Digital Marketing

Project Report: Are acceptable Ads the new way forward?

Submitted To:

Mr. Shawn Matthew

Submitted By: Group 7

Aastha Tulsyan (190201002)

Akshay Sharma (190201011)

Amartya Roy (190201014)

Rahul Mittal (190201074)

Ritvik Jaiminy (190201081)

Sakshi Shah (190201089)

Utsav Sharma (190201120)

 Table of Contents
Table of Figures..................................................................................................................................... 3
1. What are Ad blockers? ................................................................................................................. 4
2. How do ad blockers work? ........................................................................................................... 5
3. Need for Ad blockers .................................................................................................................... 7
4. Impact of Ad blockers on users ................................................................................................... 8
4.1 Demographics of Ad block users ............................................................................................. 10
5. Impact of Ad blockers on publishers......................................................................................... 11
6. Impact of Ad blockers on advertisers ....................................................................................... 13
7. Alternatives for publishers ......................................................................................................... 13
7.1 Hard Wall Strategy ................................................................................................................... 13
7.2 Soft Wall Strategy ..................................................................................................................... 14
7.3 Acceptable Ads Solution ........................................................................................................... 15
8. What are acceptable ads? ........................................................................................................... 15
9. Acceptable Ads committee ......................................................................................................... 15
10. Acceptable Ads exchange ............................................................................................................. 16
10.1 Initiation of the Idea ............................................................................................................... 17
11. Better Ads v/s Acceptable ads ...................................................................................................... 17
11.1 Better Ads Standards. ............................................................................................................ 18
11.2 Rules of acceptable ads:.......................................................................................................... 19
12. The Way Forward ......................................................................................................................... 22
13. References ...................................................................................................................................... 23
 Table of Figures

Figure 1 Ad block example............................................................................................................ 4

Figure 2 Looking at filter list ......................................................................................................... 5
Figure 3 HTTPS application closure ............................................................................................... 6
Figure 4 CSS encryption ................................................................................................................ 7
Figure 5 Impact of ad block on users-1 .......................................................................................... 9
Figure 6 Impact of ad block on users-2 .......................................................................................... 9
Figure 7 Impact of ad block on users-3 ........................................................................................ 10
Figure 8 Demographics ............................................................................................................... 10
Figure 9 Impact of ad block on publishers-1 ................................................................................ 11
Figure 10 Impact of ad block on publishers-2 .............................................................................. 12
Figure 11 Impact of ad block on publishers-3 .............................................................................. 12
Figure 12 Hard wall example ...................................................................................................... 13
Figure 13 Soft wall example........................................................................................................ 14
Figure 14 Differences b/w acceptable ads and coalition for better ads ......................................... 18
Figure 15 Better Ads standard Desktop ....................................................................................... 19
Figure 16 Better Ads standard Mobile......................................................................................... 19
Figure 17 Acceptable ads rules- Placement ................................................................................. 20
Figure 18 Acceptable Ads rules- Distinction................................................................................. 20
Figure 19 Acceptable ads rules- Size (Desktop) ............................................................................ 21
Figure 20 Acceptable ads rules- Size (mobile) .............................................................................. 21
 1. What are Ad blockers?

Ad Blocker is a software that blocks ad and filters content on a web page. These serve as
standalone programs or customized services or extensions in a web browser or operating
system. The software identifies ads such as pop-ups, banner ads, sticky ads, in-house ads or
playback videos to allow the users to access the web without interruption or interruption in
their browsing experience.

Figure 1 Ad block example

 2. How do ad blockers work?

Looking at filter list: About 90% of the browser market, ad blockers serve as browser
extensions that can be downloaded for free. Before any of the content is delivered to the
browser, these extensions listen to / view your uploads, compare them with the filter list,
block any matches, and tell the browser what to donate.

Figure 2 Looking at filter list

HTTPS Application Closure - Here, extensions listen to outgoing HTTPS applications and
block any from popular ad platforms.

For example, many of the products that make Header Bidding - a popular way for program
publishers to make a lot of money - use an open source tool called Prebid.js. Because of this,
the filter list has a rule that tracks the "/ prebid" regex. Whenever "prebid" is in the outgoing
URL, that request is blocked, which may affect any ad exchange or wrapper setting that
includes this expression anywhere requested by the server.
 Figure 3 HTTPS application closure

CSS Encryption Rules - Since some companies display custom native ads through an in-
house ad server (so do not use third-party HTTPS applications), ad blockers must find
another way to stop this promotion.

