Ad blockers are a growing challenge for publishers who rely on display ads for revenue. Nearly half of all internet users run ad blockers, which can substantially impact ad income. This widespread usage affects revenue and can also cause issues with scripts—even in your WordPress admin panel.
Advanced Ads offers several solutions to help you address this challenge. In this tutorial, I’ll explain how ad blockers impact your monetization strategies and how to use Advanced Ads to minimize revenue losses.
I’ll cover different options, including a technical fix for ad blockers, fallback ads, overlays, and even more assertive measures like redirecting users who block ads. By using these features, you can reduce the impact of ad blockers and protect your ad income.
Table of Contents
What is an ad blocker?
Ad blockers are software applications or browser extensions that prevent ads from appearing on websites, videos, and apps. They act as digital filters, blocking various ad formats, including banner ads, popups, and video ads. These tools reduce distractions, speed up browsing, and decrease data usage. However, ad blockers sometimes block non-advertising content, which can affect the functionality of some websites.
How ad blockers work
Ad blockers function through a multi-step process that filters and blocks ad-related content before it loads on a webpage.
- Filter lists: Ad blockers use pre-defined rules and filter lists containing information about known ad elements. These lists are regularly updated to keep pace with new ad formats and sources.
- HTTP request interception: When you visit a website, your browser sends requests to retrieve various resources, including ads. Ad blockers intercept these requests before they reach the ad server.
- Content scanning: Some ad blockers scan a website’s HTML content to detect advertising patterns.
- Element hiding: For ads that can’t be blocked at the request level, ad blockers inject a stylesheet to hide them from view by setting them to display:none.
- Script blocking: Many ad blockers can disable JavaScript, which ad networks often use to load ads.
Why do your users have ad blockers?
Understanding why users install ad blockers helps in addressing their concerns while maintaining ad revenue. According to Forbes, the most common reasons are:
- Ad quantity: Users are overwhelmed by excessive ads on a single page.
- Annoyance: Visitors perceive ads as annoying or irrelevant.
- Intrusiveness: Users feel that ads invade their browsing experience.
- Performance impact: Ads can slow down page loading times.
- Privacy concerns: Users are wary of personalized ads tracking their online behavior.
While some websites misuse ads with intrusive placements designed to generate accidental clicks, ad blockers don’t differentiate between abusive and legitimate sites. This indiscriminate blocking affects websites that rely on ad revenue to produce valuable content. Users often don’t realize that ad blockers impact more than clicks—they also affect CPM (cost-per-thousand impressions) revenue models and brand awareness campaigns.
Therefore, a successful monetization strategy for a website requires balancing user concerns with sustaining ad-supported content.
Ad blocker disguise
This feature of Advanced Ads improves the likelihood of ads displaying even when an ad blocker is active. While it can’t unblock external scripts from sources like Google AdSense, Google Ad Manager, or other third-party ad services, it ensures that Advanced Ads scripts and static content continue to function correctly, increasing the chance that ads are not detected and blocked.
How to activate the Ad blocker disguise:
- Go to Advanced Ads > Settings > General > Ad blocker
- Scroll down to ‘Ad blocker disguise’ and check the box to activate the module
- Select “Rebuild asset folder”
- Save the Settings page
How the Ad blocker disguise works
This feature is available in the free version of Advanced Ads. It relocates all plugin scripts that an ad blocker could detect into a new, randomly named folder. Advanced Ads automatically updates this folder during plugin updates. However, periodically renaming the folder is a good idea to prevent browsers from caching outdated versions.
When to disable this feature
If the Ad blocker disguise doesn’t improve ad visibility or if you’re already using a plugin that renames scripts—such as caching or minifying plugins like Autoptimize or WP Rocket—I recommend turning off this option, as these plugins achieve a similar effect.
Ads for ad blockers
Displaying unblockable content to visitors using ad-blocking software effectively reduces revenue loss caused by ad blockers. The two methods explained in this tutorial section are particularly effective and, from my point of view, the most elegant ways to address this challenge because they allow you to present ads without users realizing they’re viewing a specially designed ad setup.
Both approaches work by preventing the display of ads that ad blockers can recognize. Instead, they allow you to incorporate ads that ad blockers cannot identify. Depending on your website’s content, you might consider monetizing this traffic through affiliate marketing. For example, you can integrate affiliate links or banners promoting products relevant to the content instead of using Google AdSense units.
