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How to monetize a high traffic forum?

by mellowfellow
10 replies
How would one monetize forums? Ad space? CPA?
#forum #high #monetize #traffic
  • Profile picture of the author Chris The Traffic Blogger
    Adsense and a monthly fee premium area.
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  • Profile picture of the author ColorfulAnt
    Target specific, high quality, line of info-products.
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  • Profile picture of the author E. Brian Rose
    If it has anything to do with marketing, whether IM or Offline, you have a great model to work with right here. You can charge posters for premium postings to sell their products or services. You can charge a premium for private forums or the entire forum. My advice would be more targeted if I knew what your niche was.
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    Founder of JVZoo. All around good guy :)

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  • Profile picture of the author Ti
    Honestly I'm not a fan of blanket bland advertising. It really depends on the content of your forum and how it is constructed. Sure you could make an eCPM of XYZ by doing standard advertising, but if you understand your audience, use that knowledge and try and find some really appealing CPA or, better yet, affiliate Clickbank products to market to them.

    What niche is it in?
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    • Profile picture of the author polrbearz
      I'm really glad to find this thread. I have a Forum in mind for a very altruistic goal related to health. Money would need to be clearly a distant second consideration. People coming to this Forum would need to be immediately comfortable that it is a place that they can come safely and look for answers without any worry that their search for truth is being compromised by a commercial angle.

      Having said that, if something could be done (perhaps a paid area, etc.) that could TASTEFULLY bring in some income that would at least cover the expense of running it that would be OK. And if there were some good back-end/long-term benefits, that would be a nice bonus.

      E. Brian, your mention of WF itself makes a lot of sense. I could see reigning in the commercial aspect but still benefiting from the general model.

      On a completely side note, have any of you been to the BTF forum? I understand that it gets lots of users and posts but I find it much harder to dig into than WF. There may be a lesson there on how to put the Forum together. But then again I'm no expert :rolleyes:
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  • Profile picture of the author tpw
    I would mix contextual (like adsense), cpa and cpm advertising.

    The latter will pay for page views.

    The former will pay for specific actions being taken by your visitors.
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    Bill Platt, Oklahoma USA, PlattPublishing.com
    Publish Coloring Books for Profit (WSOTD 7-30-2015)
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    • Profile picture of the author Michael Shook
      If you want to have repeat monetization from repeat visitors CPA is probably not the best way to go.

      Some forums sell links or give them away in exchange for link to the forum

      The ones that seem to do the best with making money from the repeat visitors are the ones that a rotating ad in the topsapce just below the header and just above the navbar.
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  • Profile picture of the author WillR
    Originally Posted by mellowfellow View Post

    How would one monetize forums? Ad space? CPA?
    I agree with others. You are in the perfect place to see the kind of things you can do to monetize an active forum. It really depends on the niche you are in as to what other ways you could monetize the forum apart from just regular banner ads, adsense, etc.
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  • Profile picture of the author E. Brian Rose
    The DP forum found a way to monetize its traffic by stuffing eBay affiliate cookies. Sure, he is now facing 20 years in the slammer for it, but you didn't specify that you were looking for solutions that would keep you out of jail.
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    Founder of JVZoo. All around good guy :)

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