Ad-Shield has become a Google MCM Partner.

Usually, this is great news. For the adblocking recovery space, it’s AWESOME. 🥳

To put this into context, a few years ago this couldn’t have happened. A premium partner such as Google would never have agreed to provide demand for “reintroduced” (non-Acceptable Ads) adblocked inventory.

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Why?

• It wasn’t technically feasible
• Adblocked inventory had a worthless reputation

Today, things have moved on. Google sees the value of our approach and the legitimacy of the opportunity. It’s been validated, for a few reasons.

Firstly, the balance of power to bypass adblockers has technically shifted in favor of publishers rather than adblockers. Secondly, eyeo — through the Acceptable Ads initiative — has proven that serving ads to adblocker users is both valuable and welcome. Thirdly, the scale of the problem facing publishers is too significant to ignore: over 70% of adblocked page views are now considered dark traffic and not compatible with Acceptable Ads.

Put another way: billions of dollars are lost due to dark traffic each year, by 700m+ coveted consumers willing to see user-friendly ads — but aren’t… yet.

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Time to change that.

To do so, we are approaching the situation thoughtfully as good actors, with sustainability as a top priority. We understand the context of why consumers use brutal adblockers (the cause of dark traffic) and are committed to reintroducing ads to this audience on mutually agreeable terms. To achieve this, we’re developing an internal standard — Allowable Ads— that is more stringent than the Better Ads standard.

Complementing this, Google’s MCM approval is a major leap towards giving publishers the capability to monetize the majority of their adblocked inventory effectively — reclaiming 14-21% in lost revenue on average (sometimes much more).

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What does this mean?

Publishers can now monetize their dark traffic sustainably with AdX demand. An industry first!

💡 Dark traffic is the 70%+ of adblocked page views not compatible with Acceptable Ads or adblock walls

Publishers who use Ad-Shield have two options to serve ads to their dark traffic:

1. Use existing ad stack
2. Use Ad-Shield Demand

If a publisher chooses to use Ad-Shield Demand, AdX is now part of the demand mix.

This is already dramatically boosting RPMs for publishers, due to the market-leading scale that Google brings to the table

To discuss how you can benefit from this, feel free to contact your Ad-Shield account representative, or, get in touch here.