One of the most generally accepted facts in the webmastering community is that forums are very hard to monetize and that there are better online industries to go into. This fact holds some truth, as forums generally do not perform will in terms of AdSense and other PPC click through advertising programs; however, forums are a goldmine for CPM advertising revenue. CPM means cost per thousand page views and with forums, each user who views just three or four threads usually registers 10 or more page views. Hence, if you have a forum with a few members who visit and read through it on a frequent basis, you can easily get 5000 page views or more daily.
The amount you get per 1000 impressions from programs such as AdSense is miniscule; however, if you can attract sponsors by yourself and sell advertising, a forum can easily earn $5-$10 CPM with very little work with just 2 or 3 ads and then as you attract more advertisers, many “big time” forum owners can earn $20+ CPM with 8-10 site wide advertisements in the forum of links and banners of all sizes. With just 5000 page views daily, forum owners with a $20 CPM rater can earn an income of $100 a day and over time as your forum grows, your page views will skyrocket and you can easily earn upwards of $200-$300 a day from advertising.
However, it can be very difficult to find advertisers and there are few web site owners on webmaster forums that will be willing to pay even $2 or $3 CPM for any form of online advertising. That is why you need to network and get advertisers who are willing to pay decent amounts for advertising to visit your web site. The only way to do this is to contact them directly or find a network that will contact them for you. This is not a get rich quick tip, but if you stick with a forum and let it grow, you can earn six figures with a forum, and many forum owners who have realized this do.
[...] This post at romow.com discusses the aspects of creating income through advertisments on forums. The post is here. [...]
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