Full Service Ad Management for Forums?

[LostAddmin]

Hey all, as everybody else has come to realize, Adsense sucks these days. Is anybody using a full service agency with their forums?

I reached out to Mediavine and MonetizeMore and was told by both that I they will not work on forums because it's "user generated content"

 

[bar22]

AdSense is a good tool if you're starting out but if you have a bigger site its worth upgrading. How many page views pm do you have?

 

[dvsDave]

Hey all, as everybody else has come to realize, Adsense sucks these days. Is anybody using a full service agency with their forums?

I reached out to Mediavine and MonetizeMore and was told by both that I they will not work on forums because it's "user generated content"

What's your Pageviews per month average for the last year? There are a lot of players out there, but they want a minimum of x # of pageviews per month. A number of them set it at 100k per month.

 

[bar22]

Agree with Dave. MediaVine and Ezoic will take smaller pubs around 100k pv pm. Bigger providers like Snigel require around 1M. I think Nitropay is somewhere in the middle

 

[dvsDave]

Agree with Dave. MediaVine and Ezoic will take smaller pubs around 100k pv pm. Bigger providers like Snigel require around 1M. I think Nitropay is somewhere in the middle

I use AdThrive and I'm averaging around 120k page views per month and I swing between $350-$800 per month (later in the year is excellent, early in the year is bad, and the pandemic made a mess of everything) but it was a HUGE difference in revenue.

 

[LostAddmin]

Agree with Dave. MediaVine and Ezoic will take smaller pubs around 100k pv pm. Bigger providers like Snigel require around 1M. I think Nitropay is somewhere in the middle

I use AdThrive and I'm averaging around 120k page views per month and I swing between $350-$800 per month (later in the year is excellent, early in the year is bad, and the pandemic made a mess of everything) but it was a HUGE difference in revenue.

Thanks for the replies, MediaVine, Ezoic and AdThrive all allow forums? Whats the negative for Ad agiences when it comes to blogs vs forums?


As for the stats, this is GA for this month:

 

[woody]

I ran MonetizeMore on my forum for a couple years. Meh.

I've been with AdThrive for about 18 months. 2021 AT revenues are targeting 30% higher than 2020, which was my 2nd highest gross revenue year. Daily average in 2021 (worse month) was $500+/day. AT see's around 60k pageviews daily.

IMO, if you can get into AT, do it. I run them for guest users only, logged in still see my own ad stack.

 

[bar22]

We got a 50% increase from Snigel. Their team has been great. Our traffic is mainly US which is good with their tech. Most traffic for our site goes to the blog but I believe they work with several pure forum sites - ozgrid.com, mrexcel.com (Bill there seems to rate them). It also depends on what you're open to. Native video can bring a lot of revenue but might not fit with your vision for the site. With 1:54 avg time on page you should be able to get good value from an ad refresh. Whoever you go with don't just send over all your ad units to them. AdSense sometimes outperforms these companies in higher placements or units with a high CTR so it's best to test placements one at a time before deciding which tech to run there. Also these companies use header bidding which adds latency to the ad load time. Shouldn't effect your core web vitals but you might notice the ads loading a bit slower - something to bear in mind for user experience

 

[LostAddmin]

I ran MonetizeMore on my forum for a couple years. Meh.

I've been with AdThrive for about 18 months. 2021 AT revenues are targeting 30% higher than 2020, which was my 2nd highest gross revenue year. Daily average in 2021 (worse month) was $500+/day. AT see's around 60k pageviews daily.

IMO, if you can get into AT, do it. I run them for guest users only, logged in still see my own ad stack.

Thanks Woody, you're saying that AT is 30% higher than Adsense or you're just having a better year with AT? That $500ish a day is just with AT at 60k pageviews?

We got a 50% increase from Snigel. Their team has been great. Our traffic is mainly US which is good with their tech. Most traffic for our site goes to the blog but I believe they work with several pure forum sites - ozgrid.com, mrexcel.com (Bill there seems to rate them). It also depends on what you're open to. Native video can bring a lot of revenue but might not fit with your vision for the site. With 1:54 avg time on page you should be able to get good value from an ad refresh. Whoever you go with don't just send over all your ad units to them. AdSense sometimes outperforms these companies in higher placements or units with a high CTR so it's best to test placements one at a time before deciding which tech to run there.

Good advice.

Sounds like you guys have spent a bunch of time and trial/error trying to figure out what combo of ad service to run and for what type of user. Any rhyme or reason to what you chose? Did you hire somebody to start selling your own ad stacks? How'd you go about that?

