How do I monetize Traffic to my SMF forum?

[NeonFlash]

Hi,

I am new to monetizing internet traffic. I am planning to place ads on my SMF forum which will be displayed on all the pages (any thread/section of the forum). I want to use the CPM model for advertising where I get paid for the number of times ads are displayed on my website to the visitors.

Below are my questions and I request the help of experienced members of this forum.

1. Which are some of the sites which would allow me to place ads on my SMF forum? Are there any good reliable ones? Since my site does not get a lot of traffic, I cannot get ads from popular advertisers as they would expect a certain amount of traffic from my site. I am not going ahead with Google Adsense.
2. What details do the advertisers provide when I sign up with them for ads? Do they provide an HTML code which I need to place inside the Forum Theme so that ads are displayed on all the pages?

I noticed that on this forum, Google Ads are displayed at the top of every page. That is what I would like to do as well.

If I need to give more information, please let me know.

Thanks.

[vbgamer45]

I have a list of ad networks here that work well with SMF http://www.smfhacks.com/monetize-your-smf-forum-and-website.html

But if you don't have a lot of traffic then it is pointless to do the ad networks. The better bet would get sponsorships or sell ad packages directly to people who might be interested.

[NeonFlash]

@vbgamer45: Thanks for the details. I have checked the AWStats details for my forum from Cpanel and they are as follows:

For Aug 2015:

Unique visitors: 2,933
Number of visits: 6216
Pages: 51,653
Hits: 183,816
Bandwidth: 1.25 GB

Could you please tell me how much revenue I can generate using CPM? Is this traffic sufficient? Which of the fields from AWStats above will be used for calculating the CPM revenue?

[vbgamer45]

Uniques and pageviews are important.
It also matters the language of the form and what type of cotent.

From CPM you can make $.01 to $2 per 1000 page views.  Forums tend to be under $1 though.

[NeonFlash]

@vbgamer45: I placed one ad on my site from an advertising network. It still shows only 3 impressions on their publisher dashboard even though I have had 301 visits to my forum since yesterday and a total of 2908 page views.

When I asked them, they said, they count only one unique ip/6 hours as one impression. Even in that case, I should have at least 300 impressions displayed on their dashboard due to 300 visits.

Is CPM always calculated this way? One unique IP address/number of hours?

[Antes]

Hmm... If they are counting Unique IPv6 only... users with IPv4 not count ? (confused actually).

[margarett]

I read as a unique ip every 6 hours

[NeonFlash]

Yes, it is a unique IP address every 6 hours.

I have placed their ad at the bottom of my forum pages. Even then, the ad will load each time a user browses the forum. I am not sure why the dashboard on the advertising network still shows only 5 impressions even though the total number of unique visitors to my forum in past few days are more than 500. And I am referring to registered members who actually browse the forum.

[vbgamer45]

Some providers only pay for certain countries. Or they might have a script that detects the position.

[Joshua Dickerson]

@vbgamer45: Thanks for the details. I have checked the AWStats details for my forum from Cpanel and they are as follows:

For Aug 2015:

Unique visitors: 2,933
Number of visits: 6216
Pages: 51,653
Hits: 183,816
Bandwidth: 1.25 GB

Could you please tell me how much revenue I can generate using CPM? Is this traffic sufficient? Which of the fields from AWStats above will be used for calculating the CPM revenue?

You don't get enough traffic for ads.

[Raths Rants]

Something I have experimented with is Affiliate Programs. By far this is the best Return on Investment for me personally. I have low to almost non-existent site traffic.

For example, sites like Amazon, newegg and Tiger Direct offer an Affiliate Program. You basically make a commission on anything they buy off their site for a short period of time after clicking your affiliate link.

Then promote your affiliate links to your user base. Make sure to not abuse or mislead your user base. With most Affiliate programs you have to clearly state what it is. No hidden links, cookie stuffing or redirects.

Just like anything. You have to put real time and effort into it to make it work.

Hope that helps.

[Johnny31]

Something I have experimented with is Affiliate Programs. By far this is the best Return on Investment for me personally. I have low to almost non-existent site traffic.

The same has worked for me pretty well too. I am in a similar position where I don't have large amounts of traffic on my site in order to capitalize on them.

I am now working with Clickbank. I tried some other sites before but Clickbank works the best for me. At the moment - that might change any day 

marg edit: as there is no SMF to be found at your link I removed it.

[njtweb]

I have a list of ad networks here that work well with SMF http://www.smfhacks.com/monetize-your-smf-forum-and-website.html

But if you don't have a lot of traffic then it is pointless to do the ad networks. The better bet would get sponsorships or sell ad packages directly to people who might be interested.

How do you use Chitika on SMF? It forces you to use WP/Blogger/Tumblr/Drupal or Squarespace mods in order to use their code.

[vbgamer45]

Unless they changed something. I was always able to just grab the banner code and choose display size.

[njtweb]

Unless they changed something. I was always able to just grab the banner code and choose display size.

Weird, it sent me to a page where it was making me choose one of those options. Then I went to my account and and clicked to get code and it allowed me. The only problem now is, nothing shows up in SMF when I place the code. I put the code in an html ad block on my tinyportal and nothing shows up for the ad.

[lurkalot]

Try adding the code to that block again,  this time without the wysiwyg editor switched on, and see what happens. 

Tinyportal Admin > Article Settings > Use the WYSIWYG editor?  Yes  No.

[njtweb]

Turned it off, block edit>HTML>Added code>Save

Nothing shows up. Just the block title I have as test set to "Block" on the right column.

FWIW....I have tried with two different ad management codes, exoclick and chitika.

[njtweb]

Two days with Chitika.

I had 1,455 impressions on Thursday and 5,144 impressions yesterday and I haven't made 1 pennny. How does this thing work?

[njtweb]

3 1/2 days with Chitika, 10,070 impressions and no revenue.

Anybody else use Chitika, do they payout for impressions? They don't answer any support questions from their contact form. They have an automatic reply email which they send a link to their support forum, which of course has no answers.

[vbgamer45]

They do not payout for impressions often very low rate .01 if anything. Mostly by clicks.