My background is as a developer, but I also have no problems promoting. My issue is that I don't have a clue where to begin with monetization. I'll give you some stats on the forum as background info:

Forum Age: 1 month
page views: 59k
Active members: 134

I did a podcast with Lee who suggested that you really shouldn't put any ads up until you're getting at least 500 page views a day. Well, my page views fluctuate between 1500-2000 a day so it is something I want to start planning for. I threw up adsense on one spot in the blog but I want to learn about what my other options would be. Since the Forum is so new, it doesn't have any PR which is obviously a consideration when it comes to Text Links.

I've heard of a lot of the advertising networks; I just don't know what is best for my forum.

The Blog Experiment - Blogging Resource

I'd love to hear ANY suggestions!

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ilovecode

Adsense or if you can get in Yahoo Publishers Network. They are both good and everyone (almost) uses them, to start its a good choice. Easy to setup, install, blend and implement. Great interfaces for tracking etc. Contextual so you don't do the targeting, they do.

i get about 130k views a month and make around 2-3 bucks a day. Some sites can do alot better....

adsense (not sure on YPN) also has referral ads and things too. like a buck if someone clicks your FF link, d/l it, and installs it. etc...

then you have CO's like Azoogle, where you get paid for referrals. Show a blockbuster banner on your site, if someone clicks it and signs up for BB online, you get like $30. Never did good for me, but other sites may perform.

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Are those page views from mainly the members of the site or is it due to traffic from search engines and various other sources? Because from my experience I have seen members get used to ads pretty quickly and don't click them that often.

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The important thing is to diversify. Honestly, if I were you, I'd just throw all sorts of different types of ads up there (Adsense, Affiliates, Private Advertisers, Text Links, Banners...) and watch each to see what works best.

Just because something works for others does not mean that it's gonna work for you. From my personal experience, private advertisers have worked the best...but I am sure that a lot of this has to do with the fact that our visitors are webmasters - who advertise. Most forums don't have this, so it's not like advertisers just stumble upon them. You do run a blogging forum, so you may see similar success.

Even if webmasters don't already visit your forums, you can announce at other webmaster forums (ie: here, Sitepoint, DigitalPoint, Earners Forum, etc.) that you have advertising available, and people will bite.

If you're going to use CPC ads (Adsense), then put them in or around your posts...If you want to know what I'm talking about, log out here at AF and view our threads. Look after the first and last posts. Adsense in the header or footer doesn't tend to generate much $$. You should also put CPC ads in your archive. You might as well monetize that space, and CPC is probably going to work best there.

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I'd agree that it is best to try many different methods and find one that works the best for you. CPC tends to not do as well on forums as it does on websites but if placed and blended correctly they can still do quite well. Since your target audience is bloggers I would say private advertisers would be a good option since they have a site to advertise. Affiliates, text links, in-text advertising like kontera or intellitxt, etc are all viable options.

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Was that you leading the interview? Cool. So, did he say 500 or 500K ?

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Yes that would be me. I'm pretty sure he said 500. I think very few sites would have a chance to run ads if they waited until they had 500k eek page views a day

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ilovecode

Then I don't understand when you said this:

If he said wait till you get 500, and you get 3 to 4 times that much, why are you barely starting to plan?

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I went to Vegas, and all I got was this Blister. - true story!

Well what im saying is that I'm pretty sure I have the traffic to start runnings ads. The traffic came kind of fast and really wasn't expecting it to take off this fast so now I'm playing catch up.

Something I am considering is putting a TLA affiliate link on there as well as a lot of bloggers want to try TLA and for everyone that signs up through them, i would earn $25 so it's a good audience I think.

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ilovecode

TLA does pretty good for me, i make a steady like $20 a month off 3 spots so far.

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