If your niche doesn’t offer suitable alternatives with another ad network, explore other options, such as promoting newsletter subscriptions, social media channels, paid memberships, or your own products. Really, anything is more productive than a blocked AdSense ad. Testing internal ads enhances your current situation and opens up new revenue streams.
Ad Blocker fallback ads
Advanced Ads Pro offers a feature that detects visitors using ad blockers and displays alternative, unblocked content. Once activated, you can select fallback ads for each placement by choosing from your existing ads or ad groups.
To enable the Ad Blocker fallback feature, go to Advanced Ads > Settings > Ad Blocker and activate the “Ads for ad blockers” module. After that, you can select alternative content in the placement settings.
For placements that appear multiple times on the same page—such as repeated injections within your content or manually placed ads using the Advanced Ads block—I recommend using an ad group with several fallback ads. This approach ensures that visitors with ad blockers see varied ads across different placements, reducing the likelihood of banner blindness.
Adblocker visitor condition
A more targeted approach than using ad blocker items at the placement level is to control ad delivery directly at the ad level using the dedicated Adblocker Visitor Condition. This approach is beneficial if your website utilizes placements and ad groups with different ad types that ad blockers don’t readily identify as ads. Alternatively, you can use this condition to hide specific ads from users with active ad blockers without showing a fallback.
One everyday use case is an affiliate site that rotates between non-blocked affiliate ads and Google AdSense ads. Instead of setting up ad blocker fallbacks for each placement, you can use the Visitor Condition to hide AdSense ads from users with ad blockers and display a different ad instead.
This condition is especially useful when your ad groups contain ads from various ad types. By detecting which ads are blocked, you can set conditions to display these ads only to users without an active ad blocker. If an ad blocker is detected, Advanced Ads will automatically serve an alternative ad from the group to monetize this impression.
The Adblocker Visitor Condition works like other Visitor Conditions, allowing you to control ad visibility based on the presence of an ad blocker. For example, you can use it to hide anchor ads for users with active ad blockers.
Important: Enable Cache Busting to ensure that Visitor Conditions work reliably on cached pages.
Ad blocker overlay
Ad blocker overlays detect users with ad blockers and display a message explaining the situation. The aim is simple: ask users to create an exception in their ad blocker to allow ads on your site.
Websites handle this in different ways. Some show a message that users can close and continue browsing. Others take a stricter approach, blocking content access until the visitor grants the exception. Sometimes, sites have moved to subscription models, offering an ad-free experience for a monthly fee.
The challenge is to convey this message concisely. In reality, most users won’t take the time to understand the details or create exceptions for their favorite sites. If the warning is too intrusive, they may leave the site and look for alternatives.
Before using an ad blocker overlay, consider whether your content is unique and valuable enough to justify this approach. It might also be worth trying when a high percentage of your audience uses ad blockers, and you believe some might disable them to access your content.
To activate an overlay for ad blocker users in Advanced Ads, go to Advanced Ads > Settings > Ad Blocker and scroll down to Ad blocker countermeasures. Choose “Overlay,” then customize the content, layout, and functionality, including options for a close button, excluded user roles, and the frequency of the overlay’s appearance.
Ad blocker redirect
The ad blocker redirect method offers an alternative to displaying a popup notification. Advanced Ads automatically redirects visitors using ad blockers to a specified page when you enable this option. This page can explain how ad blockers threaten your website’s revenue and ask users to add your site to their exceptions.
However, redirecting is a bold approach. It interrupts the user’s experience, which can feel intrusive and lead to frustration. Consider this method only if ad blockers significantly impact your revenue model and your content is unique enough that users cannot easily find alternatives.
To set up a redirect for ad blocker users, go to Advanced Ads > Settings > Ad Blocker and scroll down to Ad blocker countermeasures. Choose Redirection, then enter the page URL to which you want to redirect users. You can also define exceptions for specific user roles.
Ad blocker counter: Analyze how many users have an ad blocker enabled
The ad blocker counter in Advanced Ads helps you understand how many visitors use ad-blocking software on your site. This data is integrated with Google Analytics, allowing you to track how often users with ad blockers visit your pages.
However, it’s essential to approach these numbers with caution. Many ad blockers also block Google Analytics scripts, meaning Google won’t count those users as visitors. As a result, the data doesn’t provide a reliable percentage of your audience using ad blockers. Instead, it offers a rough estimate that is useful for internal comparisons, such as analyzing click behavior on non-blocked ads.
