How to Get Around Money-Losing Ad Blockers

Everyone is talking about ad blockers after recent updates to Apple’s iOS 9 operating system that allow ad blockers to be enabled on mobile devices. There’s no doubt that ad blockers are a real concern for anyone who relies on online ad revenue. According to a study by Adobe and PageFair, 28% of adults in the United States use ad blockers. Their report also concluded that the estimated loss of global revenue due to blocked advertising during 2015 was $21.8B. This number is sure to grow with the growth of mobile ad blockers. So what can publishers do to get around the money-losing ad blockers?

Here are some options available to publishers and online advertisers today:

Approach 1: Ad blockers can cause websites to act up and not function properly, so one approach is to ask users to disable their ad-blocker. Here’s an example from NFL websites detecting ad blockers and asking users to turn them off.

Approach 2: Ad blockers may disable features that aren’t actually ads. Investopedia tries to get you to “whitelist” their domain on your ad blocker.

Approach 3: Nasdaq takes the interesting approach of popping up a Google Survey that can’t be blocked. If you “whitelist’ their domain, they won’t pop up this annoying survey anymore.

Approach 4: Mother Jones uses ad blocker detection to ask for donations if you support their cause.

Some other options publishers and online advertisers can take include:

  • Paying the ad blockers to whitelist your website
  • Doing more native advertising like text links, etc
  • Being honest and asking your audience for sympathy
  • Using a “freemium” model that charges a small fee for content with out ads
  • Blocking content until the user turns ad blocker off

Endrit Kosta currently works as a project manager of custom digital solutions at UBM Medica US. He also owns Market Me Management, and received his MBA from Baldwin Wallace University in 2013.

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