Ad blockers enable users to surf the web without any ads showing on webpages. They are in their vast majority browser extensions like Adblock Plus that prevent banner and video ads from being displayed. Since many internet business models are mainly if not solely based on advertising – offering free content and/or services in exchange for the exposure to advertising –, ad blockers are deemed as a threat for publishers, advertisers, and the ad tech ecosystem. As an online advertising player, are ad blockers endangering you? How should you react to this phenomenon?

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Ad blocking
Adoption, reactions
and opportunities

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Ad blocking is now mainstream
Overview and trends of ad blocking usage
How can we explain the success of ad blockers?
What is at stake for the advertising industry?
How do ad blockers work?
Desktop
Mobile
Answers to ad blockers
Set up new guidelines and standards for the advertising industry
Educate the audience: the answer of most publishers
Make the most out of ad blockers
Publishers — Learn more about your audience with ad blocking analytics
Publishers — Listen to your audience and explore new monetisation strategies
Publishers & advertisers — Think content and context
Conclusion
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Ad blockers enable users to surf the web without any ads showing on
webpages. They are in their vast majority browser extensions like Adblock
Plus that prevent banner and video ads from being displayed. Since many
internet business models are mainly if not solely based on advertising
– offering free content and/or services in exchange for the exposure
to advertising –, ad blockers are deemed as a threat for publishers,
advertisers, and the ad tech ecosystem.
As an online advertising player, are ad blockers endangering you?
How should you react to this phenomenon?

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Ad blocking is now mainstream
Overview and trends of ad blocking usage
Ad blocking is not an "early adopters"
or "tech enthusiasts" matter anymore:
it reached a mainstream audience and
is now widely used. According to the
PageFair-Adobe yearly report, in June
2015, there were 198 million monthly
active users for the major browser
extensions that block ads — and
globally, the number of people using
ad blocking software grew by 41 %
from 2014 to 2015.
Moreover, ad blocking usage is likely
to continue to spread as the age
demographic where it is most prevalent (young millennials) grows older,
but also as users update their web browsers. Web browsers, which make
it easier and easier to install ad blockers, have a great influence over this
phenomenon, depending on their
policy, their compatibility with ad
blockers, and the default settings they
choose to implement.
Finally, while ad blocking was
historically a desktop-only issue, it is
now migrating to mobile. Third-party
ad blocking browsers, which block
ads by default on web pages, are the
dominant method on mobile: they are
attracting mass adoption with 90%
Adoption rate varies across countries
Adobe/PageFair, The cost of adblocking, 2015
PHD (Omnicom) study, 2015
Google Chrome is the main driver of ad
block growth
The ease with which ad block extensions can be
installed on Google Chrome, combined with the
continuing shift of internet users to this browser,
are major drivers of ad block growth. Ad block use
on Chrome increased by 51 % from Q2 2014
to Q2 2015.
Adobe/PageFair, The cost of adblocking, 2015
10.4 %
15 %
20.3 %
25.3 %
10 to 12 %
France
United States
United Kingdom
Germany
China

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usage growth in 2015, to reach
408 million monthly active users in March 2016 1
. These
browsers, such as Alibaba-owned UC Browser, are mostly
popular within the Asia-Pacific region, which accounts for
93% of their usage 1
. Usage in western countries is also likely
to grow as more manufacturers and browsers start to include ad blocking
as a feature. For instance, iOS 9 and Samsung mobile devices are now
compatible with third-party ad blocking apps for their default web
browsers.
Still, in 2015, mobile represented around 38 % of all web
browsing, but only 1.6 % of ad blocked traffic globally 3
.
This is presumably linked to the fact that mobile users
spend most of their time in-app, and apps are not
affected by ad blocking (yet). To date, mobile is thus
not a major driver of ad blocking growth, but it could
become one, especially if ad blocking effectively fulfills
its promise of letting users scroll larger screens without ads, get easier
access to content and services as ad-free pages load quicker, while saving
battery and bandwidth usage.
What about in-app ad blocking?
In-app ad blocking is technically possible. Yet, ad blocking apps have been systematically rejected from the
stores to date. For example, Apple removed such an app called BeenChoice from the App Store in January
2016. Since March 2016, Google even explicitly states in the Google Play Store policy that "apps that block or
interfere with another app displaying ads" are banned 4
.
In 2015,
users spent 88 %
of their mobile
time in-app 2
In the Asia-Pacific
region, 36% of
smartphone users
access mobile web
pages with an ad
blocking browser 1
1 PageFair, Mobile Adblocking Report, 2016
2 Adobe/PageFair, The cost of adblocking, 2015
3 The Mobile Majority, "iOS9: Will Mobile Ad Blocking Ruin Advertising?" September 2015
4 Google Play Store Developer Policy Center, Privacy and Security section

