Adblock recovery is perhaps something you’ve never heard of. Most people haven’t. But there are these chosen few that become aware of it and reap all the profits.

Perhaps, now your time has come to become a part of these chosen few people and to finally share the secret knowledge.

Why Is Ad-blocking a Growing Concern for Bloggers?

Depending on the niche you operate in, the percentage of website visitors that use a web-based ad blocker service can vary between 20 and 50 percent. For some niches like video games, it’s even higher. This means, overall, your revenue from ad clicks or impressions is decreased by the same percentage, if not more.

How Does Ad-Blocking Affect Revenue and User Experience?

When someone visits your website while using an adblocker, they practically never show any ads, which means the advertising publisher doesn’t gather either clicks or impressions. This means you will not get paid for Adblock visitors, regardless of how loyal these people are to your website.

That’s exactly why publishers across the world lose billions of dollars each year. Luckily, there are some Adblock recovery tools that can allow you to regain up to 75% of your lost revenue from Adblock just like that.

In terms of user experience, Adblocking can have a positive or a negative effect on users. That mainly depends on what kinds of ads are running on your website. If you have media buying partners, or affiliates, that you promote, and they carefully follow your instructions, for example, these ads would most likely be good for your audience.

On the other hand, if random advertisements pop up on the visitor’s screen, on mainly irrelevant topics to them, then that’s bad news.

Why Is Adblock Recovery Is the Solution?

Adblock recovery is an AI-enabled approach that carefully studies your audience and daily visitors and makes calculated decisions on whether to prompt the user by asking if they wish to support your website by whitelisting it in their adblocker.

With one click from them, your website becomes whitelisted, and voila, you regain the lost revenue that you would’ve otherwise never seen.

Adblock recovery works by carefully monitoring data and learning with what frequency to ask people to whitelist and at what time. A specific example would be that a smart Adblock recovery tool would never ask a user upon their first visit to the website.

It would wait for a second or third one. This would mean they are already attached to your website, and they might be willing to help you out with a single click that costs them nothing.

Adblock recovery often works better when you pair it with a programmatic remarketing campaign that gets users back on your website for a second or third visit.

How to Implement Adblock Recovery?

Adblock revenue recovery is quite easy to implement. Depending on the type of website you use, there are different solutions, but tools built by veterans, like Publir, work with any website and can be implemented in minutes.

Otherwise, for example, if you are running a WordPress site, you can look for plugins, but more often than not, they are not powered by custom-built AI and will always prompt your users the same way, which eventually could lead to a drop in your traffic or higher bounce rates or a decreased average session duration.

Types of Adblock Recovery

Currently, there are three types of AdBlock recovery. 

• Adblock circumvention
• Messaging-based
• Acceptable ads ad recovery

If you hear anyone trying to sell Adblock circumvention to you, feel free to say “NO” right off the bat because that’s so 2010. It’s a bad practice and will remain bad forever. Stay away from it. There are better approaches.

Messaging-based and acceptable ads ad recovery are very similar because in both cases your website prompts the users to ask for their permission to show ads. In the case of messaging-based ad recovery, you simply require them to disable AdBlock, while in the second case, your website allows them to see only suitable and light advertisements.

Both of these are good options to go for, and undoubtedly can work in different ways depending on the audience and niche of your website or blog. Of course, if your website is piled with ads, before going for an AdBlock recovery tool, you might want to optimize your website structure.

Recovering Your Money

Did you know that more than 50% of the top 100 US publishers utilize an adblock revenue recovery tool? You should too. While the topic is still fresh, give Publir a try. It’s super easy to integrate in minutes and will allow your users to opt-in for ads in no time.

The post The Impacts of Ad-Blocking and How to Recover Lost Revenue first appeared on Publir.

1. Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI)

Server-Side Insertion (also referred to as dynamic ad insertion or ad stitching) is an Adblock recovery technique that allows publishers to stitch their ad content at the CMS level instead of within the browser. This recovery technique has emerged as a key solution for companies to streamline and monetize their advertisements while removing Adblocks on mobiles, desktops, OTTs, and tablets. SSAI allows publishers to place their ads on their users’ screens in the most non-intrusive way possible.

