The 7 Best Ad Networks for Forum or Community Sites

Last Updated: February 26, 2024
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For the vast realm of online forums and online communities, publishers have a major role to play in creating and nurturing engagement and connections. Ad networks are the intermediaries that buy and sell ad inventories from publishers to advertisers. 

This article serves as a comprehensive guide for publishers, uncovering the seven best ad networks tailored for forum or community sites. Explore key features, benefits, and strategies to enhance revenue while maintaining a positive user experience.

Summary
  • The 7 Best Ad Networks for Forum or Community Sites
    • Why Do Forum or Community Sites Need Ad Networks?
    • 7 Best Ad Networks for Forum or Community Sites
    • 1. AdSense
    • 2. Setupad
    • 3. Monetizemore
    • 4. Taboola
    • 5. Vdo.ai
    • 6. Infolinks
    • 7. Maxvalue Media
    • How to Choose the Best Ad Networks for Forum or Community sites?
    • The Bottomline

Why Do Forums or Community Sites Need Ad Networks?


All forums and community sites need to get user-generated content, active participation and constant effort. For such objectives, you have to rely on ad networks that have various advantages like:

  • Provides a reliable avenue for forum and community site publishers to monetize their platforms, turning active engagement into revenue.
  • Integrates into the forum environment, complementing the user experience without being intrusive.
  • Offers a variety of ad formats, allowing publishers to experiment with different styles and find the most effective approach for their audience.
  • Provides support and resources to help publishers navigate the world of online advertising, fostering a collaborative relationship.

7 Best Ad Networks for Forum or Community Sites


Here is a list of the best ad networks for forum or community sites. Please take a sneak-peak. 

1. AdSense


Google AdSense is one of the best bets for niche blogs and websites. More than 2 million people rely on AdSense and use it to earn money from their sites. It offers one of the CPC rates there is and is a go-to network for all publishers. However, getting accepted by the platform is tricky because  you have to have a good layout, high traffic and premium content. Their ads have been optimized according to the device and you save time as you just have to add a piece of code and Google automatically shows ads that are relevant to your sites.  

Key Information: 

  • Screens ads to make sure that they are of high quality and relevant to the publisher’s site’s content and audience 
  • Allows you to be in control and block ad you do not like
  • High CPC cares for websites, especially with niche traffic. 
  • Offers multiple ad formats with AI-driven optimization to increase page clicks.
  • Allows you to track performance using detailed ad analytics and reporting that can measure performance.  
  • Offers 100% fill rates for any geography due to a huge base of advertisers. 

2. Setupad


The monetization platform and ad network for publishers, Setupad helps realise the complete earning potential of your forums and communities. They offer various products, options and tools to publishers to help increase the revenue. It is a Google Certified Publishing Partner (GCPP), an official member of Prebid, and a registered member of the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG).

Key Information:

  • Helps maximise your CPM through Setupad's intelligent ad refresh algorithm, which refreshes viewable ads based on user behaviour.
  • Safeguards against malicious ads and ensures premium ad quality across your site using the real-time blocking software
  • Offers various ad formats include in-view ads, sticky ads, instream video ads, lazy loaded ads, interstitial ads, static banner ads and rewarded ads.

3. MonetizeMore


Monetizemore can help forums and communities to enhance your revenue by 50-300%. This award-winning ad network uses automated tech and custom solutions to increase your programmatic ad revenue. They also help you get the highest bid for your inventory without any disruptions to the user experience to make sure that you earn the most. Their various ad units deliver engaging viewing experiences for both mobile and web streamers, to help publishers extract the highest possible value from their content and advertising inventory. 

Key Information:

  • This Google Certified Publishing Partner is preferred by publishers across industries and platforms.
  • Helps reduce revenue clawbacks caused by invalid traffic and prevents your ad accounts from being banned by ad networks using the traffic cop feature
  • Scales your bids to billions of requests per day.
  • Helps identify the pages that are driving the most revenue to your site, allowing you to make data-driven decisions on new content.

4. Taboola


Taboola is used by over 9,000 digital properties for various objects like acquisition of new audience, increase in engagement and to drive more revenue. The platform attracts visitors who may be browsing to discover like-minded content, which is a boon for communities and forum publishers.  By providing a content marketing solution linking content providers with publishers through web-based widgets named "Content You May Like," "Recommended for You," and "You May Also Like," these widgets include images and connections to relevant content (video, image-based slideshows, or articles) that are placed on websites by content creators. 