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Why did you install an ad blocker?
69 % interruptive or annoying ads
66 % negative impact on site performance
60 % excessive number of ads
Teads, Why People Block Ads, A Global Report, January 2016
How can we explain the success of ad blockers?
Users install ad blockers mainly for three reasons:
— Get rid of ads that undermine their experience when browsing;
— Stop being tracked for those concerned with privacy issues;
— Browse the web more
efficiently with pages that
load quicker to save battery
and data, especially for
mobile users.
Ad blocker users are reacting
against what they think has
become an unpleasant if not
unacceptable online experience. They have quite a rational and proactive
approach when deciding to use this solution: IAB 4
research indicates that
although simply hearing about the existence of ad blocking technologies
is the primary reason for installing it, some users spontaneously start
looking for them too.
The entire advertising industry is now at a critical
turning point: most players acknowledge that
the ad blocking phenomenon is symptomatic
of having let user experience aside for too
long when designing new formats. The rapid
development of multiple formats and platforms,
combined with the myriad of players involved in
the advertising chain does not help clarify who
exactly is to blame, or more importantly, how the
industry should react to the rise of ad blockers.
4 The Interactive Advertising Bureau is an advertising business organisation that develops industry standards, conducts research,
and provides legal support for the online advertising industry.
"We have let
the fine equilibrium
of content, commerce,
and technology get
out of balance in
the open web."
— Scott Cunningham,
IAB Tech Lab

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What is at stake for the advertising industry?
Ad blocking raises several issues. Obviously, it threatens the
traditional monetisation model of content providers and
ad tech vendors. Ad blocking was estimated to cost over
$ 21 billion in 2015, which is 14 % of the global ad spend, and
overall, the global cost of ad blocking is expected to reach $ 41.4 billion
by 2016 5
.
As regards advertisers, IAB research shows that ad blocking reduces the
available inventory since less ads can be displayed, especially to young,
male audiences (early adopters). The imbalance between supply (users
who you can display ads to) and demand (the ads that you want to show
to your audience) subsequently triggers a cost increase. It also affects
audience value: when ad blockers disable tracking resources, valuable
opportunities to re-engage users simply vanish. Moreover, it can skew
campaign performance measurement, therefore impairing advertisers'
trust in reliable performance data.
Finally, it may be argued that ad blocking ironically narrows down user
choice and could end up increasing costs for them. Indeed, the current
online advertising business model has enabled publishers to give free
access to content for over a decade. As subscription fees replace
ad-supported content, ad blocking could potentially create a web where
only those who can afford to pass through the paywall would access
information, and consequently threaten media diversity.
5 Adobe/PageFair, The cost of adblocking, 2015
Ad blocking cost
$ 21bn in 2015
$ 41.4bn in 2016

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How do ad blockers work?
Desktop
Ad blockers prevent ads from being called by ad servers, and are in their vast
majority browser extensions, like Adblock Plus. Their raw material is a list of sites
and scripts identifying all regular expressions, sequences of code, file names,
or frameworks inside a webpage that connect that webpage to ad servers. This
open source database, called the Easylist, is fed by an active pro-ad blocking
community. Ad blocking extensions store the Easylist and block the matching
requests when screening the webpage code.
Note that users have a "whitelisting" option, meaning that they can green-light
specific sites to run ads. They can also report ads they deem unacceptable.
Mobile
On mobile, one should rather talk about "content filtering" (and not ad
blocking per se) - meaning the ability to block any type of content in webpages,
among which are ads. But technically, content blockers follow the same
principles as desktop ad blockers: before the web browser loads a page or an
item referenced on a page, the content blocker matches it with the patterns of
its filter. Content filtering apps, like Crystal, allow for a lot of customisation, and
users can theoretically block entire sites in reference to keywords they choose
to exclude. In fact, Apple has been giving users the possibility to read articles
without ads for a long time, with the Safari "reader mode" functionality.
What is "private browsing" and how is it different from ad blocking?
"Private browsing" is a feature in web browsers to disable browsing history and the web cache. It allows
people to browse the Web without storing local data in cookies that could be retrieved at a later date. Private
browsing will not block ads at all, however it answers one of the reasons why people are using ad blockers:
allowing them to leave no trace behind - that could be later used for retargeting, for example.

