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pdrg
Support Moderator
United Kingdom
2897 Posts |
 Posted - 06 October 2005 : 10:04:19
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is it worth asking your community how they'd like to see their forum supported - by ads/donation/fee/combination?
You could even have an (unofficial, of course) agreement from users to click through a certain number of ads/month to save/reduce them having to donate ;-) |
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wii
Free ASP Hosts Moderator
Denmark
2632 Posts |
Posted - 06 October 2005 : 10:08:50
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| My problem is that ads are really against my web-religion, I donīt like them, and never have. I would rather force people to pay just 5 or 10 dollars a year to be a member than putting ads on my site, but it may be idea to post a poll about the donation/fee option. |
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Shaggy
Support Moderator
Ireland
6780 Posts |
Posted - 06 October 2005 : 10:15:36
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quote:
Originally posted by wii
My problem is that ads are really against my web-religion, I donīt like them, and never have.
I'm with you on that one, man. Unfortunately, that decision was completely out of my hands with Woo.ie but, after much "spirited debate" a compromise was reached whereby we wouldn't use any affiliate or advertising programmes but rather only carry those ads we wanted to with full control over how they're displayed so they integrate into the site and sit unobtrusively out of the way, not annoying our members. I'd still prefer not to have them, though! 
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 Search is your friend
I was having a mildly paranoid day, mostly due to the
fact that the mad priest lady from over the river had
taken to nailing weasels to my front door again. |
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MarcelG
Retired Support Moderator
Netherlands
2625 Posts |
Posted - 06 October 2005 : 10:54:06
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quote:
Originally posted by wii
My problem is that ads are really against my web-religion, I donīt like them, and never have. I would rather force people to pay just 5 or 10 dollars a year to be a member than putting ads on my site, but it may be idea to post a poll about the donation/fee option.
You could do as I did ; show ads for non-paying members. |
portfolio - linkshrinker - oxle - twitter |
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rasure
Junior Member
289 Posts |
Posted - 06 October 2005 : 11:20:00
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quote:
Originally posted by MarcelG
quote:
Originally posted by wii
My problem is that ads are really against my web-religion, I donīt like them, and never have. I would rather force people to pay just 5 or 10 dollars a year to be a member than putting ads on my site, but it may be idea to post a poll about the donation/fee option.
You could do as I did ; show ads for non-paying members.
that's what I do, standard members have banners between posts.
I personally don't like any kind of ads at all but it all helps.
One thing I never use though is pop ups, big no-no! |
Psychic & Spiritual Development Resources |
Edited by - rasure on 06 October 2005 11:20:21 |
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pdrg
Support Moderator
United Kingdom
2897 Posts |
Posted - 06 October 2005 : 11:30:03
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quote:
Originally posted by MarcelG
quote:
Originally posted by wii
My problem is that ads are really against my web-religion, I donīt like them, and never have. I would rather force people to pay just 5 or 10 dollars a year to be a member than putting ads on my site, but it may be idea to post a poll about the donation/fee option.
You could do as I did ; show ads for non-paying members.
It's horrible to have to rely on ads at all, but that sounds like a good comprimise - donate a dollar a month, or get adverts, then everyone can do as they prefer (but wii, yu'd ahve to donate or you'd get your hated adverts  ) |
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sr_erick
Senior Member
USA
1318 Posts |
Posted - 06 October 2005 : 11:40:30
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wii, I felt the same way about ads. I thought after implementing them that members would leave. That was not the case. My site has grown tremendously over the last couple of years I've had ads. I use a combination of yearly advertising from inquiries from companies as well as Google AdSense. I also do custom ad campaigns for the big companies which usually bring in pretty big totals of $$
In the last year I'd say I've made enough to cover my hosting many times over (although currently using 400+ GB a month of bandwidth for that one site) and my sites advertising capabilities are still rather quite small. It certainly hasn't come close to paying for all the time I've spent developing things but it's "just a hobby" so it's all in good fun. I've gotten a few requests from members to implement a "supporting members" feature and have like a $25 a year fee to get into that bracket. I'm thinking of doing it but I don't know what unique things I could offer that I don't already offer regular members besides things to make their member name stick out better. |
Erick
Snowmobile Fanatics
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taropatch
Average Member
USA
741 Posts |
Posted - 06 October 2005 : 11:44:40
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I've been paying out of my own pocket, but set up some affiliate links. My forum members pretty much only buy from Amazon which helps defray costs.
