Forcing People To Disable Adblock?
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I think it's a bad idea. It's not that expensive to let them view the content. There's also a lot of secondary benefits beyond an ad impression.
If your site is a viral or news site and everything monetary hinges on display ads, it's still better to let people block ads, because they may be the ones that end up sharing it on their social media accounts or dropping links on forums.
But I'd also say that if your site hinges entirely on display ads, you're living on borrowed time. I don't think it'll ever go away but ultimately more people than not will be blocking ads. I know the Interactive Advertising Bureau is constantly trying to clean up the display ad game, keep it current, and push a smarter usage of ads, like you can read about here.
I know now they're pushing flexible ad size ratios for responsive design along with their old static standards, and also trying to push their new Lean Guidelines to get people to clean up the user experience. Networks like Adsense are adopting both and pushing that on their users too, which is a good thing. They're even setting standards for virtual reality and augmented reality ads. But it may be too late altogether. Most people of a certain age and below despise ads or is ad blind.
But yeah, I wouldn't even mention it or ask people to whitelist me or anything. I'd just hope they share the content or build me a link.
But the reason I don't care is because display ads are only about 10-15% of my overall revenue. It's kind of like getting all of your traffic from Google. If that's the case, your days are numbered. There's way too many other ways to monetize sites these days that are drastically higher ROI and can't be blocked, and users don't want them blocked because they're tied into the value funnel.
If your site is a viral or news site and everything monetary hinges on display ads, it's still better to let people block ads, because they may be the ones that end up sharing it on their social media accounts or dropping links on forums.
But I'd also say that if your site hinges entirely on display ads, you're living on borrowed time. I don't think it'll ever go away but ultimately more people than not will be blocking ads. I know the Interactive Advertising Bureau is constantly trying to clean up the display ad game, keep it current, and push a smarter usage of ads, like you can read about here.
I know now they're pushing flexible ad size ratios for responsive design along with their old static standards, and also trying to push their new Lean Guidelines to get people to clean up the user experience. Networks like Adsense are adopting both and pushing that on their users too, which is a good thing. They're even setting standards for virtual reality and augmented reality ads. But it may be too late altogether. Most people of a certain age and below despise ads or is ad blind.
But yeah, I wouldn't even mention it or ask people to whitelist me or anything. I'd just hope they share the content or build me a link.
But the reason I don't care is because display ads are only about 10-15% of my overall revenue. It's kind of like getting all of your traffic from Google. If that's the case, your days are numbered. There's way too many other ways to monetize sites these days that are drastically higher ROI and can't be blocked, and users don't want them blocked because they're tied into the value funnel.
LiamGallagher
On my way out of the 9-5
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I hate those sites wholeheartedly.
Who do they think they are trying to force me to eat some stupid, irrelevant and intrusive ads? As soon as I see some shady technique to force the visitors, I hit the back button and never come back. There have been some cases where I was really curious to read the info so I disabled JS on my browser and got access to the content anyway.
But seriously, don't do it. It sucks and you'll look like a cheap guy to your visitors-
Who do they think they are trying to force me to eat some stupid, irrelevant and intrusive ads? As soon as I see some shady technique to force the visitors, I hit the back button and never come back. There have been some cases where I was really curious to read the info so I disabled JS on my browser and got access to the content anyway.
But seriously, don't do it. It sucks and you'll look like a cheap guy to your visitors-
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Why not do a loop around? No one likes to be caught red-handed and told what to do after that.
1. Detect if visitor is using an ad blocker
1.5. Use that knowledge!
2. Create an actionable item to serve to visitor
- Block a portion of content to serve a newsletter form (email campaign with ads)
- Ask for a like, share, something!
- Serve a self-hosted ad or product they can buy (related to the content)
Using an ad block detector to do back a visitor up against the wall is just an uninspired (somewhat self-righteous) way of getting back to monetizing your content again.
1. Detect if visitor is using an ad blocker
1.5. Use that knowledge!
2. Create an actionable item to serve to visitor
- Block a portion of content to serve a newsletter form (email campaign with ads)
- Ask for a like, share, something!
- Serve a self-hosted ad or product they can buy (related to the content)
Using an ad block detector to do back a visitor up against the wall is just an uninspired (somewhat self-righteous) way of getting back to monetizing your content again.
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Who do you think YOU are, trying to eat someone's content without even having the decency of loading an ad block for them?
I can't tell you the number of hopeful IM's I know who rely entirely on display ads to make money on their crappy sites who actively use ad block while browsing the web. Will it surprise you at all if I told you that they're all failures?
What kind of "double think" is going on in their heads where they think they can succeed blocking everyone else's ads and expect their own not be blocked?
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@built one thing I thought about this is "sell the ads", by which I mean explain to the reader why they should disable the adblocker for your site.
I've never had a problem with well-targeted ads. If I'm on a car tuning forum and the ads are for new car parts, I've no problem with that at all. They basically become part of the content.
It's when you get interstitials, popups, and 'acai berry' and 'one wierd trick' ads that it pisses people off and makes them use an adblocker. If they know they won't get that on your site, it's very easy for them to whitelist your domain.
I've never had a problem with well-targeted ads. If I'm on a car tuning forum and the ads are for new car parts, I've no problem with that at all. They basically become part of the content.
It's when you get interstitials, popups, and 'acai berry' and 'one wierd trick' ads that it pisses people off and makes them use an adblocker. If they know they won't get that on your site, it's very easy for them to whitelist your domain.
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The best solution would be to serve ads you own, for your own products/brands etc. I'm spending a lot of time creating great content, sharing it via SM, targeting LTKs etc. so I have decent traffic at the moment but I'm not monetizing it because my product is not ready for sale yet. Some will say "you are leaving money on the table"... yes sure, but on the other hand I don't want crap displayed all over my "home". Of course, not all ads are crap, but let's be honest... Most ads/brands are crap. I'm building this business to promote my own products, or products I really like and can charge a good $ for promotion. I'm getting sick when visiting sites and I have to wait till ads are finally loaded (to interact), or when things are jumping around on my screen just becosue some stupid ad isn't loaded yet. As @Ryuzaki have said, all depends on your monetization but personally I woudn't trade few $ for a great perception of my business, at least not right now when I'm trying to settle my brand (in their minds) in a place I want. While 99% of sites in my niche is serving crappy ads for even more crappy products, I'm preparing my own brands and I know that at the end of the day I will beat them on every possible given metric, starting with UX. You @built are based in US and as far as I know you have a lot to do with one of those ever green niches. IMO perfect place to build authority site/brand, then create some product and push it using your own site/s. Fuck adblockers I would say.
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Any site I've come across that does this I avoid in the future if I ever see it again in searches. I'd see this as a hit to long-term traffic. Not exactly the best way to start a relationship.
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Monetize with https://www.reddit.com/r/BATProject/ and focus on quality content if you're that worried