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.

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.

According to various sources, between 13% and 30% of all Internet users are presently blocking advertisements, with the percentage rising in recent years. Furthermore, it is continually increasing on a daily basis, so whether you are an advertiser or a website owner, adblockers are harming your company as well. 

There is no guarantee that your advertising will always be visible to all people you wish to reach; nevertheless, if you are a website owner or administrator, there are several strategies that can help you reach individuals who use adblockers or monetize your AdBlock traffic.

What is AdBlock Monetization?

According to the prediction of eMarketer, by 2021, 27% of internet users in the United States would have blocked advertisements on at least one of their internet-connected devices, while 32.8% of internet users in Germany would have banned ads in 2019. Ads are banned more frequently on PCs/desktops and laptops than on mobile devices, making the AdBlock plugins for Chrome and Firefox the most widely used Adblockers. 

These developments can be ascribed to the annoyance of web users with online offers that are loud, invasive, and unpleasant. According to a GlobalWebIndex study, users who choose to use AdBlock Plus or other adblocking software complain that there are too many ads. They also find internet advertising to be irritating, irrelevant, or overbearing.

Because online advertising is the principal revenue source for most websites, Adblockers have far-reaching effects from the publisher’s standpoint. Adblockers rob publishers of revenue that could otherwise be spent on developing additional high-quality content for their audience and upgrading the website’s UX/UI. But the good news is that there are various ways available to assist you in earning money from AdBlock traffic. This is referred to as AdBlock traffic monetization, and the strategies used a variety of methods to benefit the publishers.

How do I monetize AdBlock traffic?

When it comes to monetizing AdBlock traffic, there are a few tactics to follow. The following are some of the most important strategies: 

1. Convincing users to whitelist your website: You might persuade your readers to whitelist your blog or website so that they can access additional high-quality material. Make use of their emotions to persuade them to whitelist your website. Users that appreciate and profit from your material will gladly pay to see more and will gladly support your website. Thank your readers for taking the time to read your information, and then explain how adverts on your website help you enhance the quality and frequency of your outputs. If you’re mixing advertisements with affiliate marketing, you might say that if customers buy the ads on your site, you’ll get a commission that has no bearing on the pricing or quality of the items.

2. Blocking content from AdBlock users: This strategy is similar to politely requesting them to whitelist your website. You, on the other hand, are acting more forthright this time. You gently inform them that you’ve discovered they’re using an Adblocker and that they won’t be able to see the content unless they whitelist your site. Only non-AdBlock users will be able to see the material this way. They won’t have a hard time whitelisting your website if you have a track record of providing quality material. Here, valuable material makes a big impact.
   
3. Use in-page push advertising or direct links: Direct links are URLs that publishers can place anywhere, including in text, making them difficult to monitor by adblocking software. The links might be included in the body of your content. Native advertisements, on the other hand, mix in seamlessly with online content and do not cause any bother to your users. Native advertising can let you monetize AdBlock traffic on both desktop and mobile devices.
   
4. Keep changing your ad formats: Adblockers identify ad material using a variety of technologies. Changing your ad settings and distribution strategy on a regular basis may assist you to avoid some adblocking scripts and reclaim your well-deserved money. The main drawback to this strategy is that AdBlock firms try to modify their software on a frequent basis in order to keep consumers safe. So, keep up to date to understand how to avoid each update. Adblocking is used by 20.5% of internet users across all devices. Mobile ad blocking is expanding at a higher rate than desktop ad blocking, with an increase of 89% year over year.
   
5. Including a subscription model or a paywall: This technique entails directly profiting from your content. You can experiment with a combination of ads – native ads, banner ads, or direct links – and a subscription/paywall model because advertising is one of the most successful methods to monetize your audience. The latter restricts access to your website content to serious visitors who are prepared to pay a minor fee to avoid viewing ads. Of course, the quality of your material persuades customers that it is worthwhile to pay for. To stimulate their attention, try offering them some interesting tidbits. Micropayments for content are acceptable to interested users as long as they receive the required value. It’s best to limit your adverts to a minimum while using paywalls. 

Conclusion

Adblockers were formerly viewed as posing an existential threat to the internet advertising paradigm. Allowing customers to opt-out of advertising on their own would make it impossible for publishers to completely monetize their content. Other forces have exerted pressure on the advertising model in recent years, but they’ve also shown something important about the nature of our viewers.

It is feasible to profit from AdBlock traffic, but it needs concerted work and the testing of numerous solutions. There is no single monetization approach that works for all AdBlock users, but if you employ the appropriate strategies, you may recover as much revenue as possible. If you are looking at recovering revenue that you are losing because of Adblockers, try our Adblock Recovery tool and amplify your revenue by a minimum of 15% right away!

The post Adblock Monetization Made Easy 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.