Tips and Tricks for Optimizing AdSense for Forums

These are 8 most effective tips for achieving better results with AdSense in forums.

1. Placing Ads for New Users - Let them be first time visitors or repeat visitors who will click on a thread for the first time to read the posts inside a thread, placing an Ad unit between first and second post in a thread performs best. You will have to blend the Ad unit well with your color schemes but do not blend it so well that your users will confuse between a post and an Ad. We recommend placing an horizontal Ad unit of size 468×60 and if your forum template is set to auto width, place a bigger and wide skyscrapper Ad Unit. If you don’t want to place a sckysrcapper unit, place a horizontal link unit between first and second post or between first three posts. This works very well with forums which are focused on niche areas and have a lot of keywords in their posts.

2. Placing Ads for Repeat Users - Repeat users are those who keep coming back to follow up on their earlier posts. They will immediately start reading the latest post and also since many forum softwares send a direct link to the page where the last post was made, they will not look at the beginning of the thread anyway. This also holds true when they have started a thread and have been following it for quite long. Placing an Ad unit just before OR after the last post performs best in this case.

3. Using Image ONLY Ad Units - Placing at least one Image ONLY Ad Unit increases the CPM Ads. Sometimes depending on traffic you will see lot of CPM Ads which is good. You may use your primary Ad unit as a text only unit, use a secondary Ad unit as an Image ONLY Ad unit to receive lot of CPM Ads. This works very well for forums with high traffic.

4. Use AdSense for Search - Using ‘AdSense for Search’ on your forum does not always produce high revenue but adds up to your existing revenue and works well with large forums.

5. Monetize 404 and Other Error Pages - For forums with thousands of hits every day, there could be at least 50-60 404 [not found] or other such error messages encountered by visitors. Why not monetize the your 404 and error pages? Place Ad Link units or skyscrapper or any other type of Ad unit on those pages. This one will depend on how you want to handle and design your 404 pages, so experiment and decide the best Ad unit. Don’t just use the default 404 pages, replace them with a better 404 page that will show nice Ads and also offer suggestions with alternate pages.

6. Avoid Ad Blindness - Repeat users who visit your site almost every day develop Ad blindness to your Ads on the forum. Try to take advantage of color scheme rotation, change the Ad placement, size of Ad units on a regular basis. Changing the Ad placement on a monthly basis is advised. For example: for first month, you can place and Ad unit between first and second post. Next month, place it before the first post and after third post. Then in the following month, place it between first and second then between second and third post. Keep changing the places and experiment. Also, don’t forget to change the color scheme with each change.

7. Placing Ads on Left and Right of Post Area - Placing vertical skyscrapper on either left of right side of the posts in the forum is recommended. Blend it well with the existing color scheme of the forum. Try to move it at either side on regular basis. Example: First month, you may place a vertical skyscrapper on left, next month on right. Enable Image ONLY Ad unit, sometimes, to increase the CPM Ads.

8. Ad Link Units Placement - In forums, placing an Ad link unit just before the place where it reads “Previous Thread | Next Thread” works very well. You should blend it very well with the color of the link that reads “Previous Thread | Next Thread” for best performance. Don’t always keep it there, replace it with other Ad units on a regular basis. Disable it for a month and enable it again. Keep experimenting. Work on any Ad rotation strategy you like, to avoid Ad blindness.

[Conclusion]: On forums, users tend to develop Ad blindness pretty sooner than you think. Key to success with AdSense on forums is to keep changing the Ad placement, color schemes, Ad Unit sizes and things should work well.

If you run forums and need any suggestion or advises, please feel free to contact me for a free consultation. My response will be a little slow but I will help you for sure