Envato: If Elements Is Really For A "New Type Of Customer" Then Take The Ad Banners Off Our Pages

Envato Authors AudioJungle
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If not, then please admit your true intentions.

After all, what’s a relationship without honesty?

When you first announced Elements in 2016, you specifically said “At it’s core, Envato Elements is an offering that we’ve built to accomplish three things: 1. Introduce a new type of customer to Envato’s system of sites.”

If that truly were the case, then we would not be seeing Elements banner ads on our profile and portfolio pages.

If you refuse to take down the ads, then can we please have some straight answers?

After all, what’s a community without communication?

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+1

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Oh, this feels like that movie where the same day happens over and over again forever…

And to add one more thing:
What happened with the cross-promotion? Where are banners on Elements? :slight_smile: In fact, it’s not so hard, I’m gonna create one right now :smiley:

elements%20banner%20envato%20promo
elements banner envato promo.jpg2085×1035 324 KB

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Indeed it does. The way I see it - instead of asking them to “separate” Elements from the market (which is clear to us, but actually a very vague request) we might get their attention by asking for them to take specific actions, one per thread.

Instead of saying “here are ten things wrong with the search engine”, we ask them to fix one aspect of it only. Maybe some of our requests will happen.

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+1

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From my perspective I see 3 options at this point:

  1. Remove the banners completely from the market, and advertise elsewhere only.

  2. Follow the banner recipe that @Wavetoys have an in depth plan for here: This really isn't fair. We need to solve this! This would allow authors to disable the banner on their own portolio/item pages and also give authors the option to get paid for advertising to Elements if they want that (as affiliates). Instead of basically “paying for” the advertising, which is happening now.

  3. Let the banners stay and convert all market authors to a non exclusive contracts but let authors have the same commission as they have earned up according to the exclusive terms. So authors would earn the same as exclusive authors, but be registered as non exclusive authors and be free to expand their business.

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+1

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Here’s how customers are confused about all this and they have no clue if they either should buy from elements or from marketplaces: Selling End Product

Well done.

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Would any author who is not criminally insane choose to jeopardize a potentially lucrative license sale in order to earn a few Elements advertising pennies?

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Personally I don’t understand yet Elements or this subscription models I am part of it but to be honest I am as confused as the buyers here.

So many items so cheap is insane and I see this trend all over the place, on youtube I keep seeing an advertisement for nobuna… something it is driving me crazy I think I saw it 8000 times I can’t get rid of it. It got to a point that when I hear the sound of the advertisement I get anxious, I think I will remember it all my life, I never clicked on it but still they drove me crazy.

What is happening?

Is this the future and I just don’t get it?

I am behind Envato on this one even but I am very very confused about what is happening with the marketplace.

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Probably was not clear in my post, but I meant get potententially paid for Elements advertising as an affiliate author, which you would get $20 if someone signs up for a month, or $120 if someone signs up for a whole year. At least thats how I understood @WaveToys epic long post. Correct me if I’m wrong Wavetoys.

Sure beats getting nothing like now :slight_smile:

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Besides affiliates (if Envato also tweaks tracking system for banner clicks like I also requested), some authors who are part of Elements may find useful to not opt-out from banners if Envato gives us that option, because maybe they do better there than on AJ and want traffic from their items to go there and since the revenue is shared from all subsribers and they to get them as more as possible. That was my point, it was aimed to Envato if they have a concern that everybody will opt-out if they gave us freedom to do this. So they don’t get paranoid about this and don’t do give us this option out of fear of everyone opting out… And they want banners at any cost as far as I can see, so it’s a nice compromise. Everyone, please read my full post in that thread to understand exactly what I’m talking about and why. Cheers

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Thanks. Got it.

