Ad Blocking + Advertising FAQ
Table of Contents:
General Stats
Ad blocking user penetration rate varies widely depending on the research source.
At the higher end, depending on the geographic region, rates can be 40%+ and in North America, estimates vary around 38%.
https://www.impactplus.com/blog/ad-blocker-trends-for-2019
At the lower end of the statistical spectrum is Statista, who claim the following in the United States:
AudienceProject however estimates that the number of US ad blocker users is even higher than Hootsuite’s and Statista’s estimates. In their survey, 41% of respondents reported using an ad blocker, up from 39% in 2018.
https://backlinko.com/ad-blockers-users
At Adtoniq, based on all published research, we have concluded that taking a pragmatic approach to the size of ad blocking usage is necessary to not over or under estimate its impact. We therefore use a median of 31%.
Other estimates of ad block usage:
42.7% of internet users worldwide (16-64 years old) use ad blocking tools at least once a month.
27% of American internet users block ads.
AdBlock Plus, a popular blocking extension, is reported to have more than 65 million users.
Ad blocking is most common among internet users between 16 and 24 years old.
Among this demographic, 46.2% of users worldwide admit to using ad blockers.
Research by Hootsuite: https://backlinko.com/ad-blockers-users#ad-blocking-by-country
Ad block rates are consistently increasing YoY with the highest increase in mobile ad blocking. The following graph shows the user penetration rate of ad blocking in the USA from 2014 to 2021 by research firm Statista.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/804008/ad-blocking-reach-usage-us/
While ad blocking was initially targeting desktop users, today we are seeing a rapid increase in their use on mobile devices.
Ad block usage is significantly higher on desktop in the US but growing rapidly on mobile.
https://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2021/05/with-millions-of-people-trying-to-seek.html
When it comes to why people use ad blockers the following graph, while the result of research from a few years ago is still relevant. Today, data privacy and protection has become a major factor in the adoption of Ad Blockers and in some cases is the main reason. Outside the US, bandwidth (Data) is a driving factor.
Ad Blockers
What are the most popular ad blockers?
There are more than 90 different ad blocker extensions for the Chrome Browser. Over 100 apps in the Apple App Store as well as several other dedicated ad blocking browsers (Brave, ClickZ, AdBlock, etc.). Ad blocking can also happen at the network level which often occurs at corporations, government institutions and universities. Personal use of these network based ad blocking technologies is also on the rise.
The most popular include ad block extensions and app’s:
- AdGuard
- Ad Away
- AdBlock Plus
- Ad Lock
- AdBlocker Ultimate
- Ghostery
- UBlock Origin
- ZeroAds
While Ad Block Plus has held a leading share of this market, this is currently declining due to Eyeo, its owner, leading the introduction of Acceptable Ads which comes enabled by default and allows ads to be served to consumers that have not opted-out of acceptable ads.
In response and for several other reasons, these users are turning to more aggressive ad blockers such as Ghostery, UBlock Origin and many others.
Many of the more common browsers such as Safari and Firefox are introducing ad blocking technology directly into the core browser functionality. While we don’t expect this to happen in Chrome, this will become more and more expansive.
It should be noted that there are a whole series of other ad blockers used on mobile devices and numerous organizations have ad blocking software at the network level covering all connected devices. Network blocking is now also readily available for consumers. It is included in many wi-fi devices. Here is one example from Eero (an Amazon Company) - which Includes ad blocking on their wi-fi/mesh devices -
https://eero.com/eero-secure/experience
A competitive comparison covering some of the leading ad blockers was published by Everspark in July 2021. There findings can be seen here:
https://www.eversparkinteractive.com/ad-blocker-comparison-the-strongest-will-win/
What is their coverage by browsers, % audience, countries, etc.
Hootsuite listed 46 countries ranked by the percentage of audience that uses ad blockers users aged 16-64. List can be found here:
https://backlinko.com/ad-blockers-users#ad-blocking-by-country
Country Usage
Indonesia 56.80%
Thailand 40%
India 50.70%
UAE 39.60%
South Africa 49.20%
Israel 39.40%
Malaysia 49%
Mexico 39.20%
Portugal 47%
Hong Kong 38.80%
China 46%
USA 38.80%
Philippines 45.30%
Egypt 38.40
Taiwan 45%
France 36.80%
Colombia 44.70%
Belgium 36.60%
Argentina 44.30%
Kenya 36.50%
Poland 44.30%
Switzerland 36.30%
Austria 43%
Australia 36%
Romania 42.70%
Denmark 36%
Turkey 42.50%
UK 35.20%
New Zealand 42.30%
Vietnam 34.70%
Saudi Arabia 41.60%
Russia 34.30%
Canada 41.30%
Netherlands 33.60%
Singapore 41.30%
Italy 33.40%
Spain 41%
Nigeria 33.20%
Brazil 40.70%
South Korea 29.60%
Ireland 40.40%
Japan 22.30%
Sweden 40.20%
Ghana 17.50%
Germany 40.10%
Morocco 17.20%
As of now there are no identified independent statistics on the share of ad blocking by browsers. However it may logically be concluded that ad blocking would follow a similar ratio to that of the browsers in terms of their market penetration.
