Have You Sold Ad Space on Your Forum?

[Nomad]

Selling Ad Space is one of the common ways to monetize a forum. You can sell ad space on the header footer, between the posts, or any spot you want. There are a lot of marketplaces where you can get advertising offers. However, in order to attract advertisers, you need a frum with a huge member base, a lot of posts, and huge traffic.

 

[Cedric]

We have an Ad Manager installed but not fully set up yet. At one point when we generate good traffic, I'd like to offer paid advertisements. Although it will be minimal since I hate advertisements.

 

[Anachiwo]

Before you can be able to sell ad space on your website, your website will not be in its early stages. You must have grown your base very well because the essence of advertising is for people to see it and if your website can't offer that to who buys ad space on your website, it's not worth the buy.

 

[Shortie]

I remember I tried when I was running my general discussion forum, but I was still new at running a forum to some extent and I tried to sell ad space early on before my forum got busier. Unfortunately, by the time it got busier, and I would have probably succeeded with selling ad space, I had to close the forum as hosting costs went up quite a lot. Learned a lesson though to establish my forum first and then offer ad space.

 

[Cory]

I don’t think I’ve ever sold ad space for money, but rather points members can accumulate by posting and doing other tasks.

 

[Nomad]

Well, I have never sold ad space on my forums but I have sold ad space for my blogs. If you can draw good traffic, especially from Tier one countries, you can easily attract advertisers.

 

[Carlos]

You actually need traffic in order to sell the ad spot.

I have sold ad spots. I was getting thousands of views, and it attracted a few advertisers. The perceived traffic is enough to entice them. Since COVID, though, I got more, and more. I even had to do an auction. To be fair to all advertisers. They were clans trying to get eyeballs onto their clan websites.

 

[Nomad]

You actually need traffic in order to sell the ad spot.

I have sold ad spots. I was getting thousands of views, and it attracted a few advertisers. The perceived traffic is enough to entice them. Since COVID, though, I got more, and more. I even had to do an auction. To be fair to all advertisers. They were clans trying to get eyeballs onto their clan websites.

Yes, you need traffic, and your traffic should come from reputed sources like Google and Bing, even Facebook and X would be fine.
By the way did you use any specific marketplace to sell your ad spot or people just started contacting you?

 

[Carlos]

Yes, you need traffic, and your traffic should come from reputed sources like Google and Bing, even Facebook and X would be fine.

Yup.

By the way did you use any specific marketplace to sell your ad spot or people just started contacting you?

I don't trust any marketplace. So, "customers" would need to have been on the site for a while or if I don't know them, I'd check their website or brand to see their reputation.

 

[Jason]

I haven't tried it. I might try it for my new biz/web development blog, but for a lot of niches, it comes across as unwelcome to members.

 

[Nomad]

I haven't tried it. I might try it for my new biz/web development blog, but for a lot of niches, it comes across as unwelcome to members.

Well, people do not like ads but we also need to understand that ads are important part of website business. If we don't have ads, we might not be able to run websites. Interestingly some niches attract more advertisers than others. However, the most important thing for getting advertisers is to have a good traffic.