To do this, Ad blockers use regexes to identify specific CSS objects or "div classes" and add
the CSS rule of {display: none! Important} in the CSS style sheet before sending everything
to the browser for us to contribute.

For example, one of the regex filters they use is:

twitter.com #? # div [data-testid = "trend"]: - abp-contains (/ Promoted /)

This is a complex regex that looks at any div of a div page on a twitter.com page with a data-
test-id = "trend" also, which somewhere in that div category, contains the phrase Promoted.

Creating a filter for that regex just separates ads in the Twitter area - especially their
Promoted Trends ad unit. With CSS encryption, ad blockers then command the browser not
to render the traditional ad.
 Figure 4 CSS encryption

Ad Blocker Total Downloads

AdBlock Plus (by eyeo) 10MM+
AdBlock (by GetAdBlock.com) 10MM+
uBlock Origin 10MM+
AdGuard 6MM+
Ultra-AdBlock 3MM+
Ghostery 2MM+

3. Need for Ad blockers

• Make your browsing safer

Attackers are now buying advertising space on some of the world's most popular
websites and uploading them with malicious ads that could seriously damage your
computer and your data. The most easy and the fastest way to narrow down this blog
is to prevent online ads from appearing at all.
Adblocker will help you remove most of the online ads and reduce the risk of
malicious attacks.
 • Stops ad servers from tracking -
Ad servers not only deliver ads to your browser - they also like to watch what you do
online and collect all personal information about you and your practices that may used
to send you highly targeted advertising or be sold to third parties. The ad blockers
claim to set up ad servers so that they can follow you and disable tracking.

• It makes your pages load faster -

When your ad blocker blocks statistical code, text and images that come with all
online ads, your browser is free to focus on uploading the actual content of the site
you want to visit - say, the article you want to read or the video you use want to
stream - without interruption.

• It makes your data system last longer (and saves money) -

This is more specifically true for those who like their mobile browsing experience
without ads. Some experiments have shown that when you visit news sites, more than
half of your mobile data is chewed by ads! Although the results vary widely from site
to site, once you have removed online ads from the equation, there is very little data
you can download - which can be good news in your pocket if you are on an oil-free
data system.

• It can primarily declutter your browsing experience -

The obvious main advantage of using an adblocker is no ads. You get more clean websites,
no annoying pop-ups, no sudden and unacceptable noise… Substituting ads for a nice white
reading space can make the time you spend online sound like a completely different
experience.

4. Impact of Ad blockers on users

For early 2018,the average global adblocking rate was estimated to be at 27 %. U.S and
Ireland had exactly the same penetration rate on the national level; however, Poland and
Greece were leaders of adblocking among the other countries that were studied. More than 40
% of Greeks admitted to using a software to block online advertising, while the same was
true for 36 % of people from Poland. The lowest usage of adblocking software was recorded
in Korea – 13 %, and Japan %. On the other hand, Asians seemed to be more committed to
use the mobile adblocker software. This was followed by Africans, whereas the Europeans
are last in a regional breakdown

Figure 5 Impact of ad block on users-1

This statistic presents the share of ad block users paying for adblocker programs in the United
States as of May 2017. During the survey period, 18 percent of respondents stated they had
been paying for adblocker programs.

Figure 6 Impact of ad block on users-2

This statistic presents the influence of advertising perception on ad blocking usage in the
United States as of the second quarter of 2018. According to the findings, 47 percent of
respondents who had a negative attitude towards ads had also used an adblocker.

Positive towards
ads and use ad
blocker
42%

Negative towards
ads and use ad
blocker
58%

Figure 7 Impact of ad block on users-3

4.1 Demographics of Ad block users

Figure 8 Demographics
 5. Impact of Ad blockers on publishers

The most obvious loss for the publishers is the loss of revenue due to ad blockers as seen in
the image below close to 42% of ad revenue was lost by publishers due to ads blocked by ad
blockers in 2017.

Globally, the ad blocking costs for advertisers in billions of dollars and the losses seems to
grow every year.