SSAI stitches the ad before the ad and website content reaches the browser. That means the ad and the content reach the client from the same server in a single stream. The browser cannot differentiate between the ad and the website content and hence cannot block it. SSAI focuses on user experience by delivering extremely personalized ads. Overall, SSAI delivers a better user experience and enables both parties to avoid ad blocking. SSAI has been around for years, but publishers and advertisers are becoming more interested after losing revenue due to ad blocking. 

2. Native Advertising 

Native advertising is a kind of Adblock recovery technique in which the ads match the format, feel and look of the website content. They natively and seamlessly integrate within the webpage. Unlike other kinds of advertisements, native ads do not feel like ads and do not affect users’ interaction with the webpage. Native ads typically aim to feel as natural as possible without disrupting the user experience. Native ads should feel and function as part of the website or app’s content. Many publishers and advertisers are dropping display ads in favor of native ads due to their effectiveness. Due to their non-intrusive nature, native ads are one of the most popular forms of Adblock recovery.

3. Acceptable Ads

Adblockers do not block all ads. Some advertisements called “Acceptable Ads” are exempted due to their non-intrusive nature. The Acceptable Ads Standard Committee allows publishers to display ads to Adblock users if the advertisement adheres to certain standards. However, users who have opted to block all kinds of ads will not view any of your advertisements even if they are approved by the committee. Research suggests that 82% of users prefer a lighter ad viewing experience in which the ads are non-intrusive. Publishers can capitalize on this statistic and strive to get their ads whitelisted by the Acceptable Ads Standard Committee. This is becoming a more feasible option for publishers to compensate for the lost revenue without making any changes to their sites. 

4. Programmatic Audio Ads 

These are typically used in podcasts; however, since ad blockers are designed to catch visual ads, programmatic audio ads can go unnoticed on your website. Furthermore, programmatic ad solutions allow for automated buying and selling of digital advertising and also the ability to target one specific ad to one single consumer in real-time (very effective for increasing ROI). 

5. Connect with a Reliable Ad Tech Provider

If you have time constraints or other limitations, connecting with the right ad tech provider can be very beneficial to you. Your ad tech partner should be able to provide a good viewing experience of advertisements and provide solid ad reinsertion technology. Often, customer-centric ad servers offer customer-friendly ad formats that improve the user experience instead of frustrating them. The right Ad tech provider will invest in getting the right keywords, SEO content, and social media marketing to make your content more popular. 

At Publir, we understand the importance of advertising for your revenue growth. With more than 10+ years of experience in the publishing space, we have monetized 100 billion+ impressions and generated nearly $100 million for clients since inception. We’re experts in the content monetization space, offering a one-of-a-kind unified platform for a diversified strategy. Our offerings focus on Ad Optimization, AdBlock Recovery, Subscriptions, Fundraising, and Merchandising.

The post Adblock Recovery Techniques for 2023 first appeared on Publir.

Understanding AdBlock

Adblock is a software solution that improves user experience by preventing advertisements from displaying on the users’ web pages. Adblockers can come in the form of browser extensions and stand-alone applications or may be built into the browser. Generally, when a web page is opened, ad exchanges and networks communicate with the ad server using ad tags to display the ad. However, Adblockers detect the ad tags and prevent them from calling the ad server that loads the advertisement.

The boundary between ad blockers and content blockers is becoming increasingly blurred. As some Adblockers work on various filters that can be configured to a variety of content (besides ads), the broader term content blocker is often deployed. The most common Adblockers in the US include Adblock (50%), Adblock Plus (25%), AdGuard (19%), and uBlock Origin (16%). Adblockers work on most types of advertisement formats.

How Many People Use Adblock Around the World?

AdBlockers have become increasingly popular in the US and worldwide. Last year, there were 586 million AdBlock users enabled on mobile and 257 million Adblock users. A GlobalWebIndex survey revealed that 48% of Adblock users felt that there were too many ads online, 33% of them felt that ads lowered their loading speeds, and 47% said that the ads were irrelevant and annoying. Other users believed that ads compromised their online privacy and security, intruded into their online browsing experience, used a lot of battery life and data, and took substantial screen space. 