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Answers to ad blockers
Set up new guidelines and standards
for the advertising industry
In a statement in October 2015, IAB conceded that the whole industry
had "lost track of the user experience", by "targeting users with
ever-heftier advertisements that have slowed down the public internet
and drained more than a few batteries". In this context, several initiatives
have been undertaken by advertising players:
— IAB advocates for new standards in the global digital media supply
chain, that would result in cleaner ads minimising all negative impact on
user experience. It has thus launched the L.E.A.N. initiative, an acronym
standing for Light, Encrypted, Ad-choice supported, Non-invasive ads.
The organisation has been working on a L.E.A.N. scoring, with consistent
criteria that advertisers and
publishers can be judged on.
— IAB Tech Lab also went
further by developing the
D.E.A.L. detection script
(Detect, Explain, Ask and
Limit), an open technology for
publishers to consistently and
reliably determine whether ad
blocking is occurring on a page, and take action accordingly.
— The native video advertising platform Teads published a "Manifesto
for sustainable advertising", with 10 steps to "engage, not enrage,
users", among which are the banning of interstitial banners, pop-ups and
non-skippable videos.
D.E.A.L
— Detect whether ad blocking is happening during a page
load, with a consistent and reliable script
— Explain media and advertising value exchange to users
— Ask users to turn off ad blocking or whitelist the site
— Lift restrictions or Limit user access

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— AMP (standing for Accelerated Mobile Pages) is a project initiated
in October 2015 by Google, intended as an open-source standard for
any publisher to build fast-loading mobile webpages. It introduces a new,
"lighter" HTML format, built to prioritise speed without sacrificing rich
content. AMP HTML is already used by major publishers like BBC,
El Mundo or Condé Nast.
To be continued...
A coalition of ad tech companies collectively known as DigiTrust is working to come up with a unified user ID,
so publishers will not have to overload their pages with multiple pieces of third-party software, or pixels that
negatively impact user experience. The initiative aims at delivering a better internet experience by reducing
the number of data calls and thus page load times, providing more trusted integrations with third-party
partners, and helping to reach targeted audiences at greater scale, across a broader set of platforms
and devices.

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Educate the audience: the answer of most publishers
Most content creators affected by ad blocking now understand why users
block ads. They believe that the smartest way to tackle this challenge is
to listen to, inform and convince their audience of the industry-wide value
of advertising. This strategy is being implemented with an array of tactics,
that range from politely asking users to turn off their ad blocking software,
to restricting or even denying access to the content, and/or implementing
a "soft" or "hard" paywall. As well as educating their audience about the
risks of ad blocking, these publishers also commit to showing cleaner ads,
as they understand that some types of ads, like pop-ups, can be irritating.
The "guilt message"
The New York Times has called
"To block or not to block" a
philosophical question, and
Fortune 500 ran a spread on the
ethics of ad blocking.
The "soft" paywall
In October 2015, Axel Springer took
the decision to post a message each
time an ad blocker user would access
the Bild website (Europe's
best-selling newspaper), asking them
to disable the extension and surf for
free on the website, or subscribe to an
ad-less version of Bild for €2.99 per
month. In November, the publishing
house reported that the proportion
of readers using ad blockers on the
Bild websitedropped from 23 % to a
"single-digit" number.
The "hard" paywall
The Times adopted one
of the toughest strategies
by implementing a "hard"
paywall, that only gives access
to a preview of a selection of
articles and then requires a paid
subscription.

