Sticky your ad on Forum Promotion
- Thread starter Fergal
- Start date
Hmm, seems a bit expensive if you ask me. It is a similar value as winning FOTM and several of the last few winners did not increase in activity after this. I can only imagine this service giving less value than FOTM, personally. Still, the update is fine with me as I do not intend on ordering it.
Thanks for the feedback Cosmic. I believe that it is excellent value, given the quantity and quality of traffic we receive here on Forum Promotion. For example one sale from an affiliate link included in one of these sponsored topics, could easily cover the cost of the sponsorship and make it profitable for the sponsor.
Hmm.
Well, the current FOTM winner thread has this many views: 193
Looking at the other threads on page one of the same forum it's in, I see these higher values:
329
482
573
427
210
225
231
414
410
353
That's 10 higher numbers. There are 36 normal unstickied threads on this page. I will now calculate average clicks per day.
The admin community thread was posted on February 15. This was about a month ago. 31 days, if I am right. Here is the math:
193 / 31 = 6 views/day
I will calculate another average, picked randomly from the 10 higher values:
329 / 35 = 9 views/day
So is it possible that these stickies get less traffic than some other threads? This is conceivable. the factors I see are:
- Quality. The FOTM forum may be less popular than the example. As it won FOTM, this isn't too likely.
- Unstickied but commonly used threads get more attention. People are used to the same old stickies so they just read the threads which have gotten posts recently. They may skip the sticky by.
I think it is the second one. the amount of attention stickies get is quite questionable, especially when they are just ads. Also, though FP gets a lot of traffic, do individual threads get a very large share?
Well, the current FOTM winner thread has this many views: 193
Looking at the other threads on page one of the same forum it's in, I see these higher values:
329
482
573
427
210
225
231
414
410
353
That's 10 higher numbers. There are 36 normal unstickied threads on this page. I will now calculate average clicks per day.
The admin community thread was posted on February 15. This was about a month ago. 31 days, if I am right. Here is the math:
193 / 31 = 6 views/day
I will calculate another average, picked randomly from the 10 higher values:
329 / 35 = 9 views/day
So is it possible that these stickies get less traffic than some other threads? This is conceivable. the factors I see are:
- Quality. The FOTM forum may be less popular than the example. As it won FOTM, this isn't too likely.
- Unstickied but commonly used threads get more attention. People are used to the same old stickies so they just read the threads which have gotten posts recently. They may skip the sticky by.
I think it is the second one. the amount of attention stickies get is quite questionable, especially when they are just ads. Also, though FP gets a lot of traffic, do individual threads get a very large share?
I'd actually be far more interested in knowing the price of a banner at the top of a forum, as it would attract many more clicks and views than a topic being stickied.
I won't be ordering this, however as I said, if it were a banner I may be interested.
I won't be ordering this, however as I said, if it were a banner I may be interested.
Cosmic, the topic in Basic Promotion, promoting this sponsorship offer has already had 54 views, in 44 minutes. Obviously it has the advantage of being a Global Announcement, however it is a good indication of what can be achieved, by giving your topic some extra exposure.
Thanks Leo & Raymond, we will be announcing more advertising options in the near future.
Thanks Leo & Raymond, we will be announcing more advertising options in the near future.
That's a slightly different case. People click on global announcements, but new stickies may not get the same attention. People train themselves to avoid ads, after all. This is not an ad, but an interesting new service which people want information on. I, personally, think this service should be offered in beta form for FP cash, so no one wastes their $$$ on something that has not yet been tested. A real price can be added after the service has proven itself worthy.
Cosmic said:
There are lots of ways for our members to promote their links using FP cash, this sponsorship opportunity is aimed at earning some real cash for Forum Promotion. The starting cost is only $5 and I hope and believe that some of our members will be happy to sponsor Forum Promotion by purchasing a slot. Time will tell.
ForumPromotion has always been a non profit forum as I understand it. Do you intend on steering the forum in a direction which will have it earn a profit, or is this solely to make up for existing costs such as hosting?
CyberFreak
Legendary Typer
The aim is to fully cover running costs (donations we have received since Fergal have taken over are just into double figures) and also will allow us to offer more to the users. We have plans but they will require funding and baring mind Fergal is paying to keep this site running out of his own pocket, it is just a way to generate a bit of income to allow us to move forward.
The current expenses are a few dollars a month, if I'm correct. Your hawkhost plan costs 5 dollars or less and the domain is 10 dollars a year, on average. I can only assume that you have fairly ambitious plans which would require funding, as a single purchase of this sticky service would pay for both hosting and the domain, assuming it was constant. I really can't see this service being a boom, though, as I am yet to see any reason to believe that this will draw very much traffic to the owner of the promoted site. Statistics from FOTM lead me to believe that the impact, if any, from winning the competition is not as good a value as many other competing services. An example would be 8 dollars a year for sticky advertisements on Futurama Fan Forum. I would hope that the benefits brought by an increase in revenue for FP would be good, though I don't know that this service will bring in all that much.Fowler said:
The forum banner ad has about 1 banner so far, and I assume the rates are similar to this service. I think you should just promote the currently existing service much more, as it seems to be inquire-only at the moment. Also paid ads similar to the staff affiliate links would produce a much greater turnout to any possible clients. This sticky service seems, to me, like a one sided profit-oriented service which favors this forum much more than the requester. Sure, people can request this service, I don't mind, but I think that they are, in a way, being scammed (not intentionally, but they are not getting a very good value at all, considering similar advertisement services and my projected views per day).
