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Is there *anyone* out there who is making money or even breaking even on their site using either ad-revenue or subscription models?

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.

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.

What are you folks doing to meet expenses? I'm getting so discouraged.

[]https://www.ubbdev.com/threads/php/uploads/panels/9547-9749.png[/]

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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.
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Yeah, I have banners all over the measurection site.

They only generate a pocket full of change... but I use them in another way to generate income.

Accept donations for your site. We do, and we call them "SOS Sponsors". We give special perks to our SOS Sponsors. They get:

- Free email address
- Access to Who's Online page
- Custom User Title
- Access to a couple of other private forums
- Access to our photo gallery.

My site has the banner ads on the top and bottom of every page... plus I have some in the sidebar.

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.

HOWEVER, my "SOS Sponsors" have the option of turning OFF the top banner in their profile. This is an advantage to being a sponsor.
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.

So my theory, just make the ads annoying enought that they will donate for an "ad free" option.
I'm thinking of initiating a "popup" ad (once per day) that Sponsors can avoid.

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.

Just my 2 cents/web philosophy.

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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.

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

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.

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

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Hi,

"HOWEVER, my "SOS Sponsors" have the option of turning OFF the top banner in their profile. This is an advantage to being a sponsor."
I rather like this. Would you mind explaining how you did this?

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.

I also have a content site attached to the board (well, actually the other way around ) which is not free. The board is a nice marketing tool for this site, and that one does generate a decent amount of revenue.

Sanuk!

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OK - In a nutshell,

I added a field to the Users table... U_BannerAd with a yes no value.

In the ubbt.inc.php file look for the database query that appears below "function authenticate"

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).

Then.... in the editbasic page, you're going to add an on/off option, which only appears to members of the "supporter" group.

This thread shows you how to structure an "if" statement based on a user's group.

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

Above it I added an if statment something like this:

if ($user['U_BannerAd'] == "yes") {
inclue("banner.php");
}

People that have turned it off, would have a "no" value and the banner script wouldn't be included.

That's it in a nutshell. Hope that puts you on the right track.

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Hi,

Thanks, sounds fairly straight forward. I'll discuss this with my partner.

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)

Sanuk!

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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.

Josh and Jeremy, would you say that PhotoPost was a huge benefit that induces your members to pay for membership?

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?

Thanks all.

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I type Like navaho
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Yeah, feel free.

www.measurection.com
Username: testing
password: testing

be forewarned, it does contain some adult content.... But the testing/testing will dump you into a nice testing forum.

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[]Is there *anyone* out there who is making money or even breaking even on their site using either ad-revenue or subscription models?[/]
I am using a subscription model and it is my full-time job.
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.

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Oh yeah, I better mention that allthough my site is my full-time job I do have to survive on crackers and water.

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Hi,

"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?"
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.

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.

Sanuk!

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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.

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.

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.

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.


[:"blue"]Eric Hill[/]
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Look at our site...

www.ls1tech.com

All of those banners reflect a paying sponsor. In some cases we bartered parts for a banner.

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.

Banners on sites like ours cost anywhere from $25 to 200 a month EACH depending on the site.

Our banners are $125 each per month.

But www.corvetteforum.com charges even more for banners.

We just marketed our site to performance companies in our part of the 'net world.

You can IM me on msn as "[email protected]" or yahoo as "rsmrjohn" if you need any advice.

PSJ
[][email protected][/]

Last edited by ProStockJohn; 05/06/2003 1:36 PM.
mike2468 #243571 05/14/2003 8:13 AM
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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?

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.



Fans Focus - Focusing on Fans of Sport

(Okay - mainly football (the British variety wink at the moment - but expanding all the time....)
Gorlum #243572 05/14/2003 9:31 AM
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[]Ian_W said:
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?

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.

[/]

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?

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.

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.

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.

Gorlum #243573 05/14/2003 9:50 AM
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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.

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.

Daine #243574 05/14/2003 1:11 PM
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[]JoshPet said:

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. [/]

Yes it does happen... the first time I got one I think I crapped my pants

palmen #243575 05/14/2003 2:16 PM
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Sorry I meant optional membership rather than compulsory


Fans Focus - Focusing on Fans of Sport

(Okay - mainly football (the British variety wink at the moment - but expanding all the time....)
Daine #243576 05/16/2003 2:05 AM
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Hi,

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.
We have not finalized payment, but are considering $60/year and $9.99/month auto-renewable.

