CTR on forums - is it generally lower?

Just wondering if the CTR on forums is generally lower than a blog/website?

 

Yes it normally is

 

Generally a lot lower - there are loads of impressions from forums, and many of them are from returning members that become ad blind after awhile. Your generally doing reasonably well to get a CTR in excess of 1% when it comes to forums.

 

Exactly. If you move the ads around every once-in-a-while, or change the color it'll get their attention again.

 

Having Adsense on forums is generally lower is true. Why? Because forums increases CPM a higher CPM lowers your CTR and your CPM will be low. I, myself, asked the same questions several weeks or so ago and decided to remove Adsense in my forums and saw an increase in earnings because my CTR went up, and eventually my CPM went up with it also.

 

if you place the code between the posts, people might seee them again

 

I think the most effective means of generating higher CTR for forums is to be a bit more spammy/aggressive with your AdSense and other advertising for guests and limiting the number of ads that the members see (even removing the ads the members see completely because at the end of the day it is rare that they will click the ads after the first couple of visits, even if well positioned). Plus by doing this you can build member loyalty and show your members you're willing to give them special treatment as well as give incentive to those lurking guests to register just to get rid of the ads, who will in turn probably contribute to your forum discussion.

I mean it is an out there wild guess but I'd estimate that a very large percentage, maybe 80 - 90% of all click throughs will be coming from guests anyway so it makes sense to target them. Why do I say this well I found that when my largest forums (10,000+ members, 150,000+ posts) when through a phase where Google put all my most in their supplemental results therefore virtually halving my traffic overnight I found that AdSense revenue probably dropped by 80%, which suggests to me that the largest percentage of click throughs are coming from guests that have found posts on the forums via search engines. Alternatively when I see spikes in my SERPs this is normally followed by a considerably larger spike in AdSense earnings when in comparison to the traffic growth.

 

Yes it is, and you don't really want people to click on ads rather than post do you

 

Um... yeah... sure... I'd much rather them to click the a... I mean post.

 

Well, no posts = empty forum.

 

Yes it is always a fine balancing act when it comes to forums. You gotta please the members but also get the clicks. I like to work on a system of guests click and members post... , but I guess my forums are also at a point where they are fairly "mature" as in they are gonna get a couple hundred new posts everyday whether it gets new members or not - but at the same time growth is just as important.

 

yes, very low CTR, but lots of page views and traffic to make up for that. Overall its not a bad thing. A 1% CTR will be very good - but nothign have more stickiness and repeated visitors like forums.

Ad placement is the most important factor. Position just after the first post is the best. Get the ads into your content - just above the threadlist, between posts and so on.

 

I think forums are a good way to drive traffic to your other sites, also it ensures return visitors.

 

Here's a tip. Geographically based forums are poor adsense earners, unless you create one in niche area like a tourist spot. The kind of ads you get are dating, web design and hotels and everyone in Myville-on-sea lives there and is not likely to need a hotel room.

I have replaced adsense with ebay ads using the ebay editor kit to include Myville-on-sea in the search term. This gives forum visitors a quick way to find ebay items locally, and can create talking points too. It works!

 

Most forums' average CTR is under 1%, usually even under 0.5%, as far as I've seen.

 

not only the CTR is low,you get mostly low paying ads

 

is the ctr even lower if the traffic on the boards is only from search engines? i can place the ads that they are in the view of the user when entering the site.

 

The CTR on forums can be reasonable if your ads are placed really well, but as other's mentioned its hard to do and you often get low paying ads.

 

do not start a forum.
try another type of websites

 

I would generally say that CTR is probably better when you traffic is from search engines rather than return visitors, as long as the ads you are displaying are relevant to your site and therefore most likely to be relevant to what the person visiting your site has searched for.