In conclusion, I hope that you find a good use for the possible profits form this service, but if you intend on earning more then I would recommend a much more beneficial service. Could you move the advertisement offered by this service to a more visible location, perhaps? This would improve the value for users and the revenue for this site (by increasing the number of requests). One thing I will add is that the price is fairly reasonable from the perspective of some of us, but about 70% of this forum's userbase seems to be broke, or more. This service may work in a forum like BAF, but here, this forum does not really have the user base required.
Just a note; $5/w is a bit much for my personal taste. As I said before, i'm not really interested in using it for a few reasons (would prefer a banner somewhere, and look forward to seeing what you guys can do in the future). However, i'd be willing to try the service if it was more around the $3 a week service, offering a 1 month deal for $10 or so. That way I could try the service without losing too much money on it if it doesn't work out.
Just a suggestion is all 🙂
Just a suggestion is all 🙂
Lee Lawson
Seasoned Veteran
I'm with Leo, as I doubt you will get much people to do this for the price but somehow it can be good in a way as the higher the price the better the forum won't get flooded with stickies which are most likely to become annoying.
CyberFreak
Legendary Typer
We are not looking to sell excessive amounts because as pointed out on the previous page, currently our hosting is not that expensive and combined with the cost of the domain, Fergal doesn't need to sell many to cover the costs and start to put some further plans in motion.
While a sticky topic is the promotion sections may not be all that worthwhile to some people, sticky topics in the Managing Your Forum section could be very effective. If you have a host or a promotion site then that would be a very good place to have a sticky. At the end of the day, that forum has many topics about hosting and hosts in general while also that section attracts many forum owners and it is a section where you can't normally advertise. Your topic will stand out quite nicely in there depending on the genre of your site.
While a sticky topic is the promotion sections may not be all that worthwhile to some people, sticky topics in the Managing Your Forum section could be very effective. If you have a host or a promotion site then that would be a very good place to have a sticky. At the end of the day, that forum has many topics about hosting and hosts in general while also that section attracts many forum owners and it is a section where you can't normally advertise. Your topic will stand out quite nicely in there depending on the genre of your site.
The "List of Free/Paid hosts" sticky in Managing Your Forum receives about 6 clicks per day. This, on average, is very similar to a well off normal promotion topic. Here is the calculation:
1,090 views / 189 days = 5.78 views/day
Averaging the views/day of several other stickies in this forum, here is what I get:
Post your picture: 8 views/day
List of Advertising/promotion forums: 7 views/day
A lot of Directories: 2.2 views/day
Topsite List: 3.2
These stickies are mainly lists, as they have a similar user base as an advertisement. I threw in one from intellectual discussion as a sample, as well. As you can see, relatively low hits/day compared to the average basic promotion topic. Though it is more relevant, it seems like the three lists cited get less than 10 clicks per day. Most of which will not result in any luck from the advertiser. It costs 71 cents for those 7 at most hits. That equates to 10 cents per click, if you take the highest value. For 2 views/day the average for several stickies, it would cost 35 cents per click. It really depends on the amount of views per day, which varies per forum. Still, the amount of people who visit your link will be much less than that.
This is a fine service, but it is a bit too expensive if you ask me. A random topic in the basic promotion section (not cited until now) gets 7 clicks per day. This upgrade will yeild about the same clicks per day, I estimate, so thus will not give a very great value.
1,090 views / 189 days = 5.78 views/day
Averaging the views/day of several other stickies in this forum, here is what I get:
Post your picture: 8 views/day
List of Advertising/promotion forums: 7 views/day
A lot of Directories: 2.2 views/day
Topsite List: 3.2
These stickies are mainly lists, as they have a similar user base as an advertisement. I threw in one from intellectual discussion as a sample, as well. As you can see, relatively low hits/day compared to the average basic promotion topic. Though it is more relevant, it seems like the three lists cited get less than 10 clicks per day. Most of which will not result in any luck from the advertiser. It costs 71 cents for those 7 at most hits. That equates to 10 cents per click, if you take the highest value. For 2 views/day the average for several stickies, it would cost 35 cents per click. It really depends on the amount of views per day, which varies per forum. Still, the amount of people who visit your link will be much less than that.
This is a fine service, but it is a bit too expensive if you ask me. A random topic in the basic promotion section (not cited until now) gets 7 clicks per day. This upgrade will yeild about the same clicks per day, I estimate, so thus will not give a very great value.
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