How do Adblockers Work?

AdBlocker software is usually made of two pieces of code: filter lists and blockers. A filter list is a group of rules that define which elements have to be blocked. Like Adblockers, there are different kinds of filter lists, including those built-into browsers and stand-alone applications. Blockers are designed to block content that is configured in the filter list or Adblocker user settings. When the web page is loaded, the Adblocker compares the filter lists (including the specific elements the user has opted to block) it was supposed to block and the page code. Based on specific blocking rules, the blocker obstructs the ads from appearing on the user’s screen. 

Every Adblocking solution is different and unique, but most work by stopping calls to the ad-related servers that load the advertisement on the user’s webpage. When a webpage is being loaded, the Adblocker reads the elements of the page, identifies any calls to ad-related servers and sources, and then compares them with elements in the filter lists to block. In case of a match, those elements are blocked from being displayed on the user’s webpage. Adblockers can be configured to block specific elements from displaying on the page. 

Adblock Recovery Explained

Adblock recovery refers to the variety of solutions that publishers use to recover the revenue losses due to Adblock use. Adblock recovery solutions detect if the user is utilizing an Adblock solution, and they apply different methods to measure and report the revenue loss, whitelist the website, block access to the Adblocker based on site use terms and conditions, reinsert the ad, offer an alternative value exchange between the visitor and content publisher. Most publishers use a combination of these techniques to curate an effective Adblock recovery solution. 

Tools and Technology for Adblock Recovery

Some Adblocking solutions include:

1. Adblock Detection and Analytics – Adblock recovery solutions begin by detecting the presence of Adblockers on the user’s webpage. Publishers need to review their recovery solutions as Adblockers constantly make improvements to undermine recovery measures. Additionally, there are solutions that measure the impact of Adblockers on your website revenue. This gives you an estimate of the money you are losing. 

2. Website Whitelisting – Website allow listing or whitelisting refers to the process in which users allow certain websites to be exempt from their Adblocking functions. Without disabling their Adblockers, users can choose the websites they want to allow. Often users allow or whitelist websites with more sensible or responsible content with limited ads. 

3. Ad Reinsertion and Replacement – Ad reinsertion is a technique in which the original advertisement is reinserted by bypassing the Adblocker, leveraging certain loopholes. This method is often criticized for not taking into account the user’s consent. On the other hand, ad replacement identifies the blocked ad and replaces it with an alternative ad. The ad is replaced with the consent of the user who has allowed “Standard Ads” to be displayed on their screen.

4. Alternative Value Exchange – This means the variety of offers the publisher can make to the Adblocker to allow their content on the webpage. For instance, the publisher can offer the readers access to their paid recurring subscriptions in exchange for allowing their content. 

The above discussion underpins the need for Adblocking solutions in the ever-changing market. As Adblockers have evolved with time, so have Adblock recovery solutions. None of the Adblock recovery solutions discussed above are mutually exclusive. As noted earlier, the most successful publishers use a combination of these to get the most effective return. 

At Publir, we’re experts in the content monetization space, offering a one-of-a-kind unified platform for a diversified strategy. Our offerings focus on Ad Optimization, Adblock Recovery, Subscriptions, Fundraising, and Merchandising.

The post Adblock Recovery: A Guide to Recover Ad Revenue first appeared on Publir.

Adblock Circumvention

AdBlock circumvention is one of the oldest industry techniques to navigate Adblockers. Adblock circumvention refers to injecting ads into web pages by exploiting technical loopholes. This means readers who have used Adblockers will still see those ads. For instance, obfuscating HTML/CSS and IDs prevents Adblockers from detecting those elements in the ad. 

While this technique might sound good on the surface, it has one huge problem. It is inherently anti-user. It completely overlooks the user’s decision to install and use an Adblocker and perpetuates the archaic advertising experiences that created the need for Adblockers in the first place. To counter circumvention attempts, Adblock vendors actively update their ad-blocking rules, which means circumvention is not effective at all times. And as such, it is not a reliable method for publishers. As a result of these shortcomings and issues, Adblock has fallen out of favor with the majority of publishers. 