Enter your Google Analytics ID in Advanced Ads > Settings > Ad Blocker to start tracking this segment.
To analyze this user group in Google Analytics, go to the events section of your Google Analytics report and look for the “Ad Block” event. The page views of these users are categorized as an event alongside other Advanced Ads entries.
Advanced Ads records every page a user views with an activated ad blocker as a single event in the counter. If such a user navigates through three pages on your website, you’ll notice three AdBlock events in your reports. Evaluating the number of visitors with ad blockers allows you to make informed decisions on addressing this audience.
Tips to make your ads more resilient against ad blockers
Ad blockers are constantly evolving, but there are several strategies to increase the chances of displaying your ads. You can minimize detection and improve your ad visibility by adjusting.
Host your banners locally
Using locally hosted image ads or custom HTML code that doesn’t rely on external content can make your ads less likely to be blocked. This approach avoids the common patterns ad blockers look for in third-party ad networks.
Use unsuspicious file names
Avoid using obvious terms like ‘ad’ or ‘banner’ in your image file names. For example, instead of naming an image ‘banner728x90.jpg,’ choose a less conspicuous name, such as ‘hrs42352.jpg.’ This simple change reduces the likelihood of ad blockers recognizing the file as an ad.
Change prefixes
Advanced Ads includes two settings that add strings to your ads. Although these strings are necessary for certain functionalities, ad blockers could potentially target them.
ID prefix
Some frontend features require a static ID and a prefix to identify elements. You can configure this prefix in Advanced Ads > Settings > General > ID prefix.
By default, Advanced Ads generates this prefix from the first five letters of your URL. However, if your site is added to an ad blocker list, the prefix may also be targeted. In that case, consider changing it to a random string to bypass the block.
Click-link base
The link masking feature provided by the Tracking add-on generates a dynamic URL for monitoring link performance.
You can adjust this setting under Advanced Ads > Settings > Tracking > Click-link base.
If you notice that ad blockers affect your links, try changing this value to something less predictable.
These adjustments can enhance your ads’ resilience against ad blockers, but remember that no method is foolproof. Regularly monitoring your ad performance is key to maintaining ad visibility.
How to check if you are using an ad blocker
It’s not always apparent if an ad blocker is active on your device. Many users only realize they have one when they encounter a warning about potential issues it’s causing.
Advanced Ads displays warnings for the most common ad blockers in the backend and in the Ad Health tab of the admin bar in the frontend.
Here are some familiar places to check for ad blockers:
- Browser extensions: Ad blockers are often installed as browser extensions. Look for popular ones like AdBlock, AdBlock Plus, or uBlock.
- Privacy extensions: Some privacy-focused extensions, such as Ghostery, also include ad-blocking features.
- Anti-virus or firewall software: Certain anti-virus programs or firewalls have built-in ad blockers.
- Company firewall: In rare cases, a workplace firewall may block ads.
Try using a different browser to check if an ad blocker is active. If the ads appear there, it’s likely due to an extension or setting in your usual browser.
Technical limitations of ad blocker detection
Ad blockers and scripts are constantly evolving to keep up with changes in the advertising industry. Additionally, there are countless browser extensions designed to suppress or block ads. As a result, the ad blocker features in Advanced Ads may not work perfectly with every extension. Therefore, the plugin might not identify a small percentage of users with certain ad blockers.
I’ve tested the ad blocker features with several popular ad blockers, and they work as intended with most of these solutions.
Despite these limitations, targeting ad-blocker-resistant ads recovers missed ad impressions and monetizes otherwise lost opportunities. While some users may still bypass these measures, they wouldn’t have seen any ads without these features anyway.
Conclusion
Publishers face dynamic challenges when dealing with ad blockers. Nearly half of internet users actively block ads, directly impacting ad revenue. This widespread use of ad blockers demands a strategic approach tailored to different advertising setups.
Advanced Ads is an all-in-one solution and offers a comprehensive toolkit to address ad blockers in multiple ways. Whether you need to disguise ads, display fallback content, or engage users with overlays or redirects, Advanced Ads provides the right tools for every scenario. Its range of features ensures that you can effectively minimize revenue losses while maintaining user experience no matter your advertising strategy.
By understanding the motivations behind ad blocker usage and strategically deploying Advanced Ads’ features, publishers can strike the right balance between respecting user preferences and sustaining ad-supported content. This flexibility makes Advanced Ads the ideal toolset for overcoming the complex challenges of ad blockers and securing long-term monetization success.