I have to agree with Alycium, never spend to much on forum advertising. I really do not find forum advertising all that profitable, mainly because of adblocks and what not. That and communitie fluctuate, shutdown, etc. so impressions can easily go down and up at a higher rate.
I have done this before, and it generally has brought me visitors. At the moment, I am testing an affiliate for hosting, with a business group, to see if I can get returns from the paid advertising.
I've done some small things but never really seen a benefit. I know that it is likely because I didn't work it very well - budget too low, targeting wrong sites and not having a nice enough image. It is something I will have to try again at some point soon as see if my success improves.
I remember hearing about someone who did this on Gaia Online with an ad that basically said 'Hate Gaia Online? Check out awesome forum today!'. It did pretty well for them, in the sense that they got hit hard enough by the traffic that their server nearly fell over.
Would I advertise on another site? Nah, not really. Most of the sites I care about already link out to one of my sites or another, and those that remain would likely charge a fortune for advertising (read, IGN or Gamespot or the likes).
I have used forum advertisements but not through any advertisement networks. I have contacted admins directly for ad placements. They helped me to drive a considerable amount of traffic to my website.
I think RH-Calvin is right!!!!!!!! Most of the users directly contacted fro ad placements because they help us to drive considerable amount of visits to web pages.
I think that if there's a way to track where visitors are coming from then it might be worth a go. If you are seeing active members joining because of the adverts then I would say it's absolutely worth it. However, if there really isn't a performance improvement then I would say pull the plug.
I'm going to invest a bit in advertising at different forums when we launch Ecclesia. I'm going to track down which sites we actually gain visitors from as well, and have a "How did you find Ecclesia"-thread to see if anyone actually signed up with help from the different ads. I'll post in here then with the results!
I've never spent money to advertise on another forum. Considered it, but haven't yet. It's a good concept especially if it is on a forum that's around the same niche as yours!
I've never really tried it because I'd much rather go through free methods of advertising. A downside would not be gaining as much traffic as you expected, it either works out or it doesn't. They're not really that cheap, but it depends I guess.
I've never purchased any advertisements from other forums before because all my sites grow strictly from word of mouth, google and from forum signatures. I would spend money on ads if I was rich.
