Placement on forums and expected CTR

This is my first post and I hope this is not something that comes up all the time and I just over looked. After searching around I still do not have a good feel for what the normal expected CTR is for a forum.
On my static pages I get 1% and once in a blue blue moon 10%. The norm is ~1.8%. On the forums I get .16 if I am lucky. Usually its about .13%. Is this normal? I have always assumed so. If no what do I have screwed up? Direct link to forums is:
http://forums.volvospeed.com to make it easy for feedback. Thank you!

 

Hi and welcome to dp

I think that most people hover around 3-5% . Although I am far from an expert. Keep looking around - reading and learning here and you will learn loads

Hope it goes well

 

So its option two. I must be a placement retard. Reading up this site being a "live" environment seems to have a lot better info that most of the outdated static sites. So for the "experts" any suggestions on placement?

 

Why don't you tell us where your site is - type it out eg forumdotcom, since you can't add url's yet. I'll have a look and give you a few pointers.

 

I guess the way the filter works I can still see my URL but you cannot. Its forums . volvospeed dot com
I usually get ~100-120k impressions a day

 

WOW! You have a massive forum. I thought you were a noobie - lol

Well, what I do at my forum, and I am not getting anywhere near as much traffic as you, is to place them below the first post. I found this mod you might be interested in - http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=136743&highlight=adsense

In my opinion, the ones that digital point here are too small. If I click on them it's usually only by accident.

Also, having them in the header like you do doesn't really attract my eye to them.

The mod there lets you have a larger ad box for guests, and smaller for members - hopefully encouraging more signups too.

I think the colours that you had were good, you could try playing around with them though to try and get people to notice them. In a forum people get used to seeing them there and don't notice them if the colours are not changed every now and then. Maybe every two weeks is good. Just an idea.

Let me know how it goes

Cindy

 

I'm running invision but what google told me to do was just put a banner in every post via the template. They said that due to the max of 3 banners it would work out so that only my first post had a banner. I really not a fan of banners but I may give it a shot. As for the colors what do you suggest for my skin? I hear some say blend them in and others say do not. I guess its the tastefull elegant vs flashing neon argument.

 

Volvo speed looks a very nice site (here's a live link, to make it easier for people to comment;if you want me to edit it out let me know).
I think that forums are notoriously low for CTR, I know of a few that have a similar rate to you. I think its mainly due to your regular users becoming ad blind.
I noticed that on DP they rotate the colours of the ad boxes to help you notice them, maybe this is worth a try.

 

I don't think I would go for totally opposing colours, but change them around a bit. Since you have blues, use blues, or bring in something else - but nothing like bright reds and hot pinks. It's all trial and error, and then when something works you will need to change it because ppl get used to it...

LOL _ Oh, now that ppl know you have a decent forum they are starting to pay attention... remember - I knew you before you became cool

 

Its too short of time to tell for sure but within 1 hour of changing just the font color the CTR jumped from .13 to .41. Highest its been in 2 years is .31% I always have higher numbers at night though so we will see what happens and the day progresses.

 

Well, that's really great! You don't want it too high anyway, or there will be nobody left talking on your forums.... lol