Update (2/22/2020): The Instabug ads ran for three months on noahgilmore.com and generated 14 dollars in revenue. Given this, I've removed them from the site.

When browsing noahgilmore.com/blog starting today, you may see sponsored content - sometimes in the sidebar and sometimes in sections like this:

SPONSORED CONTENT

Instabug implements in-app bug reports and message threads with users in a simple, easy to configure interface.

Drop Instabug's library into your app to support user feedback out of the box!

Try Instabug Free

Visiting Instabug helps support my writing and open source projects. Learn more

I'll be piloting these sponsored sections on some posts (generally the longer form, higher effort ones) in the coming months. Writing high quality content on this blog takes a fair amount of work - drafting, editing, testing, creating example code, recording gifs, etc. The revenue I get through sponsorships helps make the investment worth it from a financial perspective, and hopefully I'm able to pay it forward by continuing to create content for the community.

In the interest of transparency, I wanted to take the time to highlight a few points:

1. I'm paid directly per-click or per-impression for these advertisements, no third parties involved. I manage contracts directly, which means I'm vouching for the quality and relevance of the ads. In the future I may look into using indie-focused ad networks, but I'll never compromise reader experience by using Google AdSense, for example.
2. Since there's no ad network, there's no ad targeting. There's no Facebook bloat targeting you, and th e site is open source. I use Google Analytics to track clicks on sponsored links so that I can make sure my analytics line up with those of the advertisers, but that's the extent of the data I'm tracking.
3. If you use an ad blocker that supports blocking elements on the page by class name, you can opt out of ads entirely by blocking elements with the class name sponsorship-opt-out-point. For Adblock Plus, for example, the rule looks like noahgilmore.com##.sponsorship-opt-out-point. For sidebar content, you can also click the "hide" button to remove the section from the page.
4. I'm interested in what you think of the ads and I plan to continue to be transparent about the process (in fact, this tweet is what got the process started). Please feel free to reach out anytime 👋

I'm grateful to Instabug for being the first sponsor of this site. If your company would like to be displayed as a sponsor, feel free to reach out.