I have $100 to blow. What should I invest it in to gain popularity on my forum? I'm going to invest some in some forum designs to make it look more appealing. But what should I invest it to advertise?
A custom style (if that is what you mean by forum designs) will eat up most if not all of that depending on who you get to make it. In terms of advertising i think best results come from paid advertising on active sites. If you take a look in the marketplace there is usually alot of people selling some nice cheap advertising in there so that would be worth a look. Advertising on related sites would be best.
If not, I'd go with free software, buy a .com, and hopefully find maybe a custom designer who could do a design for you for maybe $50. Save the rest for something else.
Sorry, I didn't explain myself clearly. For designs I meant a banner, some buttons etc. I'm going to modify the default vB4 skin myself for the most part. I'll still have a minimum of 75$ after that.
All licenses, domains and hosting is already covered I'm only looking for ways to advertise with the money.
Alright then. So you already got a vBulletin 4 license? If so, maybe you should consider looking for a used vBSEO license then. That is a very useful tool for vBulletin owners.
Other than that, it's best if you keep your $100 when it comes to advertising. You can easily get good advertising on here and other similar forums like The Admin Zone, Admin Community, etc. AdWords doesn't seem to work well for a small forum. It's best if the money is spent otherwise.