Years ago when I would approach the main online advertising networks, providing my page views and other relevent stats, I would often be offered an advertising CPM price for the forums that was different than the content segments of my sites. Significantly lower.
It was a frustrating time to have a forum online. I shook my head at the silliness of their notion that traffic on the forums was not as valid as traffic on the content pages.
Now, years later, the forums are finally getting their honor among CPM. By some.
Someone, somewhere, has figured out that traffic that hangs out on the forums has a loyalty factor built in. Not just random browsers, clicking in and rapidly clicking out, forum traffic reads on average 9-13 pages per session, increasing the likelihood they will notice the sponsor, place an added value to their services and click to purchase.
I still do not put up with network pricing of their CPM. In fact, the last time I used Burst Media, my CPM was averaging about 50 cents CPM. Yes, you read that right, that’s no typo. I don’t do it.
But I do sell advertising directly to companies. And I do have a non-exclusive contract with a high end advertising agency with a department in my niche. I receive 10.00 - 25 CPM (and with the agency, receive 60% of that) which is significantly better than the 50 cents I received from Burst’s network with random ads that never matched my demographics.
Thankfully, someone takes the traffic of a forum seriously.
This entry was posted on Friday, June 22nd, 2007 at 3:41 am and is filed under Forum Building, Case Studies, Monetization. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Nathan Says:
Very good posts. I believe you have to sell branding on a forum verses direct clicks. That repeated exposure to a product or service to such a specific niche can make a huge difference. A lot of people wont click but most will remember the product because of the amount of exposure. This is why I never run affiliate ads on a forum.
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BamaStangGuy Says:
on June 22nd, 2007 at 8:40 pm
Nice post. Tribal Fusion has been really good with CPM for forums. Although it is hard to get in if all you have is a forum. If you get accepted, which usually means you have a content site too, then they allow you to place their ads on your forum as well.