Recovery Through Messaging

Recovery through messaging means using direct messages or pop-ups to convince Adblock users to allow certain ads on their web pages. This pop-up can be a request to whitelist a particular website or get an “ad removal” pass (through a dismissable soft pop-up). Sometimes, publishers take a more aggressive approach by blocking the user from accessing any content before they whitelist the website or disable their Adblocker. 

Recovery through messaging is better than ad circumvention as it takes into account the user’s consent. However, this approach is not free of issues. Firstly, most users find pop-ups quite frustrating. In fact, pop-ups are exactly the kind of things that users want to avoid while using their Adblockers. For instance, a report suggested that 68% of users would simply exit the website if prompted by an Adblock wall. Secondly, recovering through messaging has a low conversion rate (10-15%), and publishers are able to monetize only a small subset of the audience. Thus, they experience diminishing returns over time. 

Hard and soft walls have unintended consequences for websites, like sudden increases in bounce rates and a corresponding effect on traffic and search rankings. These consequences can be extremely difficult and time consuming to reverse. If you have decided to choose recovery through messaging, consider the cost of losing some of your audience vis-a-vis the revenue generated through Adblock monetization. Sometimes, you might lose a substantial portion of your audience using message-based ad block recovery.

Acceptable Ads Committee

Acceptable Ads-Based Recovery works by showing non-intrusive, light advertisements to Adblock users who have opted for them. The Acceptable Ads Committee is an independent body that aims to create The Standard, a framework that defines what kinds and formats of advertisements are allowed and those that are excluded. Formats that interrupt seamless user experiences, like pop-ups, overlay ads, autoplay videos, interstitial ads, animated ads, pre-roll video ads, etc., are not included.

In the past couple of years, acceptable ads-based recovery has become a popular way amongst publishers to navigate Adblockers. Up to the end of 2020, over 200 million Adblock users signed up to receive Acceptable Ads. This number grew by 54% between 2014 (Q1) and 2020 (Q4). This demonstrates that readers are less hostile to acceptable ad-based recovery than other programs. 

Unlike Adblock circumvention and recovery through messaging, acceptable ads-based recovery takes the user’s agency into consideration. This means users who have consented to receive ads will see those ads. Compliant ads are shown to users who are interested in seeing them. Acceptable Ads do not obstruct the user from viewing the content, and users can opt-out at any time.
Adblock recovery has become a crucial part of publishers’ marketing strategies. However, publishers should consider their user’s consent while choosing their strategy. Acceptable Ads Recovery offers the best balance between the user’s agency and content monetization. At Publir, we’re experts in the content monetization space, offering a one-of-a-kind unified platform for a diversified strategy. Our offerings focus on Ad Optimization, Adblock Recovery, Subscriptions, Fundraising, and Merchandising

The post Adblock Recovery Strategies and Best Practices first appeared on Publir.

What Is A YouTube AdBlock 

A browser extension that filters and blocks advertising content before videos is effective on ads that appear before, during, and after all videos. It acts as a content filtering and ad-blocking browser extension, working against all YouTube ads. Users can prevent ads from being displayed, and this includes banner ads, ad clips, and pre-roll ads. Adblock software is a widely-debated topic with it even becoming an international law and order issue. Courts are starting to look at legal issues arising out of AdBlock software while dealing with mounting pressure due to anti-Adblock campaigns by publishers. Germany and EU courts have already adjudicated on this issue, with Adblock plus surviving 5 legal challenges in Germany. So on the surface, advertisers face overwhelming odds, because Adblock software is not only legal, it is also being rampantly used by internet users who find ads intrusive, and that is quite a sizable amount. 

How Do These Work 

People usually use Adblock software via a browser extension or mobile apps. They browse the content on a webpage, matching that source against a list of ad networks. Any items that match will be removed instantly. Some AdBlock software has a whitelist option, by which advertisers can pay a certain fee, slip through the gaps, and show their ads. 

