Are Forums Advertising Effective?

The default idea was that forums are not suitable for advertising purposes. This is partly true. Just like with blogs, not all forums are of wide interest, thus good for advertising. Let's see what else makes forums suitable (or not) for advertising.

Forums, like blogs, are real-time, true, open communication means. The difference is that, while with blogs the main content is built by a blogger, with forums content comes into being by the common contribution of the participants in the discussion. This is both an advantage and a disadvantage. The advantage: forums are 100% authentic. The disadvantage: content can be controlled only partially, in a small degree.

Authenticity: will generate high traffic for large-interest topic forums.

• The problem is that many of the forum readers are return visitors and therefore more prone to ad-blindness. This requires high diversity in ads customization.
• On the other hand, forum readers and participants are more open to action because they are involved and they trust the source. The problem is that forums tend to have low CTR. In the case the ad is well-written and optimized and succeeds in attracting attention it will have more chances to generate action and sales. (This is why the choice between AdSense and affiliate programs should be seriously taken into consideration, well pondered and tested.)

In terms of authenticity, forums and blogs are close to each other -- the tendency is slightly bent towards considering forums as having a greater degree of authenticity.

Theme and content: Reduced control over content can be an inconvenience for its targeting (but not in all cases).

• The content cannot be tweaked to sell.
• From this point of view, blogs are superior to forums, for the blogger can become an opinion-maker, therefore someone whose recommendations would be taken into account by readers.
• Lack of precise theming on the page does not work very well with AdSense and will result in weakly targeted ads and will affect CTR.
• With AdSense publishers, the same problem generates the need for tight supervision and filtering, as Google's program policies are restrictive in some aspects regarding content.

At the same time, the fact that AdSense targeting works on a per-page basis is very convenient for forums, as there are frequent cases when pages (threads) differ from each other as theme.

the area of visitors and the exposure is similar to that of blogs

AdSense forums optimization

The basic factors influencing earnings are traffic, CTR and CPC, as we've discussed in the article How to Boost Your AdSense Revenue.

Of all the actions you can perform to optimize your forum for better traffic, higher CTR and CPC, the least you can do is related to content. However, you may set topics and try and tweak a bit the discussion towards what you want while moderating.

The results of actions to optimize one of these factors influence the others. Thus, increasing targetted traffic will increase CTR. Ads optimization for CTR results in higher CPC.

Just a few pointers:

• Traffic and popularity: besides the traditional ways, make sure your forum has a domain name easy to remember (ideally theme-relevant).

  Whether your forum will be a success or not depends a great deal of how you start it. Keep in mind these:

  • Don't start a forum just for the sake of it. Have a purpose, find a "hot" topic for discussion.
  • Find a need and fill it. Do it while considering also your own needs. There are areas in which it is hard to find any information on the internet. Another necessary condition is that the topic is of interest.
  • Post the purpose of your forum. Thus you can optimize it for search engine placement. Besides, it helps readers see at a glance what it is all about.
• Improve CTR: try to avoid boring your (return) visitors with ads.
  • Block spammy ads.
  • Do not put AdSense on all forum pages.
  • Customize ads for content readers. Blend-in format is suitable. In-content placement seem to work better than ads above your posts or to the sides. Place ads under the first post; it is generally read.
• Improve CPC: you can help improving your ads' CPC by choosing the topics that target the right markets. Track the results to be able to control and keep only the highest paying ads.