The following graph shows Browser Market Share Worldwide between July 2020 and July 2021 across all devices. The graph refers to the top 10 browsers across but more information can be found here: https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share
Acceptable Ads
What Ad Blockers support Acceptable Ads?
AdBlock, AdBlock Plus, Crystal Adblock
Are Acceptable Ads applicable for all major browsers?
Yes, acceptable ads are available for Chrome, FireFox, Safari, Edge, Internet Explorer, and other browsers that support the installation of ad block extensions like AdBlock Plus.
What % of ad blocking users have Acceptable Ads supported by their ad blocker?
This only applies to ad blockers that support “Acceptable Ads” (AdBlock Plus, AdBlock).
An educated guess would be about 40-52% of ad block users use an ad blocker that supports acceptable ads.
What is the estimated consent rate for permission based advertisement (i.e. with consent pop-up when Acceptable Ads are disabled)?
This is really dependent on the site, quality of content, and loyalty of the audience.
We see between 20-54%. For premium sites, we see on the higher end of that range.
With our approach to "Acceptable Ads" we expect we will get 70%+ range of all ad blockers
This could be higher depending on how we integrate to paywalls.
Do we have to ask user permission if ad blocker doesn’t support Acceptable Ads?
Yes.
The screenshot below depicts the General Settings Page in AdBlock Plus. This shows the “acceptable ads” option “checked” which comes by default when a user installs this extension or downloads the AdBlock Plus Browser. The user must opt-out in order (un-check) this box in order to not see ads. This functionality/option is supported by three ad block vendors - AdBlock Plus, AdBlock and Crystal. Which represents 40-52% of the market and declining. In addition a publisher must pay EYEO a fee to serve ads. We call this the “extortion fee”.
Data Storage and Usage
What user data is used on the user device and/or collected (IP, browser, etc.)?
Adtoniq does not use any user data on the user device other than the adtoniq_choice cookie mentioned below. This cookie is only dropped for managing permission choices by the user.
What user data is collected on (IP, browser, etc.)?
Adtoniq JavaScript sends HTTPS requests for ad images and clicks to Adtoniq’s Cloudfront servers, which store raw Cloudfront web logs in AWS S3 with a 30-day time-to-live. The information in these logs includes the request URL and all request headers.
What data is stored on the user device and how (session cookie, persistent cookie, localStorage, etc.)?
Adtoniq uses JavaScript running in the browser to drop one persistent cookie named adtoniq_choice to record whether or not an ad block user has seen Adtoniq messaging and then explicitly chosen to opt in or opt out of seeing ads.
How user consent is stored (user side, server side)?
Adtoniq stores user consent in the adtoniq_choice cookie. This cookie is client side only and is not stored on the server side.
What are the options if we want to provide the users ability to change their decision?
Adtoniq displays a small:
icon above and to the right of every ad. Hovering over this ad displays the text “Why am I seeing this ad?” and the mouse pointer indicates this is a clickable control.
If the user clicks on it, they are presented with a message on the bottom of the screen that gives them a chance to change their decision.
Technical FAQs
Non-standard ad sizes such as specialized native slots
We can support any ad size, placement and style except pop-ups.
AdRefresh: How does it work? Is the ad in the viewport when refresh is being initiated?
Ads are refreshed after a timeout which can be set to any number of seconds >= 30. These ads are only refreshed when they are in the viewport.
Lazy loaded ads support?
All ads are only served when the placement is visible.
Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
Example: https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/end-of-the-wallet-phone-based-drivers-licenses-and-metrocards-are-put-to-the-test-11561649243
We do not support AMP at this time
Ad Targeting: What ad targeting capabilities do we have?
We support country-based geo-targeting and contextual targeting based on a simple scan for keywords on the page. We can support additional targeting as needed, including targeting based on first-party data.
What are the supported browsers and platforms for Adtoniq?
Chrome
Safari
Firefox
Opera
iOS
Analytics
What data reports are available?
At present Adtoniq provides reports on direct buy performance by email and Slack on a weekly basis. The reports summarize impressions, clicks, and revenue broken down by campaign.
Mock reports below:
In addition, we know each company has their reporting needs and can make customized reporting as needed.
What metrics will we be able to track?
Ad blockers
- % ad blockers
- % Acceptable Ads enabled
- user consent rate
Ad Campaign Status
- Status
Ad Performance
- % ad filled rate
- # served impressions
We don’t provide the page load time per ad, but this should be uniform for ads served with some difference by geography and ad size. We test average load time and can provide you with this metric as needed.
More Resources
- Documentation for revenue measurement tool
- External Statista data on ad block usage in the US
- Acceptable Ads Information
- Analytics and detection software get blocked by ad blockers
- Google & Adobe tag managers also get blocked along with their payloads
- Asking users to whitelist or disable their ad block will fail long term
- Permission is the key to unlock this audience
- Technical white paper on the state of ad blocking
- Solutions for ad blocking
