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Huge Forum but unable to monetize, looking for suggestions

by IMMer1975
19 replies
Hi -

I run a forum started a back in December 2012 and it grew beyond my wildest expectations. My last 30 days google analytics shows (for the month):

2.2million page views
96k unique visitors
240k visitors
Average time on site: 11mins
Just over 12million instant chats
I have just shy of 14000 registered members

All this in about 6 months. I have about 160 new sign-ups per day and probably this week I'll hit around 10k visitors per day.

All good right? Almost.

See, the forum is concerning a niche which is not mainstream. It's NOT adult content but it is sensitive content (related to a medical disorder - no, not any form of enlargement!).

I decided to put google ads on the site and made it visible for guests only so my members did not have to see them, and just put it as a footer ad. Lo and behold I was making about $12 a day thinking this is the best thing ever. Then I got the dreaded email from google saying that they can't run ads on this site because it falls under the sensitive category blah blah (which is odd because the adwords guys were quite happy to accept the money I spent promoting the site). Anyway that is google and I can't fight them.

So I tried a few others but the results are dismal compared to adsense.

With the site traffic, the server costs are mounting, so I do need to find a way to monetize.

I'm looking for some really creative ways to do this. It is a shame that I have this highly active user base (both forum and mailing list) and am unable to monetize it in the traditional sense.

Any creative ideas? What would you do with a forum like this?

Thanks in advance
#forum #huge #monetize #suggestions #unable
  • Profile picture of the author My Space Suit Split
    could you pm me the link?
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  • Profile picture of the author Web Content By Jim
    Yea, it's going to be difficult to help if you don't post the niche or any other information related to it. But, if you don't want to out yourself, I don't know how much people are going to be able to help.
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  • Profile picture of the author JimDucharme
    Have you considered approaching brands in this niche and offering them sponsored sub forums where they can answer questions and promote their products and services? In medical niches this can be tough due to liability, but perhaps in your's this would be possible.

    Regards,
    jim
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  • Profile picture of the author WillR
    Those stats are great but how many of the signups and visits are from spambots and how many are genuine people actually posting genuine content?
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  • Profile picture of the author kochtgr
    If there is such interest in your niche and you get that many visitors then a good way to make tens of thousands each month would be to have an option for paid membership on some of the forum sections, just like warrior forum...
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  • Profile picture of the author thedanbrown
    You can "pin posts" for people who want to advertise to your viewers. You can also use your list and email them great content and relevant affiliate offers every now and then.
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  • Profile picture of the author thedanbrown
    You can also sell banner ads
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  • Profile picture of the author ElaineBrown
    Banned
    What kind of google ads did you put on your forum? Are they related to what the forum is about?
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    • Profile picture of the author IMMer1975
      Wow thanks for all the responses. That's what makes WF great!

      Originally Posted by JimDucharme View Post

      Have you considered approaching brands in this niche and offering them sponsored sub forums where they can answer questions and promote their products and services? In medical niches this can be tough due to liability, but perhaps in your's this would be possible.

      Regards,
      jim
      This is a very intriguing option. Perhaps I can give them an option of a banner or upsell to a sponsored sub-forum (the banner I had thought of before but not the sub forum idea). I will approach a few and see if anybody bites.

      Originally Posted by WillR View Post

      Those stats are great but how many of the signups and visits are from spambots and how many are genuine people actually posting genuine content?
      Hi - The spambots are caught by spam filters. It shows 10000 spam registrations but I did not include that in the 14000 members. That is, the 14k members are very real.

      The stats reflect actual people posting genuine content. Well, let me clarify...I'm sure the bots that crawl the site may trigger the google analytics code and inflate the pageviews (not sure if it does). But the posts are all genuine. The community is highly active. It also has blogs (over 6000 created), photo gallery etc. The forum has over 119k posts in the 6 months. Many people "live" on the site...its very sticky and for that particular group of people, very "addictive" as it acts as a support community. I have all the possible spam prevention measures in place so there are no fake postings or auto generated content.

      Originally Posted by kochtgr View Post

      If there is such interest in your niche and you get that many visitors then a good way to make tens of thousands each month would be to have an option for paid membership on some of the forum sections, just like warrior forum...
      Thanks for this idea. The demographic is 15-22 year olds mainly so not the biggest spenders for paid membership, but I will look at this. Maybe offer a members only area with some benefit.

      Originally Posted by thedanbrown View Post

      You can "pin posts" for people who want to advertise to your viewers. You can also use your list and email them great content and relevant affiliate offers every now and then.
      Originally Posted by thedanbrown View Post

      You can also sell banner ads
      I tried this using the ad networks but the performance of these are quite bad...at least the ones I tried. After tasting what Google converted, these banner ads through the networks were bad. Also a low fill rate.