Key Features: 

  • Provides what is relevant, interesting and new to your audience, resulting in new engagement and monetisation opportunities.
  • Offers the scrolling news feed experience on various networks 
  • Helps enhance content via actionable data insights, A/B testing and more via Taboola Newsroom
  • Helps exchange traffic to drive quality traffic

5. Vdo.AI


Forums and communities get end-to-end full-stack monetization solutions across all devices through video advertising solutions by VDO.AI. .With the help of VDO.AI, publishers can leverage top-performing ad types across screens and channels to engage users and drive extraordinary revenue. VDO.AI’s proprietary bidding engine intelligently decides the best-suited and brand-safe bid for the publisher. VDO.AI connects all the buyers to process the bids (via VDO.AI’s Bidding Engine) and offers content-related features like CMS, contextual video serving, streaming, etc to drive engagement.

Key Information:

  • Offers ad monetization through accelerated user engagement.
  • Offers an exceptionally lightweight and customizable, unlike other video players that often cause load delays.
  • Adapts to real-time market situations, engaging users effectively, to maximizing revenue for publishers.
  • Creates auction pressure and drives CPMs via the bidding engine.

6. Infolinks


Infolinks powers one of the largest publisher marketplaces in the world and offers innovative ad solutions to publishers while maintaining the look and feel of the website. The network is focused on contextually relevant ads. Infolinks makes sure that you combat banner blindness and maintain superior ad performance. Its algorithm matches advertisers with the right audience while also maintaining profit for publishers.

Key Features:

  • Finds advertisers using website niche and ensures the security of users' data.
  • Offers various innovative and engaging ad formats to deliver ads 

7. Maxvalue Media


MaxValue Media offers a diverse range of online advertising formats that seamlessly aligns and integrates with your website's content for optimal compatibility. MaxValue guarantees a minimum 25% revenue increase post the initial 3 weeks of implementation.  Its real-time Header Bidding tech employs data science and machine learning to ensure the highest bids for your inventory, through a comprehensive set of premium DSPs.

Key Information:

  • Employs data science and machine learning to ensure the highest bids from leading DSPs, to catapult publisher revenue.
  • Offers a user-friendly dashboard with comprehensive stats and analytics to make performance tracking easy.
  •  Offers simple deployment as their ads.txt file and JS code are easy to embed into your site

How to Choose the Best Ad Networks for Forums and Community Sites?


It is important to choose the correct ad network that aligns with your needs in order to get maximum monetization and good user experience. It is also important that you do your own research first and test the ad networks before implementing them. Consider these factors:

  • Choose ad networks that align with the interests and demographics of your forum or community site, ensuring that ads resonate with your community members.
  • Always go for ad networks that offer diverse ad formats, allowing you to experiment with display ads, native ads, and other engaging formats that suit the community environment.
  • Choose ad networks that focus on maintaining a positive user experience. Ads should enhance, not disrupt, the community engagement.
  • Find ones that provide moderation tools, allowing you to control the type of ads displayed and maintain a level of quality in line with community standards.

The Bottomline


If you use the right ad networks for forums and communities, as a publisher, you can be able to enhance revenue and also keep up the good user experience and quality community engagement. By carefully selecting and integrating these ad networks, publishers can create a harmonious balance between monetization and community experience.

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Editorial Staff at Publisher Growth is a team of blogging and AdTech experts adept at creating how-to, tutorials, listings, and reviews that can publishers run their online businesses in a better way.

Frequently Asked Questions

Yes, well-chosen ad networks, particularly those with user-friendly integration options, can enhance revenue without disrupting the user experience in forums or community sites.

Ad networks with moderation tools, such as BuySellAds, allow publishers to control the type and quality of ads displayed, ensuring they align with community standards.

Premium ad networks like AdThrive often have traffic requirements. Publishers should review the specific eligibility criteria for each network before applying.

Ad networks like Infolinks, with a focus on user engagement, ensure that ads seamlessly integrate into the community environment, contributing positively to the overall user experience.

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