Is there *anyone* out there who is making money or even breaking even on their site using either ad-revenue or subscription models?<br /><br />My expenses for running my site are more than triple what I receive from running Fastclick ads, making it an expensive hobby rather than the source of income I dreamed it might be way back in 1997 when I got started.<br /><br />I have a great community of smart talkative people who are unwilling to pony up a dollar or two a month, and are unwilling to click on ads to help support the site. <br /><br />What are you folks doing to meet expenses? I'm getting so discouraged.<br /><br />[]http://www.threadsdev.com/threads/php/uploads/panels/9547-9749.png[/]

As far as I can tell there is no money to be made in advertising unless your AOL, MSN, Yahoo, Google or another large company. Subscription based content is the way to go. Maybe your users will pay once they are locked out of various forums? If you like doing it as a hobby then making it a subscription based offering will lower it's cost and allow you to keep functioning at an acceptable level cost.<br /></2cents><br /><br /><img src="/forum/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Yeah, I have banners all over the measurection site.<br /><br />They only generate a pocket full of change... but I use them in another way to generate income.<br /><br />Accept donations for your site. We do, and we call them "SOS Sponsors". We give special perks to our SOS Sponsors. They get:<br /><br />- Free email address<br />- Access to Who's Online page<br />- Custom User Title<br />- Access to a couple of other private forums<br />- Access to our photo gallery.<br /><br />My site has the banner ads on the top and bottom of every page... plus I have some in the sidebar.<br /><br />Now here's the trick.... how I use the banners to make extra money - unrelated to the banner: The banners are annoying. I use my banner rotator mod, and the other admin even adds rather large banners in pushing the page further down. It's annoying with the top banners.<br /><br />HOWEVER, my "SOS Sponsors" have the option of turning OFF the top banner in their profile. This is an advantage to being a sponsor.<br />Also, some don't like the sidebar, especially people on WebTV or with small monitors. SOS Sponsors can turn the sidebar off. For regular users, they can only choose left/right - thus they can't hide the ads.<br /><br />So my theory, just make the ads annoying enought that they will donate for an "ad free" option. <br />I'm thinking of initiating a "popup" ad (once per day) that Sponsors can avoid. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /><br /><br />I think that's the key. People don't like to pay for stuff. So don't take the angle that you are charging for access. I maintain the stand that my site is FREE. But there are some special perks only available to Supporters. Compare it to all the goodies you can get when you make a pledge to PBS. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /><br /><br />Just my 2 cents/web philosophy. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I'm somewhat with Josh on this one. Banners won't generate much revenue unless you are dealing with a private party or other very targeted ad system. The ad networks right now just don't work that well.<br /><br />But what I do is have a "SOS" type area like Josh. Users can fill out a small form, be taken to a paypal page and make a donation. There are 3 levels of donations. Bronze, silver, and gold. Then, I let members who donate be allowed to create their own custom title. They really like that <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /><br /><br />Also, I use PhotoPost on my site, and every user gets 500KB to upload photos. Well, if you are a bronze, silver, or gold member, you get 5, 10, or 20 MB instead to store photos. So as you can see, that is a great incentive.<br /><br />We also do other things like sell stickers and t-shirts occasionally, but the donations are easy to set up. So I think if you can find out what your users would be willing to pay for, meaning what features they would love to have and set up a similar scheme you could help make most of your money back <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Hi,<br /><br />"HOWEVER, my "SOS Sponsors" have the option of turning OFF the top banner in their profile. This is an advantage to being a sponsor."<br />I rather like this. Would you mind explaining how you did this?<br /><br />To the original poster, have you considered sponsors? I too have lots of banners on my board, but to date (6 months of running banners) I have not made any money on them. The sponsorships however cover all my costs of running the board, with a little left for my partner and I.<br /><br />I also have a content site attached to the board (well, actually the other way around <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> ) which is not free. The board is a nice marketing tool for this site, and that one does generate a decent amount of revenue.<br /><br />Sanuk!<br />

OK - In a nutshell, <br /><br />I added a field to the Users table... U_BannerAd with a yes no value.<br /><br />In the ubbt.inc.php file look for the database query that appears below "function authenticate"<br /><br />and add ",U_BannerAd" to the end of it. Since we need this info everywhere, this adds it so that the info is retrieved everytime the user is authenticated (every page).<br /><br />Then.... in the editbasic page, you're going to add an on/off option, which only appears to members of the "supporter" group.<br /><br />This thread shows you how to structure an "if" statement based on a user's group.<br /><br />Then, to display the banner, I'm using my banner ad rotator which is posted here. It basically includes the banner.php file in the send header function in ubbt.inc.php<br /><br />Above it I added an if statment something like this:<br /><br />if ($user['U_BannerAd'] == "yes") {<br /> inclue("banner.php");<br />}<br /><br />People that have turned it off, would have a "no" value and the banner script wouldn't be included.<br /><br />That's it in a nutshell. Hope that puts you on the right track. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Hi, <br /> <br />Thanks, sounds fairly straight forward. I'll discuss this with my partner. <br /> <br />One more question if I may. The board is part of a paysite, and it would be great if we could integrate these, i.e. the paying members of the paysite would not see banners on the board. Any idea how we can do this? (the paysite uses a different database, and .htaccess) <br /> <br />Sanuk! <br />

Thanks all for your advice and tips. Josh, I will come take a look at your site and see if your ideas are something I could adapt for my site.<br /><br />Josh and Jeremy, would you say that PhotoPost was a huge benefit that induces your members to pay for membership? <br /><br />KSanuk, you say sponsorships are covering your costs (something I can only dream of!). How do you find your sponsors and approach them, or do they come to you?<br /><br />Thanks all. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /><br />

