Hello, I have decided to open a forum for the members of my website. I have 16,000+ users currently on my website and I believe a great portion of them will be joining the forum too. My question is: how do I monetize it? My top choice would be adsense obviously but how about CPM networks? I am also thinking on building an e-mail list but I'm not yet sure how should I go about doing this... Any other cool ideas are more than welcome!
What is your website about? You can look at different successful forums and try to study what they're doing for monetization. Most of them post adsense codes in between posts and in the posts itself. CPM is good if you have a lot of visitors and impressions, however, if you think your audience is the "spending" type you can get most from CPA and CPL. You can also post products that are related to what your website is from affiliate websites, so you can have commissions.
Adsense is also providing CPM ads but you can't expect/claim about it .You can also earn from your forum through sponsor ads or links in the footer or in any other sections.You can also monetize from forum signature links.
There are a lot of ways to monetize from those 16,000 traffics forums. It is solely depends on your forum niche and the kind of your audience. 1. If your forum has related to digital product or online services. I would recommend you join some affiliate network, a well known such as CJ / SAS are a recommendation. Do selling digital products and online service to earn commission. You can also earn by place PPC type like Google Adsense too. 2. If your forum has related to offline product or offline service. I would recommend you find some advertisers related to your niche. You can offer them either advertising space, advertising banner or product reviews. You can also earn by place PPC type like Google Adsense too.
You can monitize you forum by giving add spaces and link placement. Also you can member donations as well as give special facilities who donate money in your forum.
I will suggest to you to take closer look on forums related to your niche or some successful forums. This way you can learn how to monetize and earn from forum
To build a list you need an autoresponder (goes without saying) and offer free bonuses to people who sign up. Make sure you add your follow on messages to your responder before you add the opt-in form on your site. Ray
Have you considered implementing a fee based subscription section of the forum with "premium" information ?
Adsense Clickbank Products PPL (Pay Per Lead) Products If i was you i would stick with clickbank products and pay per lead products. Adsense you will only get 0.10 to 0.20 cents per click compared to $50 per sale or 1,5,10 dollars plus per lead
Few ideas: 1. Private section with premium information as MayaLocke mentioned 2. Private section where people can exchange/discuss expert ideas or post special offers 3. Semi-private section with posting for paid members only and free read-only access for all. You can boost the exclusivity of the premium forum by having a waiting list. Create a squeeze page: "fill in your info to be notified of the next opening date"
CPM and premium memberships seem like the most logical steps to take, but you have to remember the user-experience. Would it make sense for you to poll your following and ask what they prefer? I've lost traffic on one of my sites before when I added advertisements. Wouldn't have gone that route if I knew that would have happened.
I know that having loads of ads is horrible and I am not planning on putting a huge load of advertisements on the forum anyway. Also paid sections of the forum are out of the question... So I guess adsense, cpm and list building are the best choices for me. I will of course sell direct advertisement spots to the users too...
besides having banners/ADS, i would suggest adding a SPECIAL OFFER section for members and charge a fee for them to place ads. this has been proven to work for heavy traffic forums.
You can use adsense if the niche is no way related to warez or any crimes or hacking Well, if you have 16,000 members, you would sure get some sponsor ads and that too would earn you great..! Well, can i see your forum please.. share your link if you dont mind...!