Why is it so hard to convert on forums?

My advice, put ads in first or second post ... if you have nice forum that won't scare visitors away

 

A hint, while reading your post here i was very focused on your question, not any ads, i saw no ads, just your question in the thread here.

On your forum, make them see the ads

 

No it isn't all that hard if you find a good paying cpm network then it is easy to earn because even if they don't see it you still earn. Even if you only have 20-30 active posters that is a lot of impression.

I was earning $8 per day from a forum with only 80 members.

 

Placements matter always

 

Try to get more traffic..so u can get clicks from thats...

 

or try to make the ads stand out so that your visitors see it because if it is blended they might just skip it as they have been for way too long to keep clicking.

 

any suggestions on placement for the chemistry forums below?

 

Wow your forum looks really active. You could earn a lot. Try to use cpm programs. http://enoads.com add one of frontpage 1-2 in the post. They pay $1.50 per cpm and it doesn't have to be unique. I earned $8 from 280k impression. You would probaly get more.

Try it out.

 

The CTR is definetly horrible on forums, I would have to agree with whoever said to sell advertising directly.

 

It is so hard because people are too busy talking! I personally don't think ads on a forum are a good idea.

 

mnymkr, I think the way you have you ads placed is what is causing you not to get clicks. Sidebar style vertical ads and top banner ads almost never get as many clicks as if you intermingle them in the individual threads. Take a look at my forum and notice how I only place one ad at the top on the forum's front page and then I intermingle ads in the threads and message indexes.

I'm also using Kontera to supplement the Adsense earnings and I use some CPA ads like ClickBank and PepperJam with products my forum members might be interested in. That forum makes between $2000-$3000 per month and when I was selling ads directly, it was making double that amount. The only reason I pulled the plug on the direct ad sales was I got tired of issuing refunds and arguing with MLM marketers who wanted to take out ads for crap pyramid schemes like "The Reverse Funnel System" and "Agloco". I don't want that ripoff schemes on my forum because that's a quick way to lose visitors.

...and about your forum visitors.... My forum is over two years old and well indexed by Google so I get a lot of guests who don't join but read the forum (at the moment there are 158 guests on my forum). Those type of visitors are usually good for a click off the site.

Your forum looks great and the information is excellent, I'd just suggest removing those sidebar ads from at least the front page.

Sorry for hitting this thread twice in a row but I wanted to respond to both of these posts.

280K impression for $8 !!! That's a dreadful eCPM. I'm not trying to put you down, maybe help you here but you're definitely doing something wrong if you're only earning $8 for 280K impressions. That's only $.035 eCPM. I get 10 times that amout using CPA networks. You need to find something better because on one site alone I made over $66.50 this last week for 25,693 impressions in PepperJam alone. That's not counting the $35 I made in Adsense and $116 from eBay affiliate program on those same impressions.

 

It also depends on what niche your forum is about. Webmaster/internet/tech related = no chance. Whereas if it's something nice and innocent, like art, then you might have a chance some ditty old woman will come along and give you a click on 12, depending on how bad the Parkinson's is

 

Adsense in my forums does horrible, but Kontera does great.. Lately it's been generating more than Adsense every day..
FWIW, i only display Adsense and Kontera to anonymous visitors, members get no ads..

 

I highly recommend reading Randy's article on Kontera as a supplemental source of earnings. I read it several months ago and joined Kontera because of his article. I have to say, my Kontera earning have been steadily increasing every month and I'm actually starting to get some clicks that are beating Adsense (jeez, Adsense has been terrible lately for me)

 

cpm is the way to go for forums

 

I think forums are made in a way that it is really hard to find things... wether it is ads or anything else... i didnt even realise that the dp forum had a style chooser... i never scrolled all the way to the bottom of a thread past the post reply.

 

That's the type of forum I have, and the answer is no, even if your forum was geared to Parkinson sufferers, your CTR would still be atrocious.

It's not worth it and I have completely abandoned adverts on my forums.

 

Ever tried amending Adsense 'link ads' to users signatures with a maximum number shown on each page? Similar to what DP has with an ad between the first/second post, but actually a link ad inside users' signature. I've read countless times that it works.

 

It's a good idea Spider-Man but it makes a forum look cheap. Could you imagine how the DP community would react if that tactic were used here? I know the forum talkgold.com does that with YPN ads and that site looks horrible, ads everywhere, etc. You really have to blend the ads into the forum and not have too many ads. That's why the Kontera ads work well.

 

The key with forums is to have a constant flow of people who aren't members. Members become used to it because they visit so often. The best way to get past that is changing locations and colors every so often.

I also think CPA ads are great for forums.