Yeah, feel free. <br /> <br />www.measurection.com <br />Username: testing <br />password: testing <br /> <br />be forewarned, it does contain some adult content.... <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> But the testing/testing will dump you into a nice testing forum. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

[]Is there *anyone* out there who is making money or even breaking even on their site using either ad-revenue or subscription models?[/]<br />I am using a subscription model and it is my full-time job. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/yay.gif" alt="" /><br />With advertising drying up a subscription model only makes sence, you will see more and more of them as time goes on which will only help web surfers to get out of the "the internet is supposed to be free" mode. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/waytogo.gif" alt="" />

Oh yeah, I better mention that allthough my site is my full-time job I do have to survive on crackers and water. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Hi,<br /><br />"KSanuk, you say sponsorships are covering your costs (something I can only dream of!). How do you find your sponsors and approach them, or do they come to you?"<br />Suprisingly most contacted me. My board deals with a fairly small niche (nightlife in Thailand) which probably helped getting sponsors. All of the sponsors are also (more or less) active on the board.<br /><br />Having said this, I do think that I am wasting a lot of potential with my board. Mainly because I am not a marketing / sales guy and I do not know how to get more sponsors / advertisers.<br /><br />Sanuk!<br />

I doubt that a board can make any money from any of the banner companies. But if you run your own system and have targeted banners then that is a different thing altogether.<br /><br />That is what we do -- we run the banner server, do all of the selling of the banners, design most of the banners even. We also sell some T-Shirts and things, but they don't generate enough money to really cover much. It is the banners that are paying the bills for us.<br /><br />But like I said, our banners are specific to the members and something that they are actually interested in. And then we offer some extra features to allow the members find the advertisers and also give the advertisers some incentive to keep their information and offers current.<br /><br />But it is a lot of work also! But it is paying the bills, not capable of providing a living or anything, but it is paying for the servers and bandwidth currently.

Look at our site... <br /> <br />www.ls1tech.com <br /> <br />All of those banners reflect a paying sponsor. In some cases we bartered parts for a banner. <br /> <br />Most of the well known car boards use banners at the top, rotating java, we did the side... the banners are in their own frame, doesn't slow down the board. <br /> <br />Banners on sites like ours cost anywhere from $25 to 200 a month EACH depending on the site. <br /> <br />Our banners are $125 each per month. <br /> <br />But www.corvetteforum.com charges even more for banners. <br /> <br />We just marketed our site to performance companies in our part of the 'net world. <br /> <br />You can IM me on msn as "prostockjohn@hotmail.com" or yahoo as "rsmrjohn" if you need any advice. <br /> <br />PSJ <br />[]prostockjohn@hotmail.com[/]

For those who charge membership, what sort of figures do you charge, and what sort of percentage of your users take up the offer. When you introduced it did they complain or embrace the idea?<br /><br />Although we are in the close season for our sport, we are still finding that our daily visits amount to 1,500+, and over 600 daily posts - so we are looking a method to help pay for the bandwidth, which in the UK is not cheap.<br /><br />

[]Ian_W said:<br />For those who charge membership, what sort of figures do you charge, and what sort of percentage of your users take up the offer. When you introduced it did they complain or embrace the idea?<br /><br />Although we are in the close season for our sport, we are still finding that our daily visits amount to 1,500+, and over 600 daily posts - so we are looking a method to help pay for the bandwidth, which in the UK is not cheap.<br /><br /> [/]<br /><br />Hmm.. well how are you wanting to handle membership? A required membership to use the site, or just members get some bonus features and access to other areas?<br /><br />I can't comment on a mandatory subscription to participate, but with mine it has been a huge success. I don't restrict non-members in any way. Meaning someone who never donates can still read all posts, reply and post in all visible forums, and even upload 500 KB of photos to their gallery.<br /><br />But, people who do donate just get ADDED features, such as more photo storage, the ability to create their own custom title, and a little line of text under their name that says they donated.<br /><br />Nobody has ever complained about this so far, and most people are more than willing to cough up a few bucks for the few extra features. But I can say if I imposed a system where someone had to donate just to have basic site access or functions, that would not go over well at all.

My sponsors get access to extra forums, gallery etc... for $10/mo OR $50/year - photo gallery access only is $4.95/first month & $2.95/mo after that or $34.95/year.<br /><br />If you set it up - I would recommned that you allow people to "donate" other amounts as well. Nothing is more of a surprise than a random out of the blue $100 donation, or even a $500 donation. It happens. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

[]JoshPet said:<br /><br />If you set it up - I would recommned that you allow people to "donate" other amounts as well. Nothing is more of a surprise than a random out of the blue $100 donation, or even a $500 donation. It happens. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> [/]<br /><br />Yes it does happen... the first time I got one I think I crapped my pants <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Sorry I meant optional membership rather than compulsory <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Hi,<br /><br />This is pretty much what we have in mind as well. The plan is to allow pretty much all functionality to non-paying members (with the exception of search) and give additional features to paying members (memberarea of the site, ReviewPro, PhotoPostPro, possibly chat & email). Taking away functionality is always difficult and more likely the cause resentment than offering the option to get more features when paying a little.<br />We have not finalized payment, but are considering $60/year and $9.99/month auto-renewable.<br /><br />At the moment we already have a for-pay memberarea, access for this is $34.99/year or $24.99/3-months.<br /><br />We also have sponsors and advertising banners on the board, which at the moment roughly cover cost. The site is making a modest profit.<br /><br />Sanuk!<br />