Looking at 2017 figures, the display ad market was calculated to be worth about 100 billion
U.S. dollars globally, but around 40 % of that was believed to be lost due to adblocking,
which was roughly 10 % more than the previous year. As a result, marketers and advertisers
around the world are growing increasingly wary of the growing popularity of adblocking
software’s. Obviously, there are some who have more to worry about it than others, as people
of certain countries and areas are more prone to using ad blockers software’s compared to
rest.

Figure 9 Impact of ad block on publishers-1

This chart shows the overall economic cost of usage of ad blocking techniques in the US
from years 2016-2020. The source estimates the loss of revenue due to ad blocking has
increase from roughly 3.89 billion U.S. dollars in 2016 to 12.12 billion in 2020.

Figure 10 Impact of ad block on publishers-2

This statistic displays total lost revenue due to use of ad blocking software in Europe in 2017,
broken down by country. In the United Kingdom (UK), it was estimated that 3.9 billion U.S.
dollars of revenue were lost in 2017. Germany had the second and France had the third
highest estimated losses at 1.3 billion and 829 million U.S. dollars, respectively.

Moldova
Serbia
Croatia
Ukraine
Greece
Ireland
Austria
Sweden
Belgium
Netherlands
United Kingdom
0 1,000 2,000 3,000 4,000 5,000

Figure 11 Impact of ad block on publishers-3

 6. Impact of Ad blockers on advertisers
Ad Block users are tech savvy and they are prime targets of many ecommerce and digital
businesses thus when such users use ad blocker the advertisers are potentially missing out on
customers whom otherwise, they would love to target.

Marketers are losing out on potentially high value customers who can be easily targeted or re-
targeted using the cookies and pixels which ad blocker blocks.

Ad Block users consume more online content and avail more services than non-ad block
users and thus become potential high value customers, who could be buying or subscribing to
the product offerings of the advertisers.

7. Alternatives for publishers

To tackle the Ad Blockers, and be able to monetize their content, a publisher can take any
of the following two approaches:

• Hard Wall or Soft Wall Strategy

• Acceptable Ads Solution.

7.1 Hard Wall Strategy

Hard Wall essentially means barring a visitor/user to access the content unless he completes a
dedicated action. This action can be to either subscribe, enter contact details, and making a
purchase or disabling their ad-blocker as shown below

Figure 12 Hard wall example

In case of New York Times, a new visitor is presented with a pop-up to subscribe to the
service after he/she has read 2-3 different articles. If the user declines to subscribe they are
barred from accessing more content on the website. Similar strategy can be observed on
webpages of publishers like the Times of India and Wired.

The major drawback of this approach is that it reduces the overall traffic on the webpage,
new users are driven away to another website in search of content. This eventually results in
lesser reach for the website. It has been observed that loyal users of websites, that use hard
wall strategy are not impacted by this, as they do not mind completing the required action to
access the website's content.

7.2 Soft Wall Strategy

Unlike hard wall, as the name suggests soft wall is a more lenient approach taken by
publishers. When a user accesses content on a website that has implemented the soft wall
strategy, he/she is presented with a similar pop-up like in case of the websites using hard wall
strategy, however, the big difference is that users can choose to cancel/decline the particular
action that the pop-up suggest.

In case of the website Gizmodo, the user is prompted with the below pop-up if he/she is using
an ad blocker.

Figure 13 Soft wall example

In this case the user can either choose to complete the action or simply close the pop-up and
continue to access the content. This approach is more user centric.

7.3 Acceptable Ads Solution

Acceptable ads solution is the most reasonable alternative available the publishers. This
essentially allows ads which follow a set standard to be displayed on the website. These ads
do not compromise on the user experience by showing fewer and less intrusive ads. This
enhances the experience of the new and existing users without the publisher being forced to
de-monetize his or her content.

Acceptable ads are also the most popular among publishers, 49% of top publishers in the
United States have opted in for the Acceptable Ads strategy

8. What are acceptable ads?

Acceptable Ads is a concept that categorizes display advertisements as respectful,
nonintrusive and relevant and allows users to view them despite an ad blocker. It was
developed to reduce the amount of poor-quality advertisement online and provide consumers
with a non-disruptive and hassle-free online experience. This also provides publishers to earn
ad revenue, which they were losing out on due to ad blockers, thus creating a win-win
situation for everyone. It presents a set of rules and regulations that display ads have to
comply with, in order to be considered 'acceptable'.

The rationale behind acceptable ads is that not all ads are redundant and uncalled for.
Customers wish to be exposed to some amount of advertisement and appreciate the fact that
some websites are run only on ad revenue.

