Monetizing your Site.

[sdkid]

Share information here about your experiences with different advertising service companies.  Helpful hints and tips are appreciated, as well as any information about what it's like to deal with the "big boys" who deliver ads to your site.

I recently had a run-in with Google's "Adsense" program.  Apparently I have some people on my forum who felt the need to "help out" (they genuinely thought they were "helping") with a bunch of bogus clicks.  I suspect that there were possibly others who purposely and maliciously generated bogus clicks just to kill my adsense account.  I guess there are many in the same situation as me.  I'd love for this topic thread to be a helpful source of information for anyone looking to ad any advertising to their sites.

Do you have a success story?  Please Share your best tips and tricks!

[vbgamer45]

Don't be dependent on one provider have multiple providers.

Offer memberships at low price either yearly,monthly for low fee those add up over time.

Look for third party ad sales.

[zg4me]

Ya, memberships may be a good idea, Keep in mind you need to provide a value in exchange for membership, else it'll never work. Never.

I may be the odd man out, I know I'm odd anyway, but I've actually had vendors approach me about adding their banner ad to our forum. If you have the exposure (and hits), this might be something to think about. I haven't looked real close, am sure there's a mod to handle some/most of this stuff.... except collecting from dead beats

Rick

[VicDelmonte]

I'm more inclined to go with adds, rather than pay membership. Though I could see a 'premium' membership (paid) in addition to a regular membership working. I think unless you offer something of unusual value, you'd have a tough time building a member base with nothing but paid membership (places like somethingawful aside - there are always exceptions.)

Ads, on the other hand, are so ubiquitous, I don't think people even see them anymore, most times.