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It’s not ideal, but it’s the best compromise Envato would consider I think… They would still keep benefits, while giving authors freedom to not participate in that advertising at all. That way, they would also stop authors from leaving this market or going non-exlusive out from frustration and anger generated from redirecting traffic from their items. This way they will have control over their own items/traffic and this is beneficial for them and crucial for the health and future of Envato company long-term. If authors can opt-out, they would stay motivated to work here, while that’s not the case now. Anyway, it’s all very detailed in my post in that thread, so I don’t want to repeat myself again. :wink:

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That’s still perfectly fine and it’s the most simple solution for all of us. From affiliate perspective, I can promote Elements separately if I want…

And personally as AJ author, I also don’t want banners over my items. I wanted to create some compromise with Envato since it’s so hard for them to simply remove it for some reason, so I tried every possible suggestion for them to realize the problem with banners and find compromise, and I hoped they would be willing to cooperate this way, so far we are still waiting for response.

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Just to underscore the fact that “talk is cheap”, in the original Elements announcement linked above, the following statement was made:

The subscriptions will be consistently priced at $49 per month

Yeah, right.

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We live in a culture where capitalism, greed, paranoia, and fear are clashing together. When people see successful companies and business models, the only option to compete is to “undercut on price”.

The fact of the matter is that monthly earnings can already be measured within the subscription model. My sources have told me that a few folks have earned around $900 to $1500. So if the very best one can do inside elements at this moment in time is $1500, that to me sounds like eventually, the best anyone can do with monthly earnings from subscription alone is about 90% less than what can be generated from a 1 sale at a time sync license model. Just imagine if all AJ tracks went over to elements? It seems that logically speaking, everyone’s earnings would fall by 80 to 90%.

Musicians and music producers will undercut each other until each track or download will equate to fractions of cents.

No one likes pessimism or gloom and doom, but I highly advise those dependent on AJ income to support themselves and their families to look for another job. I do not see a good ending to this change. It’s like a tsunami growing in size little by little each day.

Thank God for the PRO’s and back end performance royalties, the “front end/ sync fee” royalty is clearly under attack, but only because music producers are agreeing to undercut, devalue, and get on board with a lot less. Sure there are folks making “more” these past 2 or 3 months, but there are some who actually made “less”. Once subscription becomes the “new normal” or if it does, I predict all will be making 80% less.

Hopefully I will be wrong and perhaps not as many businesses will embrace subscription, but it just seems like we’re headed to “Subscribe and take everything you want for only 5 cents!” The price undercutting is a nasty virus spreading at the speed of light. So sad. In the end, it always comes down to music producers being at fault. They are the one’s who agree to deals that on face value, just look completely absurd.

How about the offer of:

“Sign your track over to our publishing company for $0, we become the exclusive publisher in perpetuity and we now own the master sound recording and copyright, in perpetuity.”

It’s amazing how many music producers accept that deal. Everyone has been fighting a good fight here, but the fight may very well already be lost. No communication about these matters simply means “no”. Everyone is looking for an answer to all authors concerns about $5 prices, banner ads, rewarding sales numbers instead of revenue…we have our answer…it’s “no, we will not change the way we are doing business.” So start thinking about plan B for your income. I already have myself. It’s not just at Envato/ AJ only…it’s all markets. Again, thank God for the PROS and performance royalties. That is the last layer of protection we have.

If you price your assets as “worthless”, you will become “worthless”. Philosophically speaking, why is it that so many music producers just render themselves as worthless? Here it is…take it, for nothing, it’s yours to use, for absolutely nothing or pennies at the very most. Look in the mirror friends.

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When I was just starting out, I got a couple of similar offers too, and honestly I did not understand at the time how horrible the deals I were served was. Luckily I have a free access to a music service that steered me away from them. There are simply too many music producers that are very unexperienced in the business side of things, and then exploitation happens.

I think it’s a collective responsibility to address these issues and demand changes to the systems where it’s needed. But we need to have sniper focus and deal with them one at the time.

I believe Envato will answer us eventually, it’s not more than a week when a 2 way conversation started in this thread This really isn't fair. We need to solve this! This case is a big deal and I believe the communication that has started is a result of relentless pressure + awareness of how wrong it is. A pressure which should be unnecessary, but it is unfortunately necessary if we want changes around here. So we just have to continue to speak up for the things that really matters.

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+1

remove banner or riot

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+1

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