They are specially curated by ad blocking websites. The aim for this was to create a
sustainable ecosystem for the publishers as well as advertisers. Acceptable Ads was governed
by eyeo/Adblock plus until control was transferred to a separate committee, known as
Acceptable Ads Committee.

9. Acceptable Ads committee

The Independent Acceptable Ads Committee (AAC) determines the criteria which define
acceptable ads. It was established in 2017, and is responsible for conducting research to
develop the standards of advertisements that serve some value to the customers. The AAC is
divided into 3 groups, called coalitions. Each coalition serves a different purpose and
advocates the issues of a certain party. These are:

1. For-profit coalition: This coalition represents the businesses and groups that are involved
in the digital ads business for a profit motive. They include advertising agencies, content
creators, advertisement providers, stakeholders etc. The representatives and members of the
For-profit coalition include directors from various companies like Dell, Trivago etc.

2. User Advocate coalition: This coalition comprises of representatives of the consumers of

advertisements on the internet. Digital rights groups, human rights groups as well as users of
adblockers themselves are the members and representatives of this coalition.

3. Expert coalition: This coalition includes industry veterans, researchers and academicians
who are well versed in the field of digital advertising. They provide a neutral point of view
and establish what is good for the industry in general. The members and representatives are
mostly people from renowned business institutes from all over the world.

10. Acceptable Ads exchange

The advent of Acceptable Ads has paved the way for Ad-filtering rather than Ad-blocking.
This initiative of Acceptable Ads has given rise to a new kind of marketplace, called
Acceptable Ads Exchange.

AAX acts as a platform which bridges the needs of publishers and advertisers while keeping
in mind the needs of the users. It connects the buyers and sellers of Acceptable Ads and aims
to build a sustainable ad-ecosystem.

The audience of AAX is a distinct demographic – users who have installed Ad-blocker and
have consented to see non-intrusive ads. This kind of demographic forms 15-20% of the total
browsing population.

Through the ad ecosystem built by AAX, it facilitates the needs of three distinct parties:

Demand Partners: These are the advertisers who are vying for a greater consumer base and
are potentially missing out on the ad-blocking audience. AAX enables them to reach a
consenting, engaged audience who is young and educated.

Publishers: AAX is the result of monetizing the ad-blocking audience. It generates a greater
revenue stream for the publishers by tapping into the users who consent to use Acceptable
Ads. It provides a new, transparent marketplace with no hidden fees. It is easy to implement
as no maintenance from publisher's end is required

Users: They can learn and engage with new content while maintaining the quality of their
web-browsing experience. Their support for Acceptable Ads ensures that they can watch their
favourite content for free.

10.1 Initiation of the Idea

Step 1: In a hoard to maximize profits, the user's browsing experience was compromised
forcing him to adopt ad-blockers.

Step 2: Studies showed that 83% of the 1 billion ad blocking users worldwide were not
averse to ads; they wanted a respectful user experience without intrusive ads.

Step 3: Advent of Acceptable Ads, developed and maintained by Acceptable Ads Committee
(AAC) and facilitated through AAX.

11. Better Ads v/s Acceptable ads

Let us first discuss about what better ads and better ads coalition is before discussing the
differences with the rules of better ads and acceptable ads.

The Better Ads Standards are made so the users do not have to see annoying or intrusive ads,
to do so, the better ads coalition asks the advertisers and publishers to follow the standards.

The coalition of better ads comprises of big SSPs, DSPs, publishers and tech giants like
Facebook Microsoft etc. To make the publishers implement this, the members of the coalition
(SSPs, DSPs, and others) can simply refuse to work with the publishers who are not
following the standards laid down by publishers. There are many SSPs, who list better Ads as
a mandatory requirement. Additionally, the Chrome browser can also filter out bad ads or
annoying ads and completely block all the ads on websites that does not follow the rules of
Better Ads Standards. Also, the visitors have the option to unblock the ads.

Summarization of difference between better ads and acceptable ads:

 Figure 14 Differences b/w acceptable ads and coalition for better ads

Difference in approach

There are huge differences in how both organizations persuade the industry and advertisers to
adopt their rules and standards.

The Better Ads Coalition has a voluntary approach where the parties in the ad tech industry
can simply choose not to follow the Better Ads Standards. On the other hand, the Acceptable
Ads Committee has a more forceful approach where it blocks the ads of any party that does
not follow the standards.