      Originally Posted by ElaineBrown View Post

      What kind of google ads did you put on your forum? Are they related to what the forum is about?
      It was google text ads (PPC). They of course fill it with content relevant to the users browsing history and/or relevant to the site content. They do a good job because the conversion was high. I myself did not choose the content for the ads.
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  • Profile picture of the author bigballin6161
    I would make your own ebook about the subject of your forum. There must be alot of good info on there. Just make an ebook out of it and sell it on there through banners.
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  • Profile picture of the author willmfftt
    Try Buy Ads | BuySellAds, to sell ad space. The stats you have are impressive enough to interest someone to buy your ad space.

    Be careful with placing things on the forum that people have to pay for. Don't lock anything down that people already have access to for free as you will lose alot of your audience. Forums are kind of sensitive and difficult to work with because nobody really wants to pay YOU for other users advice so it's difficult to come up with other money making ideas.
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  • Profile picture of the author roblawrence
    Hard to give ideas without knowing the subject of the forum or looking at it. There are probably a lot of opportunities you are overlooking and need some outside eyes to see.
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  • Profile picture of the author nicholasb
    Don't waste time placing google ads, go out there and find people looking ot increase there ad spending, and sell them a banner at a premium. The more traffic you get the more you can sell it for.

    Find people who might be interested in advertising and call them directly, don't go though a 3rd party like buy sell ads or anything like that, cause you won't earn anything.

    With a high trafficked site, you can sell one ad space for thousands of dollars a month.
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    • Profile picture of the author IMMer1975
      Originally Posted by nicholasb View Post

      Don't waste time placing google ads, go out there and find people looking ot increase there ad spending, and sell them a banner at a premium. The more traffic you get the more you can sell it for.

      Find people who might be interested in advertising and call them directly, don't go though a 3rd party like buy sell ads or anything like that, cause you won't earn anything.

      With a high trafficked site, you can sell one ad space for thousands of dollars a month.
      This is very intriguing and the option I may pursue. There are likely medical professionals and institutions that would love to reach this audience. I just don't know yet how challenging it will be to navigate to the right person in those organizations but I will explore. Thanks for the idea.
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  • Profile picture of the author koreancowboy
    Yeah mate, PM me a link to your forum. I run a watch forum as my "9-5" (more like 10:30-4 LOL) job.
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    I provide consulting for companies that use Adobe AEM...you can check out what I've done so far.

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  • Profile picture of the author ScottFox
    A premium membership tier sounds like it could fit well here.
    With that kind of audience response it sounds like you could start charging for some features even if that forced you to lose some traffic.
    After all, the point of the traffic is to make you money, isn't it?

    Also, how about a PBS-style pledge drive?
    Run some special events (like a webcast or podcast or on-site activities) twice/year and ask for donations. If your content is as unique as it sounds, this should yield you more than $12/day.

    The advanced version of that is to collect prizes from topic-related sponsors. Then give them out in a drawing to everyone who pledges. (Again like PBS.)

    This is probably not a a full-time business model for you but it could pretty easily add thousands of $$ to your bottom line as it does to a site I run.
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    • Profile picture of the author IMMer1975
      Originally Posted by ScottFox View Post

      A premium membership tier sounds like it could fit well here.
      With that kind of audience response it sounds like you could start charging for some features even if that forced you to lose some traffic.
      After all, the point of the traffic is to make you money, isn't it?

      Also, how about a PBS-style pledge drive?
      Run some special events (like a webcast or podcast or on-site activities) twice/year and ask for donations. If your content is as unique as it sounds, this should yield you more than $12/day.

      The advanced version of that is to collect prizes from topic-related sponsors. Then give them out in a drawing to everyone who pledges. (Again like PBS.)

      This is probably not a a full-time business model for you but it could pretty easily add thousands of $$ to your bottom line as it does to a site I run.
      I may go the donation route. As you say, it won't be a full-time business model but it will at least cover the server costs which are rapidly climbing.
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  • Profile picture of the author carnal
    You can manage the forum for a few more months and then sell it for a very high price.
    You can also try to sell advertising spaces. If your forum has good traffic, you should get advertisers.
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    • Profile picture of the author IMMer1975
      Originally Posted by carnal View Post

      You can manage the forum for a few more months and then sell it for a very high price.
      You can also try to sell advertising spaces. If your forum has good traffic, you should get advertisers.
      Ultimately I may sell it. I'm no expert at site monetization (as is evidenced by this thread!). It may do better in the hands of someone who knows how to manage these. Given the rapid growth, I may just hold it and pay the server costs out of pocket for a few months and then see if someone thinks they can leverage this asset better than I am.
      Signature

      Pssst...want to learn how to build marketing funnels in Mautic marketing automation to propel online conversions?

      Or are you interested in learning Wordpress? Check out my free video courses here. Taken by over 25,000 students on Udemy.

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