed up. I don't wanna be rude, I mean they could be real people that havent made up their mind on the account name, just curious because they have almost similar pattern.

Kura 2016-02-06 07:50:43 UTC #39

Judging from a reply left on one of my pages I think it's just people who sign in through facebook without their default name or on the phone.

PurpleGround 2016-02-06 16:57:35 UTC #40

Ah.. Noted with thanks. =)