Hello,

first time here and sorry mods if this is in the wrong forum but thought it would best to ask here. it's quite inspiring to read your stories. my question is what ways have you found best to monetize your forums.

i've tried adsense but that nets only mid $x.00 a day. so i've gone the sponsor route which is great but hard to find sponsors that want to be apart of the forum and have to keep my sponsors happy.

i've been thinking of going with the subscription method (premium membership) for my members that i see alot of forums doing. i have a forum that's got over 11,000 members so hopefully i could get a % of them to sign up. with regards to that...i had a few questions.

1. what % do you experience of members becoming paid subscribers?
2. is it better to go with a lower subscription charge (i.e. $9.99) and hope to turn alot more members into paying or go with a higher one ($19.99) and hope to make it better off that way. this is for a yearly charge not monthly.
3. what perks do you guys offer to subscribers? i've seen higher PM storage, own title under their names, special contest and forum sections and etc.

other than those methods, i haven't really come across any other ways of monetizing a forum.

Thanks!

why not trying others cpm

I don't own any forums so I can't say from practical experience, but some of the decision to monetize likely depends on the topic of your forum. For example AdSense has a tendency to work better on non-tech savvy people. If your forum isn't too tech related it can probably do well with AdSense.

With the premium content you have to make sure you're offering something of value worth signing up for. If all you do is take your current forum and start charging for it I doubt you'll get many people paying unless the forum is so compelling that they can't live without it.

You might try thinking of what you could give above and beyond the current forum that people would pay for and then work toward getting your current members to join the premium part of the forum.

The ideal price will depend on what you're going to offer. Lower price doesn't automatically mean more subscribers either. People perceive something that costs more as being something of more value. If it costs more it must be good right? Often people find they sell more once they raise their prices. The best thing to do is really test several different price points to see which one results in the most return. The lowest price may be the right one for you, but it may turn out that the higher price ends up getting more people to sign up.

Originally Posted by teampower

why not trying others cpm

what do you recommend trying?

thanks for the responses...

i was thinking of premium membership as a add-on on top of the forum. so i wouldn't convert it all haha that would be insane.

but i do see your point about the price points. that's something i have to think about.

try adsdaq.com. Set your price high, like $3.00, and shoot for around 20% fill rate.

the idea is that you get paid per impression. You say "I'll give you 1000 impressions for $3.00". If adsdaq can't fill all those orders, then they will show a backup ad that you specify (normally you put adsense here). It's a really good system.

I don't like selling memberships, but that's a personal thing. Having never done it, I'd guess there are some good eggs that will buy a membership no matter the price, and the others won't - it's pretty much a donation. I'd price it at $25 myself, and give them a sticker or something physical (more marketing for you).

I've edited my forum software to show significantly more ads to guests than to registered members. A guest will see an ad every 3 posts on my message board, as well as the header and footer. I'm still playing around with everything, but it's shown alot more revenue.

Terry
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