It is evident that ad blockers (adblockers) have entered a new era. The time has come when complying with their conditions has become unbearable and impossible — the situation has radically changed.

The previous breakthrough occurred in 2015-2016. Back then, after a sharp increase, it seemed that adblockers had reached a plateau, having significantly impacted the advertising market. After some time, it appeared that the industry had managed to appease ad-blocking companies in exchange for a substantial fee. This refers to eyeo and the Acceptable Ads program.

However, these days, adblocker users are unaware of the previous agreements. They use adblockers owned by other companies.

Let’s call this group of adblockers «SuperAdblockers». With their emergence, blocking has reached an unprecedented level. Now, virtually everything is blocked: quality ads, CMP messages, the setting of any cookies (including 1st party), internal ads (such as newsletter subscription offers), plea walls, and analytics systems (such as Google Analytics and Yandex.Metrica).

In other words, SuperAdblockers deprive publishers of the auxiliary tools they used to interact with ad-blocking audiences.

SuperAdblockers have ousted their predecessors. Previously, browser extensions like AdBlock and AdBlock Plus, owned by eyeo, handled at least 80% of ad-blocking traffic. However, in recent years, their share has significantly decreased. According to Ad-Shield.io, these extensions now control only 20–35% of such traffic.

Ad-Sheild.io claims that SuperAdblockers now control 55–65% of adblock traffic. Moreover, according to their data, in some cases, this share reached 85%.

SuperAdblockers

Ad blocking has gone beyond browser extensions. Now, it is often integrated directly into browsers, implemented in special apps on devices, or operates through VPNs at the network level.

Brave, AdGuard, and uBlock Origin are the main representatives of SuperAdblockers. They work at the browser level, as browser extensions, or as special apps on devices. Besides them, many smaller companies are tackling similar tasks in the market. Among them are AdBlocker Ultimate, AdLock, and 1Blocker.

VPNs also typically offer such services as an option. Among the services are: NordVPN, ExpressVPN, Surfshark, Proton VPN, TorGuard, Hide.me, and Mullvad. Surfshark claims that various VPNs have already been downloaded 1.6 billion times.

VPN Adblockers

Moreover, such blocking is gradually becoming standard in the corporate world, government agencies, universities, and public Wi-Fi providers. Any device connected to such a network — whether in the office or remotely — automatically blocks ads. For example, the FBI, CIA, NSA, DEA, and DHS have already implemented ad blocking at the network level.

In total, the global user base of those using SuperAdblockers in one way or another, according to Ad-Shield.io, already numbers hundreds of millions.

What Can Publishers Do?

Unfortunately, SuperAdblockers remain invisible to many publishers. Most analytics solutions on the market cannot accurately track SuperAdblockers. It seems this is not even possible. Let’s call this phenomenon «dark traffic» — akin to dark matter, which cannot be seen but does exist.

Ad blocking is certainly not the only monetization problem publishers face, but it is the most significant, considering how little attention it receives. It nullifies 20–45% of a publisher’s ad revenue, comparable to the “ad tech tax” for the entire programmatic advertising sales chain.

The loss of this revenue has serious consequences. Given the current level of monetization, publishers find themselves in a bind. It is no longer possible to yield to adblockers’ demands. The time has come to establish direct dialogue with users.

In practice, this means thoughtfully displaying ads to readers using SuperAdblockers — ads that they consider acceptable.

This may seem paradoxical, but it is not. Although SuperAdblockers are extremely aggressive in blocking, their users are not fanatics.

Most of them are ordinary people: students, doctors, or soccer moms. They use SuperAdblockers either by default (e.g., in their employer’s network) or simply because they can. Surprise: most people prefer not to see ads if they can avoid them.

While there are categories of ads that many users find unacceptable (e.g., pre-rolls, auto-play videos, and ads that follow the user), there are also those they are willing to accept as part of their content consumption experience. In essence, acceptable ad formats fully comply with the Better Ads Standard.

This distinction is crucial. Unacceptable ads ignore basic user preferences and damage their relationships with publishers. Blocking such ads is a necessity.

Quality ads align with basic user preferences and strengthen their relationships with publishers. The ability to disable ads is an added benefit, not a requirement.

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