Advertising income with your forum - Anyone making over $100K per year ?

[D. Thomas]

I'm certainly not, but curious who is and how large your forum is. Touchy subject I suspect, but would be helpful to know what is possible income wise given forum specs per number of unique visitors, etc.

Alternatively, I'd be interested in links to advertising forums where folks might discuss such matters.

Thanks.

[Vtec44]

I wish!

[Shelby]

I don't know anyone making that much. I know folks making about half that much. Mind you that's on a very large site, with paid folks who sell advertising to companies mind you.

[ManagerJosh]

Wow! If I could make that...wow...

Check sitepoint though

[Floris]

For privacy reasons I obviously can't share who, but I am helping as webmaster on two vB powered sites that both make over 300K a year. Note: I do not know if this is incl or excl. server costs, hiring staff, etc. It's not impossible to have your business around your community, and have your traffic result in a lot of money on a daily/monthly basis. To get VC funding and/or get purchased by bigger companies like Google, etc. There are a lot of expansive and growing forums who are 'lucky' to get that big - and then there the success ones who had a business plan and a good idea about their short term and long term plans on how to grow and monetize their traffic.

[peterpigman]

Wow! If I could make that...wow...

Check sitepoint though

If I could break even that would be awesome enough. I guess it is down to content etc. My forum has rather bizzare content and people never click banners or anything and pretty much any form of advertising has made very little. If anything.

[Vtec44]

For privacy reasons I obviously can't share who, but I am helping as webmaster on two vB powered sites that both make over 300K a year.

Hey Floris, can you disclose the total number of members, posts, and users online? If not, no biggie. Thanks!

[Floris]

Hey Floris, can you disclose the total number of members, posts, and users online? If not, no biggie. Thanks!

CO = Threads: 412K, Posts: 12,5M, Members: 45K
ST = Threads: 129K, Posts: 9M, Members: 84K

numbers rounded down

[steven s]

If I could break even that would be awesome enough. I guess it is down to content etc. My forum has rather bizzare content and people never click banners or anything and pretty much any form of advertising has made very little. If anything.

+1
Nothing to do with the OP, but I was making a little money each month.
Now that I had to upgrade my hosting, I'm lucky to break out even. But, hey, I enjoy the community that I helped build.

[Redseal]

For privacy reasons I obviously can't share who, but I am helping as webmaster on two vB powered sites that both make over 300K a year. Note: I do not know if this is incl or excl. server costs, hiring staff, etc. It's not impossible to have your business around your community, and have your traffic result in a lot of money on a daily/monthly basis. To get VC funding and/or get purchased by bigger companies like Google, etc. There are a lot of expansive and growing forums who are 'lucky' to get that big - and then there the success ones who had a business plan and a good idea about their short term and long term plans on how to grow and monetize their traffic.

When you run a large board what kind of work goes into it? Don't they sustain themselves at a certain point? Are you talking upgrades, backups and moderation?

[Vtec44]

CO = Threads: 412K, Posts: 12,5M, Members: 45K
ST = Threads: 129K, Posts: 9M, Members: 84K

numbers rounded down

That's pretty awesome!

[svtsnake01]

My site makes over $100,000, but its tough. Pretty much a fulltime job at this point, both my wife and I work to keep the site up.

[bboy]

Of course you "can" make this kind of money from a vBulletin based site. It's not what forum software you are using but rather what audience/demographic your site caters to and the related market.

Then it's a matter of targeting your audience with relevant ads. You must also attract advertising customers (key point!) in the process. I would imagine that the site that Floris mentions makes the bulk of it's income from private/directly negotiated ads rather than adsense/keyword type ads.

[Floris]

When you run a large board what kind of work goes into it? Don't they sustain themselves at a certain point? Are you talking upgrades, backups and moderation?

That would not be me, but the owners of those boards (usually some sort of company or media company) to answer. I've poked them to this thread, but I doubt they will bother posting. Seeing how busy they are working on their forum as a full time day job. One board actually set up a small office in San Diego last year from where they have a dedicated tech staff member, and an forum and site administrator (from what I heard).

[Mazinger]

I wish I can make $1000!

I had an idea about invising the income of advertisements to advertise & promote my website then get more visitors and increase in income... etc. But still not sure if this would work.