 

[bar22]

Yeah, a lot of trial and error we previously used another provider who was not good. We tried to sell direct a bit but couldn't find a way to make it work. Maybe we needed to be smarter about that Snigel gives us a few PMP deals but doesn't make a big impact overall. Also, we were afraid to go more aggressive on the ads because we thought it might harm user experience and our SERP rank. In the end, we haven't noticed a difference after adding header bidding and native video. We interviewed and tested few partners. In the end, went with the one that offered flexibility - no lockins, we could use our own AdSense/header bidding, A/B test other partners, change the ad setup as we please - and strong results

 

[woody]

Thanks Woody, you're saying that AT is 30% higher than Adsense or you're just having a better year with AT? That $500ish a day is just with AT at 60k pageviews?

I have my own AdExchange account, and was a beta tester when it was released. Technology changes so fast that I finally gave up managing my own ad stack/prebid and went with MonetizeMore. AdThrive did FAR better than MM in their first year, and year two with AT is up 30% over year 1.

And yes, $500/day is a daily average with just AT and 60k pageviews....for January 2021. My best single day AT is double that My total ad stack includes AT (guests), Amazon APS and Google AdExchange/AdSense (for logged-in users), in-image, affiliate, etc....plus about 80 direct accounts served via GAM.

AT is on the advisory group for the "death of the cookie" that has been discussed recently....and is also an advisory for Prebid.org. Both of those put them in a great position to influence and guide the future of network advertising.

 

[LostAddmin]

Thanks for the input. I applied for AT and look forward to testing that.

 

[LostAddmin]

No love from AT, we'll try hitting up Snigel

 

[MrTop5]

I'm currently running a forum that gets around 130k page views a day, however I'm getting pennies with Adsense. I'm pretty sure it's largely due to the site's content. My site is similar to Reddit where it's a forum with many sub-forums about various topics. While there's music and sports sub-forums, there's also sections of dudes posting adult pics of IG girls and swear words being used throughout the site.

I say all that to say, what would be the best route to take with trying to monetize a site like this? I know Twitter and Reddit probably works directly with companies for advertising, so this allows them to let their users post without being censored. There has to be a way for the site the size I have to make money.

 

[bar22]

It would be ideal if you could clean up your content. Adult pics and swear words are going to be red flags for advertisers. If this makes up a large portion of your content it will be difficult to get your site approved for header bidding or direct campaigns. fanfiction.net turfed out their bad content a while back - they caught hell at the time - but now they're doing well. You could try to get an assessment from the companies mentioned above - they'll tell you where you stand

 

[MrTop5]

I'll give it a try, thank you. Honestly I don't want to ruin the "integrity" of the site and start censoring the users. I'm probably shooting myself in the foot with that decision. I'll just have to keep growing the site until we're able to start working with companies directly. We're projected to have nearly a quarter million members sometime next year. There has to be a way.

 

[LostAddmin]

You could try to get an assessment from the companies mentioned above - they'll tell you where you stand

I wish that was the case. Everybody has given me their version of what AT just gave me:

We wish we could give more details on why the site was declined but they’re purposely ambiguous about their decision-making in order to keep their processes unknown.

I've never once got a reason why. I did in with Snigel as Woody suggested. They got my account is all set up, kickoff meeting with them on Monday. Really looking forward to see wha they can do.

 

[Joeychgo]

I wish that was the case. Everybody has given me their version of what AT just gave me:


I've never once got a reason why. I did in with Snigel as Woody suggested. They got my account is all set up, kickoff meeting with them on Monday. Really looking forward to see wha they can do.

I got the same from AT

 

[bar22]

It usually comes down to:
1) Traffic level - 1M-2M pageviews is around the minimum for these companies
2) Content - original content that doesn't violate big G's Ts & Cs (copyright issues/porn/swearing/spam/ai generated content)
3) Geos - +-15% tier 1geos is around the min
4) Other - no bot traffic, no history of policy violations with big G, no other dodgy stuff
If you've got these in place you prob won't have any issues. Having a live AdSense account in good standing that earns $50+ per day is also good

 

[LostAddmin]

It usually comes down to:
1) Traffic level - 1M-2M pageviews is around the minimum for these companies
2) Content - original content that doesn't violate big G's Ts & Cs (copyright issues/porn/swearing/spam/ai generated content)
3) Geos - +-15% tier 1geos is around the min
4) Other - no bot traffic, no history of policy violations with big G, no other dodgy stuff
If you've got these in place you prob won't have any issues. Having a live AdSense account in good standing that earns $50+ per day is also good

Got all that. My nearly 1.3M pagviews may generate $25 on a really good day.