Let us look at the rules of both:

11.1 Better Ads Standards.

The better Ads standards gives us 3 rules each for mobile and desktop users that they should
follow and 4 and 8 rules for desktop and mobile users respectively that should be avoided.
These rules are shown In the images below:
 Figure 15 Better Ads standard Desktop

Figure 16 Better Ads standard Mobile

11.2 Rules of acceptable ads:

Acceptable Ads committee broadly have 3 rules that needs to be complied with:

• Placement: The ads should not encroach upon the primary content of the page.
Separate conditions exist for pages with no primary content e.g. parking pages.
 Figure 17 Acceptable ads rules- Placement

• Distinction: The difference between an advertisement and rest of the web page should
be clearly demarcated. The word 'Advertisement' or a similar annotation should be
used.

Figure 18 Acceptable Ads rules- Distinction

• Size: For a free-flowing website experience, there exist strict rules with respect to size
of the ad. The rules are different depending on the placement of the ad.

Visible ads on screen must occupy 15% (px) or less screen in case of above the fold
and 25% (px) or less in case of below the fold. There are strict sizes for individual
ads, as well as the total space occupied by ads:

➢ Ads above primary content should have height ≤ 200px

➢ Ads on the side of primary content should have width ≤ 350px
➢ Ads placed below the primary content should have height ≤ 400px

Specific Criteria for desktop and mobile:

Desktop:
 Figure 19 Acceptable ads rules- Size (Desktop)

Mobile:

Figure 20 Acceptable ads rules- Size (mobile)

Other points that should be kept in mind are:

• They are also subject to user feedback and may be scrutinized, even if the regulations
are complied with. The prescribed regulations differ for desktop and mobile
advertisements.
• Moreover, advertisements that have animations, pre-rolls, hover effects, auto play,
expansion effects and other such distracting elements do not fall under the category
of acceptable ads.
 12. The Way Forward

Forums like the Acceptable Ads and Better Ads are playing an important role in shaping the
digital marketing landscape. Just as advertisers and publishers have to follow and maintain
standards in advertising on Print, Radio and Television, the presence of standards in today’s
digital era is essential to maintain the sanctity of online advertising.

Moreover, increasing number of publishers are opting for acceptable ads. This trend is likely
to be replicated in the eastern markets. The major reason for this trend is that the mediums
like AAX and Better Ads have proven their effectiveness in reducing visitor annoyance,
without giving up on revenue.

To sum it all up, the industry is headed into a more harmonized future with less annoyed
users, effective advertisement and justified revenue for publishers.
 13. References

1. https://www.adexchanger.com/online-advertising/adblock-plus-parent-eyeo-ventures-into-
programmatic/
2. https://whatsnewinpublishing.com/eyeo-the-ad-blocking-specialist-pivots-to-join-the-
ranks-of-ad-exchanges/
3. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2002.06620.pdf
4. https://www.admonsters.com/webinar-replay-ad-blockers-aax/
5. https://restoreprivacy.com/report-ad-blockers-allowing-acceptable-ads/
6. https://martechseries.com/mts-insights/guest-authors/myths-and-realities-of-ad-blocking-
users/
7. https://www.admonsters.com/understanding-ad-block-audience/
8. https://adblockplus.org/blog/new-acceptable-ads-platform-launches-bringing-feedback-to-
rtb-and-help-to-small-websites
9. https://adzerk.com/blog/how-ad-blockers-work/
10. https://www.searchenginewatch.com/2020/06/15/the-ongoing-race-between-ad-blockers-
and-ad-tech-whos-winning/
11. https://adtechdaily.com/2018/01/08/43-us-adblock-users-believe-online-publishers-make-
money-providing-paid-content/
12. https://adtechdaily.com/2018/04/23/adblock-plus-parent-eyeo-gmbh-wins-supreme-court-
ruling/
13. https://adtechdaily.com/2020/06/30/acceptable-ads-exchange-names-scott-schwanbeck-
ceo/
14. https://adtechdaily.com/category/online-advertising-challenges/ad-blocking/
15. https://www.statista.com/statistics/798894/lost-revenue-from-ad-blocking-by-country-in-
europe/
16. https://www.adpushup.com/blog/acceptable-ads-how-does-it-help-publishers-with-
adblock-recovery/