Making Money...

[edik]

I have a question.

Lets assume you wish to make money from a vB site.

How popular does it have to be until you actually generate any revenue?

I say that because I have come across a site that the owner says (and I believe him) 50 million hits++ since 2003, and yet he is finding hard to attract advertising (why he doesn't use CPM/CTR/CPA/CPC I don't know) and may have to shut the board down as he can't afford it!!! He has 5000+ users and 0.5 million posts.

Does this sound unusual????

If he can't make any money from this it kinda makes me think how the heck ANYONE makes any money from advertising!!!!

advice appreciated!!!

[MRGTB]

Well out of pure curiosity, why on earth would he choose to shut the board down with so many users and so much activity. He could sell it instead for a good price I'm bettingas a last resort.

[edik]

Originally Posted by Gary Bolton

Well out of pure curiosity, why on earth would he choose to shut the board down with so many users and so much activity. He could sell it instead for a good price I'm bettingas a last resort.

I don't wanna disclose who it is as he told me in confidence. But I think its taking all his time up.

What puzzles me still is how can such a board not make money? With a minimum of $2/CPM that'd be (as we say in the UK... arfur daley bless his soul) "a nice little earner"

Now.. I wonder whether to open my board as I was hoping I might attract revenue.... but I now need to rethink my tactics!!!!

[MRGTB]

Don't get roped into thinking you can make loads of money from adds by running a forum. Doesn't quite work that way, and if it did everybody who runs a site would be suning it up in Florida 7 months of the year.

If only

[Brandon Sheley]

if his board has 5,000 active members there is no reason why he/she couldn't make 100$ a week easily

[MRGTB]

Well it would be interesting to see if anybody here has that many hits on there site per week (5,000 uneak users), and uses google adds for example. To let us know if they do make anything like $100 per week.

[FleaBag]

Those stats are similar to my board. I have 5000 members, but they are not all active. What CPM advertisment systems do you know of? As I don't know of any.

[edik]

I was under the impression CPM (Cost Per Mile) which is in effect "Cost per 1000 impressions" (not click-thrus) revenue is around $2-5.

Now I just looked at Fleabags site, and find it surprising he has no advertising? Just a question (you can tell me to get lost) but why not put up some ads and get some cash?

Or am I missing the point which is

a) some board owners are not interested

or

b) its a lot more difficult than I thought... which was just enrol with somebody like tradedoubler.com and stick on targeted ads

I am genuinely interested. It seems for example some bloggers are raking it in.. i'd have thought that vB owners would at least be on the same level ))


ps. nice site btw fleabag!!!

[TruthElixirX]

Originally Posted by edik

a) some board owners are not interested

I think this might be some of it. I am planning on launching a site soon. I am currently building up content for it, as it won't be just a forum, and will put no advertisements on there until I can no longer afford it, and even then it will onyl be to cover server costs.

Quite a few of us just do it as a hobby.

^ That's exactly what I do.