Why Do People Block Ads? 

Beyond the fact that certain ads can be plain intrusive, and ruin the browsing experience, people download ad blockers for various reasons. Some of these are explored below. 

Performance

Any ad that appears on any website takes time to load, and with the average web surfer loading more than a hundred pages a day, ads, tracking scripts, and rogue code can become quite a nuisance. Installing ad blockers helps net users save time, because it lightens up the website, speeding up the browsing experience. 

User Privacy

This is quite the bone of contention. Thanks to advancements in digital marketing technology, brands can create entire consumer profiles, thanks to their ability of logging, tracking and trading user data across ad exchanges. Every search, click, and page visit is tracked, to be used in marketing campaigns. For some people, this becomes a privacy problem and they begin to fear tailored ads and targeted messaging. Ad blockers give these users some semblance of peacemaking them feel as if they have protected their private information. 

Security

The digital advertising industry is expanding quicker than ever, with a lot of loopholes for hackers to step in and play dirty. The New York Times, MSN, Newsweek, and BBC have been victims of malicious ads on their sites. Hackers have taken seemingly harmless ad networks, using them as a chance to introduce harmful code into their ads that viewers see on publisher websites. Big ad networks do not pose a threat to the average consumer. Disabling ads completely discourage hackers.

Overcoming Ad Blocking

So, how do you overcome this obstacle? It’s unlikely that people are going to stop using ad-blocks anytime soon, but that does not mean that marketers must lose heart. There are some strategies that could help them work around the ad-block system. For instance, they could take in stock the unpopular ad formats, like display ads and retargeting messages, and explore other formats. Here are some other strategies that could help. 

There’s no way to effectively ‘overcome’ YouTube ad-blockers. What you can do, is rely on workarounds, including but not limited to other ad formats that can help you reach your target audience in new ways. 

Native Ads 

Ads have been segregated so blockers can identify them. Native ads are subtle, blending into the environment in which they appear. This allows them to generate positive impressions, because they add to the user experience, without being a hindrance. Successful alignment between advertiser and publisher is key for a good native advertising campaign. There are some hacks that could help you here. Use photos of people, instead of static objects. Ensure your logos are appropriately sized as to be readable, and ensure your video format is not too long because people have short attention spans. Also, cleverly inserting brand names helps keep visibility high. 

Pay 

Ad blockers filter content to remove from a page according to a predetermined list. A lot of them have some whitelisted publishers, which allow display ads to run, provided the latter conform to a set of rules. These acceptable ad guidelines are quite stringent but help ensure a better end-user experience. A lot of big players like Google and Microsoft buy their way into pages this way because blockers succumb eventually to market pressure. 

Publisher Partnerships 

Publishers have always looked for new ways around the system, with major campaigns being launched against ad blockers, to sustain revenue streams. Sometimes they play nice, pleading for disabling ad blockers, and sometimes they disable content for users with active ad blockers. Partnering with publishers can help marketers ensure their campaign’s visibility. Premium publishers can help with brand integration, ensuring that a product and narrative are aligned. This is tempting for audiences to click on, rather than standard ads. 

Branded Content

Instead of relying on digital ads, marketers can use branded content that educates, engages, and entertain users on both homepages and third-party websites. Find content that has some value for users, because those who have already decided to block ads, can easily detect hidden marketing messages. Try to figure out your user, identify what they want, and create content that will address their problems, so you increase your goodwill and customer base. From listicles to blog posts to video content rich with music, brands can tell their stories in interesting ways. After creating branded content, try establishing a brand partnership, so you can reach the same target audience with a fresh perspective. 

Content Marketing

Content is king. But, you need a solid strategy. A marketing-focused editorial calendar is tough to conceive, but it might just be the best thing to ensure long-term business success. Distribution strategies dependent on popular channels like social media and email can boost paid efforts while cementing long-term brand value with users. 

