Adblock recovery helps deal with ad blockers and increase publishers’ earning potential. So, to know more about it, we talked to Sharad from AdPushup.

The emergence of ad blockers in the early days of digital advertising made things difficult for publishers and advertisers who relied on tracking users for monetizing websites and building brand value. 

This reaction to the plethora of pop-up ads, a popular ad format in the early 21st century, that were being served to users is somewhat understandable. But, in any case, the inception and growing use of ad blockers had put a damper on the concept of ‘free web’. 

The situation has changed drastically today, in the sense that now we have multiple solutions that can deal with ad blockers, one of which is AdRecover. 

We were curious about what actually happens when AdRecover comes into play, as must be a lot of publishers, so we talked to Sharad Yadav from AdPushup. Sharad has experience in the Adblock industry and building demand for it. Sharad shared some really important information about AdRecover and its role in the ad tech industry. 

Let’s start with a bit of history about AdRecover. 

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How Workarounds for Ad Blockers Came into Being

After AdBlock came into existence in 2002, it was realized that the technology wasn’t actually preventing the downloading of advertisements but was just hiding them. Therefore, in 2006, AdBlock Plus was introduced, which actually blocked ad requests. Today, Adblock and AdBlock Plus are used widely across the globe, with a roughly combined market share of 80-85%

But the digital advertising industry was losing big bucks to this technology and hence, major players, Google to be specific, started paying attention to user intent while advertising. This ensured that ads were minimally intrusive and didn’t hamper page experience. 

In 2011, AdBlock Plus also came up with the ‘Acceptable Ads’ program, which made sure that not all advertisers or ads were automatically blacklisted. Soon after, AdRecover came into being, since acceptable ads initiative wasn’t enough to deal with the case of ad blockers. 

How AdRecover found a Middle-Ground between Users and Publishers

Sharad started by explaining that demography is of significance when we talk about monetizing adblocked inventory. 

Let’s define geographies as tier 1, which includes the US, Canada, and UK, tier 2 that comprises mostly Europe region, and Tier 3 comprising the APAC region. 

The Adblock use rate is on the higher side in tier 1 geos- averaging roughly between 15-20%. Whereas in tier 2 geographies, it ranges from 8-15%, and the use rate is lowest in the tier 3 geo, where it is generally seen to be <5-8%.

Sharad then went on to talk about what exactly AdRecover does. 

Ad blockers’ primary job is to prevent harmful links and bots, in addition to ads, on a user’s inventory. Ad recovery then sells that blocked part of the inventory as ‘premium quality inventory’. This way, only high quality ads will be displayed to the user. This key point is building a large pool of demand by educating the demand partners about the value of this quality traffic, mostly with millennial audiences.

AdRecover is basically a solution that works in conjunction with AdBlock to open up blocked inventory to premium buyers. 

What are some important features of AdPushup’s AdRecover solution? Are there any features that make our product standout?

In addition to losing revenue, bad user experience is also a major challenge faced by publishers due to ad blockers. For example, ad blocking technology at times isn’t able to distinguish between widgets or social plugins and ads and it blocks them as well. This highly affects the user interface, thereby leading to a poor page experience. 

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According to Sharad, improving user experience is one of the most important features of AdPushup’s AdBlock Recovery solution. 

“Our AdRecover solution is a pro-user solution in the sense that we take care of user experience by making sure all acceptable ads compliance are met in real time. Moreover, we ensure that ads are non-intrusive which is an important factor for keeping the user experience smooth.”

“In addition to this, our Adblock traffic measurement is a powerful analytics solution when we talk about unlocking insights into audience demographics.”

What does the future look like for AdPushup’s AdBlock Recovery Solution?

Sharad told us that some new plans are definitely underway for improving our current offering. 

“We are on our way to roll out major features such as support for publisher’s direct sold inventory on their Adblocked traffic and efficient management of publisher’s unfilled inventory on Adblock. Furthermore, a major revamp is underway where reporting is concerned to help publishers understand more about their users.”

Final Thoughts

While ad recovery may currently seem like a small segment of the ad tech industry, at the end of the day, publishers can significantly improve their earning potential by leveraging this solution. Moreover, AdBlock recovery is an essential solution in the sense that it helps in keeping the internet free for users, while also providing a way for publishers to earn revenue.

AdPushup is certainly looking into enhancing its AdBlock recovery solution in order to offer publishers a technology that is best suited to their needs. 

If you still have any queries about ad recovery or AdPushup’s AdBlock Recovery solution, you can contact Sharad at sharad.yadav@adpushup.com or reach us directly at blog@adpushup.com. 

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