PageFair Blog

Wikipedia is a great example of where donations DO work. I couldn't imagine an internet without it, and I'm happy to donate and support it. Sadly the data suggests that for most websites donations are not a viable alternative to ads. Some numbers here: http://blog.pagefair.com/2014/introducing-pagefair-ads/ I think the challenge is that we use many different websites every day. I've probably visited sites today that I've never been to before and will never visit again. These guys are not getting a donation from me. Maybe the future internet will consist of a small number of donation-supported sites, but wouldn't it be sad to lose all this variety?

Ad blocking has already become widely used. Adblock Plus, the most popular ad block extension, reports over 150k downloads per day. Adblock (not affiliated with ABP) also reports over 20 million users. Adblocking in general is growing over 43% per year. We aim to educate the internet about adblocking. You can read more here- http://blog.pagefair.com

I would strongly recommend reading what Pagefair has been putting. They have been one of the few sources I've found that is take GDPR literally. It isn't even clear what level Google's compliance will be - https://pagefair.com/blog/2018/googles-nonpersonal-ads/ There are a lot of extremely serious questions that arise regarding network security, anti-fraud, and anti-abuse measures. Just looking at basic bot detection measures, all of the sophisticated methods are now illegal. It certainly requires a major re-think of how websites serve content as well as the sustainability of advertising as a revenue channel. I can't even wrap my head around how someone would run a GDPR-compliant dating website/app. If you think Pagefair's interpretations of the GDPR are correct then Google and others are calling the EU's bluff. They are implementing part of the GDPR strictly but the parts which invalidate their business models are being interpreted more liberally or ignored altogether. I'm not saying that the GDPR is a good idea, bad idea, morally right or wrong. Rather, a lot of things we have come to view as a given -- such as how we detects bots, fraud, and abuse -- are no longer valid. Infrastructure, both technical and business, will need to be re-designed either to comply with the GDPR or evade it.

I don't disagree with the finer points in your argument, and I'm a big advocate for paying for services directly as a personal choice. It's perhaps a semantic issue, but the invisible hand seems to be working as expected in this case. From the article: > Consumers, today more than at any time in the past, are starting to question the value of content online and whether or not it’s worth the trade offs. In their eyes, it’s increasingly difficult to justify their interaction with ads. In the last couple of years adblocking has gone from a fringe thing to do, to mainstream adoption [1]. This is absolutely the sort of consumer action that the 'invisible hand' serves as a metaphor for, and it is disciplining the market. Apple touting adblocking as a feature of iOS 9 is another example of market forces working to chasten advertisers and publishers for asking too much from consumers. So is AMP and Blendle, so is the rise of HBO, Hulu Plus and Netflix, so was the commercial skip button on TiVo. All of these have emerged because a sizable enough number of consumers demanded an alternative and the 'invisible hand' guided businesses to answer these demands. The author is not capitulating for any reason other than that current adtech approaches on the web are losing their market viability, and the number of consumers that are reaching their limit is steadily increasing. [1] 41% increase in 2015 alone. https://pagefair.com/blog/2015/ad-blocking-report/

The assertion is 100% correct. There are other reports out there & some of them do great breakdowns of click volume, click costs, click values & so on ... based on things like: device type (desktop vs tablet vs cell phones, or even across operating systems), branded keywords vs unbranded keywords, text ads vs PLAs/shopping ads, etc. There are many such reports, but the SEM company which regularly puts out the best report on this front is RKG (which was bought out by Merkle last year http://www.merkleinc.com/news-and-events/press-releases/2014/merkle-ac… and even after the buyout is still putting out great reports each quarter). RKG's most recent report is downloadable here http://www.rimmkaufman.com/digital-marketing-report/ & it is something I read (and recommend) every quarter. :) In the report, they stated they saw Google dramatically increase minimum CPC on own brand keywords over the past year, that brand keyword cost was up 39% YoY, and that Google was now charging brands more for clicks on their own brand terms than Bing does. You can see a quick review of their report here http://searchengineland.com/us-paid-search-growing-but-at-slower-rate-… And there might be multiple factors in Google showing fewer ads. Some general assertions and/or hypothesis on potential drivers... A rise in minimum CPCs on brand keywords might block out some of the lower value 3rd party arbitrage on the branded…

