[Frank]

On one of my sites, I show ads to guests only. It seems it was guests doing most of the clicking anyway when during the relatively brief time I did show them to all as an experiment. I felt uncomfortable bothering members with ads due to the kind of site it was, and at the same time, I wanted to give guests another reason to register (I stated under the ads that they only appear if not logged in). I show the ads within threads only (after the first post, before the last).

Anyone else use the "advertise to guests only" approach? Do you show different ads to your guests?

[Moelman]

I do this as well. Right now on my forum I have several ad spaces (under the navbar, after first post, and above quick reply) and they only appear to guests, and like you I have a bit in my welcome message that they will see no advertisements if they register. I agree that forum members rarely click anyways, as they become blind to the ads after seeing them for so long, guests usually do most of the clicking.

[MrKielington]

We have ad's turned off for our admins on one of our other boards. We do this though because we have our advertisers offer discounts to our members and since we sell a lot of hardware our members don't hate the ads especially if they are getting a decent deal.

[Brandon Sheley]

I show much larger ads to the guest as well, the members get "ad blinds" on after a while and never even see the ads.

[Frank]

I sort of see it as a thank you to Members, sparing them that visual bs. But the ads are from Google and it is a general forum site, so I am not selling them anything specific. In other words, they aren't missing out on anything "important" or relevant to the site per se, the way hosting offers would be to admins.

[steaner]

good idea

[rockinaway]

I haven't added this feature yet, as I haven't got many major adverts up. However, I do thing it is a good idea and is a good incentive for guests to register at your forum.