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In France, the online publishers' trade
association GESTE has launched
the "Week without Ad Blockers",
to remind users that "content and
services are not free" and emphasise
"the indispensable character of
advertising as a source of financing".
Around 40 publishers participated,
each in their manner, by displaying
educational messages and asking
(or forcing) users to turn off their ad
blocker. The results were encouraging:
following the campaign, the audience
using ad blockers had decreased by
11 to 20 %, depending on content
categories.
A Week Without Ad Blockers,
at Le Figaro
Daily newspaper Le Figaro was seeing
approximately 20 % of its monthly traffic
affected by ad blocking. During the French
"Week Without Ad Blockers", it progressively
blurred the content as readers using an ad
blocker clicked through the website, and
displayed a banner asking them to turn it off.
The articles were illegible by the time users
reached their
fourth page.
At the end of
this weeklong trial, 20 % of ad blocker users
had whitelisted the website, and 5 % had opted
for a paid subscription giving them access to
advertising-free content. Comforted by these
results, Le Figaro decided to extend its ad
blocking ban.
Digiday, "How Le Figaro got 20 percent of its blocking
readers to whitelist the site", April 2016
Workaround solutions that do no get to the root of the problem…
While some advertisers and publishers try to find a reasonable way of meeting the ad blocking challenge,
others have chosen to completely overstep it by trying to show ads at all costs, or to "clean" what and how
many ads are displayed, more or less arbitrarily. For example:
— Encryption to fool ad blockers' lists – e.g. the AdGateway project by Digiteka
— Filtering out the "minimal amount of ads" – e.g. DYP Solutions, which created a web browser extension
to display one non-intrusive ad on the webpage, blocking all other ads
— Paid whitelisting – some companies have paid a fee to appear on Adblock Plus's "Acceptable Ads List",
meaning that users will see their ads, regardless of their choice (unless they adjust their settings from default
to the strictest possible)

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You can track ad blocker users
directly in Google Analytics,
by using a fake ad-related
script (like advertising.js) which
will trigger an ad blocker and fire an event in
Google Analytics.
Learn more: "Measure how many of your visitors
are using Adblock", dcarlbom.com
Make the most out of ad blockers
How can you make the most of ad blocking, even if, in the first place,
you consider it as a major threat to your business?
Publishers — Learn more about your audience with
ad blocking analytics
Ad blocking is actually an interesting tool
to better understand your users thanks
to webanalytics.
You should closely monitor the ad
blocking rate of your website, but also
the rate of ad blocker users who have
whitelisted your website. Treat these
KPIs as a new source of user feedback,
providing insights on the acceptance level
of ads on your site and the awareness
of your users as regards ad blocking extensions. fifty-five has performed
such analyses for major publishers, and can help you monitor the right
KPIs and take action accordingly.

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Case study
Ouest-France is one of the leading French newspapers. fifty-five worked with Fabrice
Bazard, Director of Digital Services, to help them achieve full compliance with
European privacy law through cookie management, and performed an extensive
ad blocking analysis on their website. Here are a few insights extracted from this analysis.
— 1 out of 5 visits is affected by ad blockers, implying a significant impact on Ouest France's revenue.
— The ad blocking adoption rate depends on users' socio-demographic profiles and browsing habits.
Ad blocker users are mostly young males, and social networks drive a greater share of ad blocked traffic than
direct access. The study confirmed that the more recent the browser update was, the more likely it was that
an ad blocker was activated, especially on Google Chrome and Firefox. Mobile ad blocking remains a fringe
phenomenon.
— Ad blockers positively impact engagement indicators: the analysis showed that using an ad blocker could
almost cut page load time by half, and that ad blocker users visited more pages and stayed longer.
What's next?
Following this first quantitative analysis, fifty-five is proposing to help Ouest France determine and implement
its strategy towards ad blockers, by further exploring what motivates their readers to use ad blockers, and by
testing an array of educational messages and formats.
Publishers — Listen to your audience and explore new
monetisation strategies
Once you better understand your
audience, show them that you are a
'user-first' type of player that takes their
needs into account. Explore new revenue
streams and richer, content-driven ad
formats, thanks to targeting and A/B
testing tools. Listen to your audiences
and let them guide your search for a new
"commercial model built on value over
volume," as journalist Jeff Jarvis 6
puts it.
Forbes adopted a testing approach for its
monetisation strategy: visitors using ad blockers
were asked to disable the software, in exchange
for a 30-day "ad-light
experience", a notion
which is still under a series of tests and will shift
based on the data collected.
6 Jeff Jarvis, "Death to the Mass, Media must rebuild its business around relevance and value, not volume"