Yea, but I don't want to turn into the [Acceptable Ads Committee](https://pagefair.com/blog/2017/eyeos-toothless-acceptable-ads-committe…

> it means they accept that chrome is largely used by power users who can install these You're making a very big assumption here. Last I checked people who blocked ads counted in the hundreds of millions and the number was growing rapidly. Some old stats I found with a quick search: https://pagefair.com/blog/2017/adblockreport/ > 615 million devices now use adblock 11% of the global internet population is blocking ads on the web Adblock usage grew 30% globally in 2016 Mobile adblock usage grew by 108 million to reach 380 million devices Desktop adblock usage grew by 34 million to reach 236 million devices

It looks like growth started to stagnate somewhere during 2017 - https://pagefair.com/downloads/2016/05/Adblocking-Goes-Mobile.pdf - https://pagefair.com/downloads/2017/01/PageFair-2017-Adblock-Report.pd…

But is everyone really using ad-blockers? I thought it was obvious, like you, I mean, why wouldn't people use ad-blockers and keep living inside a garbage typhoon? Then, I saw some "studies" [1] saying the total of users relying on ad-blockers is ridiculous, like not even 1/5. It's baffling but seems like most people are still struggling against pop-ups. [1] https://pagefair.com/downloads/2017/01/PageFair-2017-Adblock-Report.pd… (If this study lies, what wouldn't surprised me to the slightest, it would be by inflating the numbers, considering they sell counter-measures.)

I mentioned for example that "Notice that AdWords comply if all “personalization” features are removed for example. This included things like “remarketing”. I suspect that AdWords when it was first created in 2000 did not have these features. " and linked to https://pagefair.com/blog/2017/gdpr_risk_to_the_duopoly/

Yes, this is (finally) correct. For each external tracker, you will have to consent that use. By name. Per discussions you can find via google, even naming a well-defined class of 3rd party controllers is not enough; they have to be individually named. This is the impact on adtech. See eg https://pagefair.com/blog/2018/granular-gdpr-consent/ . Or digiday, which is not exactly anti-adtech. https://digiday.com/media/gdpr-will-change-facebook-ad-targeting/ . The fact that some page may have hundreds of co-controllers is immaterial, unless you envision "we don't want to" as a defense to the privacy regulators.

I think a few blogs have touched on this: * https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/nightmare-letter-subject-access-request… * https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/02/gdpr-for-web-developers/ * https://wtfuh.com/2018-04-09/gdpr-has-a-few-problems/ * https://pagefair.com/blog/2018/granular-gdpr-consent/

No it will not. For consent it is explicitly forbiden to use legal / technical speech and you can't cascade it. Allowing you to use my data has nothing to do with you giving my data to google. The more 3rd party "providers" the more fishy will your site look. And you can bet the user wont give consent for 100 tick boxes - you can't pretick them, it needs to be opt-in. And this is the reason: https://www.paypal.com/ie/webapps/mpp/ua/third-parties-list This might help: https://pagefair.com/blog/2018/granular-gdpr-consent/

As always, thanks for the very thorough write up. My immediate thoughts were highlighted in the "Discussion" section. Namely, the demographic of your website might respond more negatively to the presence of ads than the general population. This seems to be substantiated by the unusually high use of ad blockers (~60% vs ~18% [1]). I also wonder if some of the drop off could be explained by the use of Patreon and ads. For instance, I would never pay for Hulu because they still show ads. Did you receive any Patreon cancellations or negative feedback from pledged users? [1] US ad block usage as of Feb 2017 https://pagefair.com/blog/2017/adblockreport/

Numbers: https://pagefair.com/downloads/2017/01/PageFair-2017-Adblock-Report.pd… "Adblock users in the US are 1.5x as likely to have a bachelor’s degree than the average American adult, increasing to 3x as likely among 18-24 year olds. Pronounced adblock usage among college-age respondents points to campuses as a major vector for adblock adoption." Personally, I think being online without ad-blockers, VPN, and AV is like having public, unprotected sex with strangers.

