CanadiEM Advertisements: What do you think?

In Featured, Uncategorized by Brent ThomaLeave a Comment

Hello CanadiEM readers. You may have noticed some changes to the website this week. Specifically, the presence of advertisements on our pages.

Since CanadiEM was founded at the beginning of 2016 we’ve largely resisted the urge to incorporate advertisements. However, as we’ve grown (we are now receiving >2,000,000 pageviews annually), so have our costs. This has strained our usual method of accessing funding through grants and, if not addressed, would limit our ability to continue innovating. To ensure the long-term sustainability of the website we’ve decided to experiment with additional revenue-generating activities including the incorporation of traditional online advertising.

This is definitely an experiment for multiple reasons:

  1. We have nobody on our team experienced with online advertising so we’re not totally sure what we are doing (if anyone out there wants to help us out, we’d love some advice or assistance!).
  2. We are not sure how much incorporating advertisements onto our website will generate.
  3. We are not sure how many and what type of ads will be appropriate and in keeping with our values.

Notably, we have specifically refused to incorporate ads for black magic (seriously), pharmaceuticals, supplements, medical devices, cosmetic procedures, sex, and sensationalism (as well as those that contain ‘significant skin exposure’). Ideally, we’d like to avoid advertisements that prop up pseudoscience or that could create a conflict of interest relative to our content.

We are hoping that you will help us out in this experiment by letting us know what you think through a simple two-question survey. We’ll balance that feedback with the amount of income we are generating to see if this is something that we will continue to pursue.

Click here to fill out the survey!

Thanks, as always, for the support that you have given our website and our team!

Brent Thoma

Editor at CanadiEM
Dr. Brent Thoma is a medical educator, blogging geek, and trauma/emergency physician who works at the University of Saskatchewan College of Medicine. He founded BoringEM and is the CEO of CanadiEM.