At the moment we already have a for-pay memberarea, access for this is $34.99/year or $24.99/3-months.

We also have sponsors and advertising banners on the board, which at the moment roughly cover cost. The site is making a modest profit.

Sanuk!

Deyth_Combine #243577 07/29/2003 4:05 PM
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Just to throw in my $.02:

I also run an automotive niche' site (for Toyota Tacoma enthusiasts). I began my "premium" membership program about 9 months ago and it was embraced by almost all users. When designing this new membership structure, I took many cues from Jeremy and ColoradoK5 (thanks, guys) This is what I discovered was the key: think of things that your users will find value in, but won't cost you any extra money. Letting users post images (PhotoPost), an email account, etc. are good examples of this.

So, I created three levels of membership: Regular, Plus, and Premium (kinda like deciding which gas to get at the gas station).

"Regular" users are just anyone who registers on the forum. They can read and post in any forum area and can view images in my PhotoPost system, but cannot post any images. This is the default group in 'Threads.

"Plus" members can do the above, but get 3MB of storage in the photo gallery (PhotoPost)

"Premium" members get the above, but get 5MB of storage in the gallery, their username in "Gold" in the forum (that's #B0B02B in hex, hehe), and an @CustomTacos.com email account (SquirrelMail).

Both Plus and Premium members receive a membership pack with a site logo sticker (free advertising for the site), a membership card, and details on receiving discounts with online vendors whom I have created relationships with.

I'll agree that banner advertising is definitely NOT where it's at right now. But, between the small amount that I DO get in ad revenue, membership upgrades, merchandise sales, and donations, I'm actually profitable this year..and it feels GREAT!!!

I hope this has give some of you guys some ideas on how to at least break even with your sites. If you have any questions, I'd be more than happy to give advice or clarify how I run my site.

Jeff
CustomTacos.com
The Ultimate Resource for Tacoma Enthusiasts

Nashkell #243578 07/29/2003 4:29 PM
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Hey Jeff, great to hear it's working for you! And you just gave me an an awesome idea myself, and that is the membership pack idea. I love it! My users go through stickers like there is no tomorrow, so what a great way to encourage people to take the next step to get the "free" sticker

Nashkell #243579 07/31/2003 1:58 PM
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Glad to hear it's working for ya

bisbell #243580 09/06/2003 11:25 AM
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At what point do you guys think it's reasonable to begin asking for donations? I am still under 500 users but steadily growing and getting 100 to 200 posts a day. I particularly like Jeremy's idea of offering a special donations tag and lettting them choose their own title but I don't want to seem money hungry or appear to obligate anyone.

Also, since I am running an MP3 upload site I can commission a mod to set quota limits on uploads and maybe charge for anything above a certain amount, like some are doing with photos. Just tossing around ideas out loud here

BlarC #243581 09/07/2003 4:24 AM
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Hi,

We are currently in the process of making the necessary changes to start charging for access (and I think this could seriously increase our income ). The way we are doing it is by adding a lot of additional features (PhotoPost, ReviewPost, chatroom, email, etc) and offer people the chance to upgrade.

Those that do not wish to pay will continue to be able to do everything they can do now (with the exception of search, which we will only make available to Premium Users). Those that pay get all the additional features.

Our main reasoning for going this route is that people resent having things taken away. It is also easier to justify charging more if you in return give users much more features.

Sanuk!

Deyth_Combine #243582 09/08/2003 12:08 PM
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I think our approach is the best, we took the old approach of having rotating Java script banners and killed that, and added our list of banners on the side...

IMO if you have a niche you can contact companies in the space and have them advertise their products.

I have seen some of your other sites, mostly to get an idea of how much traffic you have, and I'm sure we are in the top 3 from a revenue standpoint.

I don't like the idea of charging members because that can create resistance for folks to join. In our auto niche, all the sites are free to users so we can't charge anything to folks.

We have almost 15,000 registered users and have about 2000 posts per 24 hr period.