Wrapping Up

In conclusion, diversify your ad channels, try creating a meaningful ad experience, concentrate on effective targeting, and you should be able to reach your audience, working around YouTube ads. While it is true that ad blocking technology is here to stay, digital marketers can keep changing their current practices, diversify marketing channels and find new innovative ways to keep getting their message across. And finally, it is important to keep that message itself interesting, so your audience stays loyal. Read our blog on video ads, to find out how to exploit a popular way of broadcasting messages. Also, learn how to strike the right balance between ads and user experience and the most important components of an effective ad to try to grab customers’ attention without being intrusive.  

The post What Are YouTube Ad Blocks And How Do Publishers Work Around This? first appeared on Publir.

Well, if you are a business owner, you should know that the feeling that you have for other people’s ads, people may also have for your own. People are impatient and often don’t want to sit through an ad, no matter how interesting it might be. 

Top Ways to Circumvent Adblock Tech

The influx of online ads has prompted users to employ ad-block technologies. The bane of advertisers includes content filters/blockers, software plugins, and browser extensions that can help identify and block any content like online advertising on a web browser, or an application. From standalone programs to customized services or extensions in web browsers or operating systems, ad blockers make it difficult for media groups to increase their advertising revenue. Today, around 42.7% of the world is using an ad block of some sort (Source). It thins web traffic and shuts out all digital analytics. However, there is a way around this. Here’s how.

Adhere To Acceptable Advertising Rules

Join the Acceptable Ads Program, a non-profit founded by the creator of AdBlock Plus. Through this program, publishers can have their ads whitelisted by ad blockers. This is an ‘Allow Non-Intrusive Advertising’ txt file that adblockers reference, along with EasyList. All three major players in ad blocking, i.e AdBlock, AdBlock Plus, and uBlock are part of the program, and this setting is enabled by default if you download the extension.

If you make it to the whitelist, you can immediately start monetizing around 80% of your ad-block desktop traffic. Publishers just need to ensure their ads meet the  Acceptable Ads Standard. Organizations that are building first-time products have an easier time making it to the whitelist but you have to be careful where you place your ads. If you have fewer than 10 million affected monthly impressions, you can join this program for free. Around 90% of the whitelisted sites fit into this bracket. If your company is above that threshold, Acceptable Ads charges a 30% cut of all revenue gained from a whitelisted ad. A lot of the world’s largest publishers are members of AA, like Amazon and eBay. 

Persuade Users in an Interesting and Engaging Manner

Don’t be afraid to ask users to turn off their ad blockers. Any message that asks users to turn off their ad blocker in a non-pretentious and subtle way may resonate with them and encourage them to play along. An interesting example could be a company that uses a script that really exalts the customer, saying something like, “We really value your readership or patronage, so could you please turn off your adblocker” in a much more subtle and interesting manner. However, this is a hit and miss because some users may take the messaging seriously, and some may not. Either ask them to disable the ad blocker, giving them the option to continue, or try another method like seeking donations in some other fashion, or making your content gated unless they do adhere to either option.

Give Users Something Of Value

The easiest way to circumvent Adblock technology is to create a membership or loyalty program where users pay a fee to view content without ads. This strategy may not work overnight, but they are worth it in the long term, and they are a recurring source of revenue. 

A membership site is any website that charges a regular fee whether monthly or annually, and provides members with exclusive content. However, the ability to create a membership model depends on what type of content or products and services you offer. An e-retailer may not want a premium membership package. However, if you are a publisher with a lot of long-form articles, it may be a useful and effective model. You also need to take into account the technical demand on your WordPress host. Concurrent users and unique challenges for WordPress membership sites mean you need to have a performance-backed plan if you are to follow this path.

Use an Anti-Ad Block Script for WordPress

An anti-ad block script or tool can help website owners show ads even if a user has an ad block tool enabled. Publishers can recover ad revenue that would otherwise be lost due to ad blockers. Around 30.5% of the top 10,000 websites use anti-ad block scripts and plugins, according to TechCrunch. But this might have a boomerang effect too. Users may get annoyed with an ad block wall and could leave the website, never to return, so you risk losing a large amount of traffic. However, if you are solely depending on ads to monetize your content, it might be the most pragmatic short-term option. 

