vBulletin Ad Integration Case Study

September 23, 2007 Posted by Tyler Cruz

I’m already conducting an ongoing case study on vBSEO and am now going to start a new vBulletin plugin case study.

The plugin in question is called Google AdSense Postbit Integration and  was released only a few weeks ago. It is a very simple installation taking only a couple minutes tops.

The plugin displays your AdSense banner, or anything else you wish to display, inbetween posts in the threaddisplay.php template. You can choose how often the banner will display (after every x posts), as well as modify some other basic options.

I’ve installed the plugin on three of the larger forums to conduct this case study, although the study won’t be the most accurate since I don’t get a whole of traffic from them. However, the results should still be useful.

The plugin itself is great. As stated above, it’s very simple but works like a charm. I currently have my ads displaying below the first post of each thread. The plugin also displays the ads if the thread spans across multiple pages. For example, if I have a thread spanned across 8 pages, the ad will still be displayed on the 5th page of the thread, below the second post on that page.

Below is a screenshot of how the integrated AdSense looks on MovieForums.org:

As you can see it integrates very nicely. My prediction is that the CTR of this “inline ad” as I call it, will be much higher than the top sidewide banners. Well, I mean that’s rather obvious. The real question is, just how much more effective will it be? It needs to be a fair amount more effective to compensate for the more intrusiveness the position is.

MovieForums.org has been growing nicely the past few months, but the traffic is still nothing to brag about at only around 300 uniques a day. However, I’d like to start monetizing my “side sites” a bit more because, well… I like money.

If one of my forums grows huge, I plan on offering paid memberships for extra features such as ad removal and custom perks, and I think that will provide a great, if not the largest, source of revenue from the forum, but I can’t introduce paid memberships until a forum is real big… like an average of 50+ users online at once.

So until then I’m experimenting with better integrated ads.

Apart from MovieForums.org, I’m also running this test case on MMAForums.net and PokerForums.org. On MMAForums I’m running another 728×90 leaderboard, but on PokerForums.org I’m selling it privately.

I made the slot available yesterday and sent out an e-mail to all my advertiser saying it was available. Later that day I already sold it. I’m charging $500 a month for a 468×60 and $700 for a 728×90. The advertiser bought the former simply because he didn’t have a leaderboard banner 😛

So you could say that I already made $500 from this test case, but he’s only running it for a month to see how effective it is, and I hadn’t heard back from any other advertisers for it yet so don’t get too excited 😉

If it does perform well though and I get a lot of demand for it, then that’s an extra $500-700 of residual monthly income for me. I hope it performs well not just for my sake but for the advertiser, as the advertiser who bought it is a very long-time and loyal advertiser so I want him to do well.

I’ll post an update to this case study in a month. I’m tracking AdSense in separate ad channels so I’ll be able to tell you exactly how the inline ads perform compared to my old ones. I’ll also let you know if the inline ad on PokerForums.org gets sold again.

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Posted: September 23rd, 2007 under My Websites  

13 Responses to “vBulletin Ad Integration Case Study”

  1. directandy says:

    I think it will be the most effective to your core group of users who see this site almost daily. But in all honesty we as internet users and especially the experienced ones have learned to block out most ads from our view. Sure they are right in front of our face, but they just dont register with our brains anymore as something useful.

    Hopefully I am wrong but that is my thoughts on it.

    Goodluck 🙂

  2. I’ve tried this sort of integration before. Result = Adsense simply doesn’t work in forums.

  3. Aaron says:

    I’ve heard quite a lot about Adsense being bad for forums. It will be good to see if this is true or not.

    • I would like to see as well. I always thought that most Adsense clicks were from people getting to your site from Search Engines. That is why if I have Adsense on a site, I like to put it on top so the user sees it when they first visit the site.

      I am still curious as to how it will work as I may be getting into the forum business soon.

  4. I like when people do case study’s. Helps show what works and what doesnt.

  5. good case study let us know if the advertiser stays

  6. […] On September 23rd, I started my vBulletin Ad Integration Case Study. […]

  7. Sertvfdnhgjk says:

    Приветствую всех!
    У меня такой вопрос,кто что интересное подскажет буду признателен.
    Мы с друзьями собираемся поехать в круиз по просторам России и ближнего зарубежья месяца на два на своих машинах,но не как не можем согласовать маршрут,если у кого уже был опыт такого путешествия,может,что посоветуете.Девчонок с собой не берем,думаем,что во все городах России с этим не будет проблем,если у кого будут рекомендации и в вопросе отдыха с девушками тоже буду признателен.

    С уважением Сеньчик

  8. admin_papa says:

    Good Day

    Just wanted to share my new experience.

    If your Windows XP fails to run due to an error corresponding to lost HAL.DLL, invalid Boot.ini or any other critical system boot files you can fix this by using the XP installation CD. Simply boot from your XP Setup CD and enter the Recovery Console. Then run “attrib -H -R -S” on the C:\Boot.ini file and remove it. Launch “Bootcfg /Rebuild” and then Fixboot

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  9. sabrina says:

    I’ve just joined this site and it looks great.

  10. KellyLamb says:

    I watched The Book of Eli at t b o e . i n f o and it was pretty good quality. but I had to do a survey first. after that it worked though, so whatever.

PeerFly

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