Adblock Plus and many other ad blocking software run an “acceptable ads” program, Essentially adverts that are considered acceptable and respectful to user experience are whitelisted and are shown to users and the one that considered crappy are blocked. This program is free to smaller publications but for larger publishers, they are expected to pay for this service, so basically, ad blockers are blocking publisher’s advertisement and having them pay to display their own ads on their respective site.
What is considered an unacceptable ad? According to Google’s ad rules and the Coalition for better ads, the standard guidelines are; pop-ups, auto-playing videos with sound, prestitials with countdowns, and large persistent banners are all considered disruptive to users. These type of ads leads users to adopt ad blocking software.
What does this mean for publishers?
Publishers rely on advertising revenue to keep producing quality content and to keep up site maintenance. Ad blocking is becoming more mainstream, With over 800 million and growing reported devices using some sort of ad blocking software. This causes ad-supported media to keep losing revenue. This may be a type quality control for advertising, But for sites that do have acceptable ads they still have to be approved by Google’s ad rules and ad blockers to get whitelisted, This cost publishers money as well.
For journalist this a bitter pill to swallow. This is an attack on ad-supported media. ad blocking companies and Google will control the advertising world, they will have all the say. The future of advertising won’t pay the bills for ad-supported media, forcing them to find new revenue streams to subsidize journalism or any other content.
How can publishers deal with Adblock?
They can politely ask users to turn off their adblock. Usually, the website will have a message saying they noticed you are using adblocker and will explain that they utilize ads to support their website. Most users ignore this message and proceed to view the website without turning off the adblock.
They can partner with anti-adblock companies like ReviveAds, that help publishers recover lost revenue. We create premium advertising experiences that are non-intrusive and follow all of the Google’s ad rules and the coalition for better ads standards. Most publishers see an increase of 20-30% in revenue when partnering with ReviveAds.