PSJ
www.ls1tech.com

mike2468 #243583 09/09/2003 10:59 AM
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[]IMO if you have a niche you can contact companies in the space and have them advertise their products.[/]
That really depends on the niche, if it's in a "Hot" market niche then yes, if not maybe no really depends on the market.
[]I have seen some of your other sites, mostly to get an idea of how much traffic you have, and I'm sure we are in the top 3 from a revenue standpoint. [/]
Who's the number 3 guy?
[]I don't like the idea of charging members because that can create resistance for folks to join. In our auto niche, all the sites are free to users so we can't charge anything to folks.
[/]
Yes, in your niche I agree, there are way to many free performance car sites out there, I don't think you could get away with it.
It just boils down to "Your" nich and knowing your viewers and potential advertisers, what works great for one site may not work at all for another.
For "Me" I found the best to be a hybrid approach, sell advertising viewable by non-members with limited access but access to the most popular parts of the site, and offer full access and more benefits with an "ad free" experience to supporting Members.
By doing this I can gain revenue from non-members, members and advertisers the benefits to the viewer are the site stays free to them but they also have the option of not having to view tons of advertisments, so I think everyone wins.

But the important thing if you want to make money with a website is offer a great source of info your readers need/want, content is king, and know your viewers. No two sites are the same even in the same niche so webmasters have to do a lot of market research.

mike2468 #243584 09/09/2003 9:23 PM
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Hi,

I agree with Colorado and our plan is a similar approach.
We do have several sponsors on the board (and they pay for our running costs), but finding more advertisers is very difficult.

When we started the banner rotation system, I send out 20 emails to barowners with websites offering them 10,000 free impressions on the board. All they needed to do was send me a banner. Two replied.

While my site does with a niche, many potential advertisers do not wish to be associated with a site which also deals with nightlife / prostitution. And those in the business themselves don't bother advertising since they either don't see the point, can't afford it, or don't need to.

However, since we are a niche site (and arguable our site / board is the best in this niche) we have a strong following - a following that raised $4000 last year for us to buy a faster server! - and we feel strongly that by offering them a host of new features, at a fee, that many will take the offer.

By doing this revenue will come from both advertisers / sponsors and members, allowing for a (hopefully ) greatly increased amount, which in turn means that we can spend more money to improve the experience for all members (better hardware, really nice prices for competitions, etc).

We are also looking into offering discount cards to our members, to be used in bars, restaurants, hotels, etc. This however is still in a very early stage, but could also generate some additional income as well as provide an additional incentive to sign up.

Sanuk!

PS Were you refering to my site when mentioning 'top 3 from a revenue standpoint'? If so, we might be, I have not really looked at many other sites.

Deyth_Combine #243585 09/18/2003 4:09 AM
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I raised funds by selling custom titles for folks below there name... thanks jeremy. and I also held a spring cleaning auction where members donated stuff to auction and proceeds went to support the site. This was huge for us raising 2200 bucks in a month. We also have paid advertisers with small banners at the top of the site.

Its keeping us afloat but would like to move to a subscription base too. Looking forward to justdave and josh addon for subscriptions with paypal.

I will be moving to the subscription system after the release of 6.4

Thanks for all the great work everybody does here. I also really appreciate the sharing of helpful ideas and hacks.

Kelly #243586 09/18/2003 10:30 PM
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Hi,

"Its keeping us afloat but would like to move to a subscription base too. Looking forward to justdave and josh addon for subscriptions with paypal."
You might also want to have a look at aMember. My partner is installing this now, and initial reports look very good.

Sanuk!

Gorlum #243587 09/24/2003 5:20 PM
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I'd just like to chime in on this.
I actually make money from my website. Ammitadely it's not a great deal, but it's enough to pay for the hosting and have some extra building up for future use.
I've done this through a variety of way, specific advertising (example, I run a car website, and one of the banners is to an on-line car insurance quote. I got paid everytime someone gets an online quote.) I also sell stickers, t=shirts etc etc.
With the advertising i've found you've got to advertise exactly what they want to use. I've tried other adverts, such as computer ones, in the past to no avail.
Now i've got more time to spend on my site I'm planning to develop this further.

Luka_dup1 #243588 09/24/2003 5:22 PM
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Wow, great idea regarding the insurance advertisement! We always have people asking about specific insurance providers, rates, etc, since I also run an automotive site. That is a very targeted method of advertising.. I need to go browse through CJ's site and see what they have

palmen #243589 09/24/2003 7:02 PM
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Just to give you some more ideas.
My site has been going for a few years now, and in the UK at least, is building up quite a reputation with businesses/magazines and the Ford community. This in turn has enabled me to sell advertisement space to companies which specialise in parts for cars.
This is still in it's infancy but I have been approached by a few companies wishing to advertise.


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