Forum w/ image ads: Shouldn't I get paid for impressions?

An ECPM of $3, but 10,000 impressions and I get nothing. Why?

[uhwebs]

I was running an ad on my forum with an ECPM of about $3. So I thought that instead of text ads, I might as well try image ads and get paid for the thousands of impressions.
I set it up, and checked on it a few hours later... and with 10,000 impressions, I would have thought that would amount to $30, right? But instead, it's a about 3 cents.

Maybe I don't understand how ECPM and image ads work... I thought you were paid per thousand impressions? Or is it per click?

[icedowl]

Image ads existed for quite a number of months before the advertisers had the ability to target our sites and pay a specific amount per 1,000 impressions of their ad. When they are targeting our sites, they might or might not be using images.

From what I've seen, most of the time the advertisers are not using images when specifically targeting our sites. Site targeted ads are easier to detect when they are of the text variety. They just plain look different, and if they appear in a channel all their own they will display an eCPM value greater than zero even if nobody has clicked on them.

Image ads are mostly paid by the click, but sometimes can be paid per impression when the image ad is site targeted. Just like the text ads. When an image ad appears, its "per click" value must be greater than the total of all text ads that it replaces. Same goes for a site targeted ad (image or text).

[Thez]

Image and CPM ads are only shown if they result in higher overall earnings than with text ads. They also might not have inventory to show, or what I think is the most propable cause is that text links are simply perfoming better. Getting 3$ cpm for image ads is extremely high when served via 3rd party network like G or CasaleMedia, for example.

[hunderdown]

uhwebs, for maximum earnings, you need to allow both image and text ads. If you are only allowing image ads on the mistaken assumption that all image ads are CPM ads, you are shooting yourself in the foot.

Allow both.

[uhwebs]

Thanks, I understand now. I thought if I just did image ads I'd be getting the ecpm it had for the forum...

Anyway, I'm now allowing both, and I did as some people suggested and am only showing ads to non-members and that really helped. My CTR is now above 2%... isn't that good for a forum? If I showed ads to members it would be maybe .5%.

[21_blue]

I did as some people suggested and am only showing ads to non-members and that really helped. My CTR is now above 2%... isn't that good for a forum? If I showed ads to members it would be maybe .5%.

Uhwebs, temper my comments with the knowledge that I don't run a forum, but blocking all ads to members may be losing you money.

Don't be misled by the CTR - having 50 clicks from 10,000 impressions (.5% CTR) is almost always better than having 20 clicks from 1,000 impressions (2% CTR) - because the former will typically have earnings ~250% higher than the latter.

From what I recall, some forum owners have had success by displaying adsense a certain %age of the time (say, 10%), to overcome ad blindness.

[uhwebs]

I've tried showing ads to members too. When I do, my EPC falls dramatically. It's weird. I don't know if smartpricing has anything to do with CTR, but every time I've tried it my EPC sitewide has fallen. I actually make more without putting ads on the forum than I do with ads on the forum.

[Thez]

I'd say 2% ctr for a forum is good. I've tested and couldn't get better than 0,2%, so I replaced with CPM ads from other networks.

[21_blue]

I've tried showing ads to members too. When I do, my EPC falls dramatically.

I can understand why you've dropped showing ads to your members. Though, are you talking about "average" EPC? Or did EPC drop on the pages you were showing to non-members?

I ask because we have some high volume pages that have the potential only to earn buttons (ie very low EPC). We've done some experimentation and found that putting ads on them results in a significant drop in average EPC and eCPM site-wide, but overall earnings increase.

When we track the performance of other pages, most seem unaffected by the inclusion of ads on those high volume pages (apart from a few exceptional circumstances). However, a few pages (eg: the home page) sees an increase in earnings, which we suspect is due to greater competition of ads on those pages.