Forum revenue expectations

How much less do you earn on a forum page view vs. normal?

[javahava]

Am thinking about starting a forum, but am hoping to get a ballpark estimate of what the return might be relative to normal earnings. I've read that forums make less than normal pages on a site (e.g., articles), but how much less? Is your forum ecpm typically 50%/25%/less of your normal ecpm?

[zomega42]

I had adsense on a forum for a short time and got about 10% of normal ecpm so I took it off. But it all depends on what kind of visitors you have -- my forum visitors are basically all members, I assume if you get search traffic on your forum then adsense would do much better. Members click approximately never.

[eeek]

The biggest problem with AdSense of forums is that you're getting the same people most of the time. So if the ads don't change much, you won't get many clicks.