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Native ads register
9 % higher lift for
brand affinity and 18 %
higher lift for purchase
intent than traditional
banner ads 7
.
Can native advertising still be blocked?
Some types of native ads can still be detected by
ad blockers.
To solve this issue, native advertising companies
like Ligatus Native show ads by serving them
through a reverse proxy pointing to the publisher's
servers. Ads are located on the same servers as
the content, so the ad blocker cannot block them
without blocking the whole content too.
Publishers & advertisers — Think content
and context
In this perspective, going native can be an
interesting strategy. Native advertising consists in
showing content-driven ads that blend into the
editorial environment, and are related to topics
that actually matter to your readers. It was experimented by major
publishers, like The New York Times, Forbes or Buzzfeed.
Indeed, native ads are in line with the website's content and style, meet
the same quality standard as editorial content and, most of all, deliver
real value to the audience, where advertising has too often come to be
seen as merely intrusive and useless
by increasingly angry users. With
this type of advertising focused on
content, brands can develop a service
for users with a promotional purpose,
and publishers can sell valuable skills,
rather than merely space for eyeballs.
Brands can show their capacity to
produce well-researched, interesting
promotional posts, possibly backed by
relevant partnerships and influencers.
A great example of this approach is the
informative study about women inmates in America published in the
New York Times, which cleverly introduced and promoted the main lines
of Netflix's show "Orange is the New Black".
7 Sharethrough IPG Media Labs, "Native ads vs. standard banners", 2015

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Beyond native advertising, there is an imperative need to focus on quality
formats and to ensure that campaigns are delivered in the right context
– for example by making sure that there is some form of coordination
and transparency between what is bought through programmatic DSPs
and what is bought directly from ad networks, that the formats used are
responsive, or by monitoring and setting up capping conditions through
the careful analysis of business objectives and data. In short, designing,
executing and monitoring marketing campaigns that aim at touching
people, instead of triggering impressions or clicks.

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Conclusion
Ad blockers are symptomatic of a more general trend: users have grown
weary of online advertising and want to take back control over their online
experience. Brands, publishers and ad tech players cannot overlook these
expectations anymore. They must rethink advertising, communication
and marketing as a whole, and learn how to consistently leverage and
combine creativity, data and technology.
The right answer to ad blocking is both pragmatic: know who uses ad
blockers among your audience and why, whitelist a number of ad formats
that are acceptable for you and explicitly ban non-acceptable formats,
support standardisation –, and strategic: switch to a user-first mindset,
think quality, context and content… and be ready to accept the costs if
needed. Digital advertising is no longer to be thought of as a cheap form
of advertising, and must be planned for with consistent resources and
expertise. This cannot be done without proper training and education
across the whole advertising industry. Only that way can brands offer the
best contextualised experiences, and be felt as providing real value,
to gain back people's interests.

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Part of You & Mr Jones, the world’s first brandtech group, fifty-five is a data company helping
brands collect, analyse and activate their data across paid, earned and owned channels to increase
their marketing ROI and improve customer acquisition and retention. Headquartered in Paris with
offices in London, Hong Kong, Shanghai and New York, the data company was named by Deloitte
as one of the fastest-growing tech firms in Europe, thanks to its unique technology approach
combining talent with software and service expertise.
www.fifty-five.com | contact@fifty-five.com | Paris • London • Hong Kong • Shanghai • New York June 2016
Key readings
Adobe/PageFair, The cost of adblocking, 2015
PageFair, Mobile Adblocking Report, 2016
IAB, Adblocking Report: Who Blocks Ads, Why, and How to Win Them Back, July 2016
Teads.tv, Why People Block Ads, 2016
More information
www.ampproject.org
www.digitru.st