Conclusion

Love them or hate them, you can’t ignore them. Ad blockers were bound to mushroom as soon as publishers started adding ads to their websites to maximize revenue. Some basic steps like making your ads more user-friendly while exploring other monetization methods like paywalls can help you curb your revenue loss. You could try and explore another area like developing a mobile app to fight ad blockers. There are also multiple other methods like giving out E-Books, online courses, sponsored content, and affiliate marketing that could help you monetize your site. You could also explore AdBlock Recovery Tools. 

Publir’s ad-block recovery tools put the power in the hands of the publishers, allowing them to understand their ad-block traffic. It provides important data like what percentage of your site’s traffic is made of un-monetized users, and what devices and which locations these users can be pinpointed once identified. The tool then allows publishers to display a message to ad-block users, requesting them to whitelist the ads.

The post How to Circumvent Adblock Tech – Top Ways first appeared on Publir.

The internet has created many new and innovative ways for content creators to promote and showcase their talent in the form of websites, videos, and images. But one of the best things about the web is the way it has democratized access to revenue for small and medium publishers – particularly with online advertisements. Now any publisher with good content and a decent audience could put up ads and start monetizing their work. 

As online advertising got more prevalent and publishers started to cram more ads into their websites, a consumer backlash began to develop. At first, it was because the ads were too intrusive – with loud audio that could not be muted, pop-ups that blocked content, and auto-play video ads that sucked up bandwidth and slowed browsers. To its credit, the ad industry as a group mitigated many of these earlier problems via self-regulation and better monitoring of ads. But of late the focus has shifted to data privacy and user security. The concern is that the ad industry has too much information on users gathered without their knowledge or permission. While the wider tech industry is starting to address some of these privacy concerns, many consumers have started to take matters into their own hands by installing tools that prevent the ads from being displayed, known as collectively as AdBlockers. 

Different Types of AdBlockers

Browser Feature 

Almost all desktop and mobile browsers offer tools that block certain kinds of ads like popups and block user tracking. Some like The Brave Browser have gone further by blocking ads by default. Though Brave still has a tiny market share compared to browsers like Chrome and Safari, it is growing and offers many innovative features that could see wider adoption in the future. 

Browser Extensions 

Many AdBlock vendors offer browser extensions for implementing rules that the users can customize as per their requirements. These browser extensions are easy to install and user-friendly. Browser extensions are the biggest contributor to the growth of Adblock users on the web. 

Desktop Applications 

These prevent advertisements on a per-device basis. Although they are not very popular,  they are quite useful as many users have more than one browser and these desktop applications can block ads on all these browsers at once. They are not free, rather they tend to be resource-heavy.

VPN with AdBlockers

Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) with AdBlockers are quite convenient but are also costly as they require a paid subscription. VPNs have the ability to hide the activity of the users on the internet, hence it is very important when it comes to online privacy. 

DNS Level AdBlocking 

Adblocking can be added at Domain Name System (DNS) level in order to manage all devices at the location while stopping all advertisements from loading. It requires some fine technical knowledge to set up but it yields the biggest results. It maximizes performance when one prevents the advertisements from loading at the DNS level.

AdBlockers Vs Tracking Blockers Vs Privacy Blockers

While all these three terms have completely different meanings, sometimes the lines start to blur as the feature sets are growing and the users are getting more information about these three.

AdBlockers are specifically used to block advertisements that we can find while browsing through a website.

On the other hand, tracking blockers prevent programmatic trackers from recording any kind of online activity of a user. Most online users are not even aware that they are being tracked or their online activities are being recorded.

Privacy blockers encompass features of both of the previous blockers. It is a set of features designed to protect the privacy of the user. The basic focus of privacy blockers is to prevent third-party requests, cookies, and scripts. 

Concerns Over AdBlock 

Adblock Plus is one of the most popular ad blockers on the web nowadays and is available on 100 million+ web browsers. But there are dozens of alternatives to AdBlock Plus and by some estimates, these AdBlockers combined reach 600 million devices or 11% of the world’s internet-connected population. In 2015, a study by Adobe and PageFair estimated that in that year alone AdBlocking cost publishers nearly $22 billion.  

