This blog was updated with the latest information in 2024. Originally published in 2022
Acceptable Ads was first implemented into Adblock Plus to take the user-centric pieces of ad blocking (user choice, control, better online experience) and balance that with the needs of stakeholders like publishers and advertisers to fund content.
Now Acceptable Ads is the default advertising standard for multiple ad blockers and browsers and reaches approximately 300 million global ad-filtering users (someone who uses an ad blocker but is open to seeing light, nonintrusive advertisements). But a lot has changed since its inception. Acceptable Ads has become more than a set of rules, it has transformed into a thriving independent ecosystem.
The Acceptable Ads ecosystem refers to all the contributors, standards and economies that have grown around the original concept of Acceptable Ads. This ecosystem puts into action the ultimate vision of a fair and profitable web where ad-filtering users only see respectful and nonintrusive advertisements, publishers can monetize their content and advertisers can tap into a receptive audience.
A central part of the ecosystem is the Acceptable Ads Standard, which is designed for users who prefer a lighter online ad experience. This standard respects user experience by not bombarding them with annoying advertising formats, while still providing significant value to all stakeholders in this ecosystem: users, publishers, brands, agencies and ad-tech vendors. Acceptable Ads is a set of criteria defined by the independent Acceptable Ads Committee (established in 2017). The criteria include ad size, format, placement and labeling. If all the criteria are met then an ad is compliant with the Acceptable Ads Standard and is shown to ad-blocking and ad-filtering users who have consented to see Acceptable Ads from their ad blocker or browser.
The evolution of Acceptable Ads has enabled more ad blockers and browsers to participate and provide an attractive feature to their users while enabling publishers and advertisers to monetize this audience. Innovative solution providers joined with a myriad of services and products to enable that value exchange. Here are the stakeholders within the ecosystem, at a glance.
The independent Acceptable Ads Committee governs the Acceptable Ads Standard, which curates nonintrusive but effective ad formats that can be allowed for ad-blocking and ad-filtering users. This standard is based on continual research and testing of ad experiences among users who use an ad blocker. The Acceptable Ads Standard’s primary goal is to deliver ad formats that match and exceed the high expectations of these users.
This committee represents three distinct groups: the User Advocate Coalition, the Expert Coalition and the For-Profit Coalition. Each group has an equal number of votes and the user’s voice and perspective are intrinsic to the mandate and decision-making. These groups have to work together to identify advertising formats that function for all parties, typifying exactly what Acceptable Ads has always been about: a delicate balancing act between user experience and publisher monetization opportunities.
Learn more about the Acceptable Ads Committee
First and foremost, the users within this ecosystem are inherently different from ‘mainstream’ users without an ad blocker. Globally dispersed, on desktop and mobile, ad-filtering users tend to be younger, educated, tech-savvy, employed with a higher-than-average salary and comfortable buying virtually everything online. These users do not respond to annoying or intrusive ad formats and have selected out of that experience by installing an ad blocker.
Stakeholders looking for the right inventory to tailor their creatives to have a meaningful opportunity to drive creative, nonintrusive advertising campaigns for the 300 million ad-filtering users. As mentioned, ad-filtering users constitute a truly unique and valuable advertising audience. Serving ads in an advertising-scarce ecosystem to users who spend more money online leads to a higher return on ad spend (ROAS). Acceptable Ads supports multiple vendors and ad-tech solutions for brands and agencies to launch creative campaigns aimed at this lucrative audience in a low-clutter environment.
For online publishers and other stakeholders who want to sell their inventory, there are multiple solutions to monetize the growing audience who use Acceptable-Ads-supported ad blockers and increase up to 20% more page views.
Publishers can choose different vendors and implementations of Acceptable Ads that are best suited and tailored to their needs. All solutions are easy to implement, and will rapidly optimize the publisher’s audience monetization.
Finally, for ad-tech solution providers there is a wide variety of opportunities available to tap into the Acceptable Ads ecosystem. As of 2024, there are dozens of renowned online advertising industry players, and demand- and supply-side partners, plugged into the ecosystem. Plugging in and connecting the buy and sell sides of advertising has become a rich area for innovation, resulting in a number of new companies that have sprung up to provide value in this space.
The steady rise of ad-blocker installation has caused fragmentation across the online ecosystem. This requires all stakeholders in the digital advertising supply chain to recognize and adapt to this new reality. When it comes to online advertising revenues, users who utilize ad-blocking software are not lost; they are different and have a lower tolerance threshold for annoying ad formats than other users. There are 300 million ad-filtering users who are agreeable to seeing ads.
Acceptable Ads opens a path for a large variety of potential and existing players in online advertising to participate with ad-filtering users in a fair, sustainable, and profitable value exchange.
Learn more about the Standard and the Committee at https://acceptableadscommittee.org