Enabling your forum to force members to turn off their ad blockers?

[Heatman]

The essence of having ads on your forum is to earn money through them since it's one of ways to monetize one's website. But some forum users turn on their ad blockers because they don't like being pushed ads to whenever they are using websites. How do you go about dealing with such members? Do you set up your website to prevent them from using it till they turn off their ad blockers? Do you think choosing this path might chase some of your members away?

 

[Tracy]

I use ad blocker in my browsers. I don't run ads on my site, but I don't begrudge those that do. If a site doesn't want me to run my ad-blocker then I'll simply go to another site personally.
Generally I find the sites that tend to do this go WAY overboard on their ads. A discrete ad here or there I can deal with (and did for years) but as I said, many took it overboard and that's when I started using an ad blocker. I have been known to turn it off to see how "bad" the ads are done, and if not excessive I do put an exclusion for that site in my blocker.

 

[Arantor]

If you use ads on your site, fine - but give me an option to support your site financially that *doesn't* involve advertising. I don't care if that's a direct subscription, or Patreon or whatever but give me that option and I will.

I don't run ad-blocks for privacy (particularly) but from a security standpoint it's a sensible idea (because too many of the ad-networks have had compromised ads before now) and because the amount of bandwidth chewed up is *incredible*. It's simply more ecofriendly to run an ad-blocker at this point in time.

 

[Cory]

Any time I cross these sites, usually they are article sites, I close the tab immediately. I don't like being forced to see the contents of general annoyance or have an insecure view of the forum just because of advertisements.

 

[John]

Any website that won’t allow me to use my ad-blocker will just be closed out immediately. If the only purpose of me visiting your website is to get .0001 cents out of me from AdSense, I’m not especially interested in what’s on your website anyway.

 

[Jason]

The best idea is to not have ads, because people don't like them. The customer is always right, generally speaking. I don't think the majority of members in most forums, aside from certain niches, like ads. Myself, I especially don't like pushy ads, but the ones that are just banners are ok.

 

[Shortie]

When it comes to ads on a site, I never force people to turn their ad-blocker off, I place a polite message on the site asking if they would consider it and then I leave it to them. I feel that it should be a preference as to whether you disable your ad-blocker or not.

I can see it being understandable on sites like pay-to-post sites or even sites that pay people to complete tasks but for any other site, it should be a choice for the user.

 

[Jason]

One alternative to ads would be classifieds. If your forum had enough traffic, then perhaps some people would want to buy listing and/or promoted listing. That would be a way to fund your site without annoying people.

 

[Ravenfreak]

Honestly I use an ad blocker on most websites, I'll turn it off on trusted sites though. If I got a popup telling me to disable my ad blocker on a forum, I'd see what ads appear on the site and if it's too many ads or popup ads, I will turn my ad blocker back on. I'd rather browse a forum that had a few ads, say at the header and footer. If it's between posts and every time the page refreshes a new popup ad appears, then I'll turn on ad blocker.

 

[Jason]

I don't like to force users to turn off an adblocker. I mean, it seems kind of condescending, I don't know the word here. Anyway, if customers don't like ads, then I take the hint and don't have them. I find another source of revenue like classifieds or bonus areas.

 

[Uncrowned]

I would never do this. Depending on ads in modern times is an iffy move, but turning away content from users using ad blockers is a terrible move. You may think you are forcing them to turn off their ad blocker, but you are really just telling them to use the next forum on the list.

 

[Moonface]

I don't have ads on my forum and if I did, I would never force any users to disable their ad blocker. If I ever visit any site that bitches to me about my ad blocker I generally just leave, especially if it's intrusive or outright stops me from using the website.

 

[Tracy]

I don't have ads on my forum and if I did, I would never force any users to disable their ad blocker. If I ever visit any site that bitches to me about my ad blocker I generally just leave, especially if it's intrusive or outright stops me from using the website.

If (and this is a BIG if) I ever do run ads on my site, they will be ads sold directly to niche related vendors. I'm not a big fan of ads, but I realize that many have to monetize their sites at some point.

 

[Xilia]

A lot of sites I've seen that offer "hey, you can advertise on our site, just give us some money and we'll put a SMALL, out of the way ad (say on the bottom of the site, in a side bar, or under the navigation bar) so anytime someone visits the homepage, they have the potential of clicking on your site, but only for 30 days", which is fine, as long as the image/ad isn't overly big/obnoxious, relatively easy to ignore.

 

[kensonplays]

Honestly I use an ad blocker on most websites, I'll turn it off on trusted sites though. If I got a popup telling me to disable my ad blocker on a forum, I'd see what ads appear on the site and if it's too many ads or popup ads, I will turn my ad blocker back on. I'd rather browse a forum that had a few ads, say at the header and footer. If it's between posts and every time the page refreshes a new popup ad appears, then I'll turn on ad blocker.

I'm the same way, I'll whitelist specific channels on YT that I enjoy, and stuff like that. For websites, I generally keep ads turned off on News sites since they pretty much always seem to go overboard, especially on mobile. lol

 

[Jason]

The employment niche is perfect as a commercial venture. People going to such sites do job searches a lot. They don't block those search boxes.