News like this has created a lot of panic among the online publishers who worry that AdBlockers will cut into their revenues. The problem also calls into question the very business model of digital publishing because it creates a misalignment of incentives between publishers and their end-user. AdBlockers are good for many consumers of digital content, but they can be devastating for content creators who rely on advertisements for revenue.

AdBlock Recovery

In order to protect their businesses and value exchange for access control to their content, thousands of publishers around the globe use some form of AdBlock revenue mitigation. The recovery process typically involves the following steps: 

• Measuring the percent of ad block users on a website and estimating the lost revenue.
• Removing negative ad experiences whose value might be offset by pushing users to install AdBlockers.
• Displaying friendly messages nudging users to whitelist the site on AdBlockers. 
• Blocking the access to an AdBlocker user who chooses not to whitelist a site despite many notices or showing fewer, less annoying ads to AdBlock users.
• Recommending an alternative value exchange between the visitor and publisher, which may include donation, email signup, site registration, paid subscription, participation in the user panel, and other such recommendations.

Website Whitelisting

Visitors use a whitelist where they add certain websites that are exempted from AdBlocking functions. This list can be easily controlled by the user with a click or two on a site-to-site basis. 

The whitelist, also known as the allowlist, is a rundown of elements endorsed for approved admittance or privileged membership in order to enter a particular region in the computing world. These elements include electronic groups and organizations, privileged websites, and even email addresses. 

Studies have shown that many users are unaware of the fact that adblocker is running on their systems blocking the ads. Many of those visitors are also willing to turn off the SAdBlocker in order to get access to their favorite websites. Moreover, users want to block annoying ads on clickbait websites while whitelisting sites that give them a more responsible ad experience. 

Helpful Tools To Recover Lost Revenue

The first step in solving any problem is to measure it. There are many technological solutions to measure AdBlock users on site. One of them is to use services like DataUnlocker that are specifically designed to allow a website traffic measurement tool like Google Analytics to bypass AdBlockers.  For organizations that have more tech resources, a self-hosted tool like Fathom might be worth taking a look at. 

The next step is to show a message to AdBlock users asking them to whitelist the site. There are a number of plugins for popular CMS like WordPress. Most are free, easy to customize, and do a good job of encouraging loyal users to whitelist the site. Google has also recently launched a Google Funding Choice program that makes it easy to message AdBlock users.

For users who still persist in using AdBlock, it is still possible to show them light-weight ads. Adtech vendors like Block through and Admiral have built easy-to-integrate tools that accomplish these goals.

Takeaway

The good news is that there are signs that AdBlock usage is dropping, thanks to many publishers adopting measures similar to the ones outlined in this article. However, publishers cannot afford to let their guard down. The fact is that AdBlockers will always be present as long as we have online ads, hence any time spent in AdBlock recovery strategies is definitely worth it. 

The post Updated AdBlock Revenue Solutions For Publishers first appeared on Publir.

Publir’s comprehensive ad block recovery tool gives publishers the power to understand their ad block traffic, such as what percentage of their site’s traffic is composed of unmonetized users and what devices and locations these users are coming from. 

Once identified, Publir’s ad block recovery tool allows publishers to display a message to ad block users, requesting that they whitelist the site and allow ads to be displayed.  

The customization of the tool gives each publisher complete control over the parameters of their message and how it’s delivered to each individual ad block user. 

For the message itself publishers can:

• Choose the location of the message on the page
• Set fonts and coloring to match with the sites aesthetics
• Create customized copy for you appeal 

When the message appears publishers can:

• Set it to show up on an ad block user’s first visit to the site, or on their second, third, etc.
• Blur site content behind the ad-block message
• Set a time-based cap that dictates when a user will see the message appear again

This technology is unlocked by deploying a few simple lines of code. 

By appealing directly to users who have an ad blocker enabled, publishers are able to establish a relationship with those readers by communicating a specific message – that message being that ads support the editors and journalists, and keep the operation as a whole up and running. 

The post We Launched A Comprehensive Adblock Recovery Tool first appeared on Publir.