Someone asked me recently if I offer advertising, but I have been reluctant to do so. First, I dislike having ads and would prefer the site be 100% independent from any person's product or service. On the other hand, I am tempted because I see other sites charging advertising fees and a revenue stream (no matter how small) would be nice. Great idea to ask your forum members. Make it a poll? |
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golfmann
Junior Member
United States
450 Posts |
Posted - 06 October 2005 : 13:34:01
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quote:
Originally posted by rasure
You could add this near the top of the page...
strUsername = Request.Cookies("Snitz00User")("Name")
Then this as a hidden field in your paypal form...
<input type="hidden" name="os0" size="20" value="<%=strUsername%>">
which automatically puts the forum username into paypal, that's what I use on the gold members payment page.
Great tip!
Thank you.
What I've found about using the donate route is it make people feel more a part of the operation and "their" forum, so I'm happy so far.
Now if we were REAL big, I think advertising would be good if you could sell the exposure, but with a hundred members or so... 
PS- sorry for skanking the pageviews with my code  |
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-gary
Development Team Member
406 Posts |
Posted - 06 October 2005 : 13:54:20
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I use member donations, content specific ads from vendors, site sponsorships from vendors, the occasional raffle and yearly the women of the forum put together a calender that I split the profits on. We lucked out this year and had Kawasaki USA (we're a Kawasaki motorcycle forum) trade about $800 worth of products for some advertising. We sold them on eBay and made enough to cover the hosting.
I never liked the idea of ads, but we have been running with a sponsorship/advertising scheme for over a year and it's working ok. We don't allow any commercial posts unless you are a forum sponsor. $75 per year lets them advertise to members by posts and allows links in sigs. We have a $20 per month banner rotation plan that lets them post if they buy 1 year up front. The members don't seem to care and we usually are running some sort of group buy so the vendors are usually quite happy. I tried the google route for a bit and brought in about $200 per month until they decided I was "violating their user agreement" and dropped me with no explanation of why and kept a few hundred of my earnings. Since then, we only allow ads from vendors that sell decent products that relate to the community. We have a clause that if we receive too many complaints about the quality of their service or products, we drop them. I've been testing Yahoo's new adsense competitor on an external site, but their results stink and the clickthroughs are nothing.
Raffles, although illegal in the US for most, have been our biggest windfall. Last year we sold about $3,000 in tickets at $10 each and gave away just over $700 to the winner. |
KawiForums.com
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masterao
Senior Member
Sweden
1678 Posts |
Posted - 06 October 2005 : 17:03:35
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| I pay my site from my own pockets, with a small tickle coming in from Google Ads and Amazon. Some of my members have asked if they can donate, but I have declined because I see my forum as my hobby (which coding is for me, currently) and the cost for it per year isn't that high that I cannot afford it. |
Jan
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FR Portal Forums | Active Users 4.0.20 Mod |
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wii
Free ASP Hosts Moderator
Denmark
2632 Posts |
Posted - 07 October 2005 : 03:01:53
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So far is seems people are willing to pay a small fee a year, but decline in having paying and non-paying forum members.
I will look into alternatives though. |
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pdrg
Support Moderator
United Kingdom
2897 Posts |
Posted - 07 October 2005 : 04:12:41
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-gary, there's an interesting possible sidestep for the legality of your raffles - raffles (certainly in UK) have to benefit a charity, as do lotteries, etc. Your group may be able to register for charitable status as a club, but this may invoke more hassle than it's worth, but you could also consider sponsoring a charity (a real one) by raffling the kit, but arrange for the kit to be bought-and-paid-for-then-raffled with the donor (at regular prices) - the donor would then give your site a donation to the equivelent value, and the charity would gain from the raffle.
Clear as mud, but maybe you can see what I'm trying to say here! |
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Helterskelter
Junior Member
United Kingdom
331 Posts |
Posted - 08 October 2005 : 13:04:16
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For the last 5 years I've been paying about Ģ70 ($150) a year hosting.
I mainly use this for my hobbie site and for me to lurn more about ASP codeing.
I'm now lucky to of been given a chance to run an auction and the profits are being returned back into the hosting the site (if all goes well i may add .Net so more playing  )
This will help to keep my site add free 
I did have google adds, but getting $0.40 a week was takeing for ever. |
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