Every day I get inundated with advertisers requesting to use their product or get on their platform. Most are respectful, especially after receiving my Out Of Office e-mail reply saying I'm not interested. But some are not and are completely disrespectful and clueless of my time. This Yavli review explains the latter.
I had one such incident with Yavli on November 6, 2017. I was contacted multiple times by John Steinberg, Head Of Strategic Partnerships to sign up with Yavli, their advertising platform despite not knowing him and having my out of office e-mail reply on. Their pitch is to show ads in a rising ad blocking world.
John kept badgering me to sign up, completely ignoring my request to be left alone. He was rude, clueless about the business, and didn't care what I wrote, so long as he could get his message across. Talk about a lack of emotional intelligence.
DO NOT sign up with Yavli. They only care about their own profits and do not care about the publisher. If they did, they'd listen and try and build a relationship.
Examples Of Why Using Yavli Is A Waste Of Time
Here are some clear examples I've put together in this Yavli review explaining why they are a waste of time.
1) They spam you with an e-mail heading that says, “Your Ads Are Not Working!” to try to get you to click and fear that you're missing out. Playing along with John's click bait title, I asked him to clarify what he means since my ads are working. He responds,
“Your ads aren’t working because ad blockers are stopping them from loading. We have a solution which can circumvent this and our ad network should make you between $650/1000 per month.Would you like to try?”
If my site started making $650/$1,000 per month, I would actually lose 95% of my advertising revenue. So I ask John to explain to me the RPM.
2) They have no idea about what the proper advertising rates are. John said he has no idea what I'm currently earning, but then he revealed the average CPM rate is $3. $3 CPM is no different than what you can get on Google Adsense if you are in the personal finance space. But the reality is, CPM rates are $10 – $40 in the personal finance space. Therefore, their rates are ridiculously low.
If you're a publisher and want to learn more about rates, check out my post on average CPM and RPM advertising rates by month.
3) They don't bother to listen. I was trying to give John the benefit of the doubt for being clueless about the attractiveness of his CPM, so I asked him to read this post on Blogging For A Living and let me know his thoughts. He proceeded to ignore my request, and when I followed up, he had no idea what post I was talking about even though the link was right in the e-mail chain!
This shows he is completely clueless about developing a relationship with a publisher. He didn't bother to read the post and he didn't even see the post link in the e-mail chain when I asked him to check again! All he cared about was trying to get me to try the Yavli platform. Why the hell would I do that when he hasn't even read any of my posts, or bothered to read the post I asked him to read?
His response, “What ones are you referring too? Also can we trial our solution on your site?”
If he had bothered to listen, the results could have been so different. But, he got me so annoyed I went and wrote this negative Yavli review.
4) Still doesn't bother to listen. So I ask, “Where was the misunderstanding when you didn’t understand what I was talking about when I included the post? Why didn’t you read the post? Or are you just concerned about selling it and not connecting?”
John's response, “Do you want to try our ad blocker solution?”
Maybe they are using a ROBOT?
So I try again, “Does my out of office email not work? Or are you just choosing to ignore it?”
John the robot responds, “It doesn’t work because if you were out of the office you wouldn’t be emailing me.”
Pretty smart for a robot actually!
Yavli Review: It's A Waste Of Time
It's no surprise that so many people fail at life. If Yavli has John as The Head Of Partnerships, then signing up with them is a complete waste of time. I've got the entire e-mail chain archived and it is absolutely hilarious to see how they aren't willing to build a relationship.
Instead of signing up for this ad networks that claim to show your ads in a growing ad blocking world, work on building your affiliate partnerships instead because they are unblockable.
For example, the Empower affiliate program is one of the best out there because the product is free and ads huge value. There are so many more to look for that are synergistic to your content.
Regards,
Sam