That would make sense, as PageFair is an ad network: https://pagefair.com/about-us/

Don't forget the rising rates of adblock shifting which demographics actually see the ads. https://pagefair.com/downloads/2017/01/PageFair-2017-Adblock-Report.pd…

This is such a giant genie to try to put back into the bottle with Adblock usage growing 30% last year and accounting for 10-12% of total worldwide users. How do you convince those people to worsen their experience - but only slightly - toward the noble goal of letting content producers monetize? Or do advertisers just consider that a lost cause at this point? The real question is whether Chrome will get more draconian and start preventing competing ad blockers in the browser. [1] https://pagefair.com/blog/2017/adblockreport/

Actually, number of people using ad-blockers has more than doubled between 2015 and 2016 according to the PageFair report [1]. [1] https://pagefair.com/blog/2016/mobile-adblocking-report/

> Amp is currently a mobile only thing, and most users on mobile are not blocking ads. Most users anywhere are not blocking ads, adblocking by its nature as a non-default option and something you have to know how to do will most likely never be the thing that "most users do". However, the idea that people on mobile do not block ads is just false: https://pagefair.com/blog/2017/adblockreport/ Worldwide, there are almost 150m more mobile adblock users than desktop adblock users. The trend of only blocking ads on your desktop is largely a North American phenomenon. I can't speak to whether or not AMP is designed to try and stem this tide or not, but I can say without a doubt that mobile adblock is exploding, especially when considering the worldwide market, and that publishers are probably very nervous about this.

I think it's important to note that the 30% increase claim comes from PageFair (https://pagefair.com/blog/2017/adblockreport/), which is a company that helps other companies bypass adblocker and still have ads on their site (ostensibly in a much less offensive manner). They have an active interest in (over)estimating very agressively about the growth of adblockers -- it's their business model.

This[1] is from a year ago, before ad-blocking became widely available on mobile, and they're still looking at hundreds of millions of users using adblockers. I don't know how reputable PageFair is, but they estimate more than 20% of smartphone users are adblocking now[2]. [1] http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/10/study-of-ad-blocking-software… [2] https://pagefair.com/blog/2016/mobile-adblocking-report/

> https://blog.pagefair.com/2015/ad-blocking-report/ Can anyone shed light on the relatively widespread adoption of ad blocking software in Poland and Greece? A cursory search doesn't indicate any particular bandwidth or cost constraints.

Long-term, I am not very bullish on Google/Alphabet. More than 90% of their profits come online advertising, something that can be easily blocked for life with a simple browser extension/plugin. Some worrying figures[1]: * US ad blocking grew by 48% to reach 45 million active users in 12 months up to June 2015. * Ad blocking grew by 41% globally in the last 12 months. * US ad blocking grew by 48% to reach 45 million active users in 12 months up to June 2015. [1] https://blog.pagefair.com/2015/ad-blocking-report/

But what's the prevalence of people installing ad blockers? None of my non-techie friends do it, and many of my techie friends willfully choose not to (moral reasons). Edit: I'll answer that for myself: as of 2015, about 15% of US internet users had ad blocking software[1]. Much higher than I expected. [1] https://blog.pagefair.com/2015/adblock-explorer/

This is illegal under EU law:https://blog.pagefair.com/2015/despite-the-hype-isp-adblocking-is-a-no… What makes it illegal is Deep Packet Inspection.

It is still a minority of users (though this varies a lot by demographic). PageFair's annual reports are very thorough if you are looking for stats: https://blog.pagefair.com/2015/ad-blocking-report/

As linked above: http://blog.pagefair.com/2015/halloween-security-breach/ So, that part is there. Note that the site posted is not the site that was affected by the breach.

Just to be clear, you should be impressed with pagefair, not the economist. The PF blog has even more information with a no BS mea culpa that would make your grandmother proud: http://blog.pagefair.com/2015/halloween-security-breach/ "If you are a publisher using our free analytics service, you have good reason to be very angry and disappointed with us right now. For 83 minutes last night, the PageFair analytics service was compromised by hackers, who succeeded in getting malicious javascript to execute on websites via our service"

Up to 25% of the population in some countries: http://blog.pagefair.com/2014/adblocking-report/