Online publishers often see ad-blocking visitors as freeloaders or worse. Companies such as Saas Labs, however, hope their products can turn this ad-hating group into something more than a lost opportunity.
To combat ad blocking software, publishers have typically employed pop-ups, pay-walls or required subscriptions from ad blocking visitors to keep their content where they can monetize it – behind their paywall – and turning away those who won’t play by those rules.
Gaurav Sharma, the founder and CEO of Saas Labs, said using these barriers are effective ways to keep content from leaking out for free, “but not effective in recovering the loss of revenue that just happened because of ad blocking. Across the industry, all the websites that have adopted content blocking methods are witnessing a steep fall in traffic and page views.”
SaaS Labs, a start-up studio based in New Delhi with an office in Delaware, recently released a tool called AdLatch that, instead of asking web visitors to change their ad block settings or pay for a subscription, seeks to drive different kinds of value during that engagement.
“We provide bloggers and content sites with a set of tools that will engage with these adblock-using visitors,” Sharma said. Instead of slamming the gate or asking for a change in browsing behaviour, AdLatch might solicit a subscription to a newsletter, ask for social media mentions to spread the word about a publisher, or request a donation in exchange for access to content.
“The basic principle behind AdLatch is to not piss off the ad block-using visitors, but engage with them,” said Sharma. “This is the only way you can extract the lost value of their visit.”
“With AdLatch, you can subscribe this visitor to your newsletter and through the newsletter you can monetize this user via an ebook sale, sponsored content and much more,” Sharma said. “Also, through social sharing, these adblocker-using visitors send traffic to your site which results in some ad-revenue. Last but not the least, donation buttons will also help you generate some extra revenue.”
Not only are ad block users a growing segment of the online population, but experts say they are a valueable one. “These are, as far as I can tell, the only people on the web who you can be guaranteed are human beings. They’re not bots,” said Dr. Johnny Ryan, head of ecosystem at PageFair, speaking at Marketing‘s AdTech Canada conference in April.
“Secondly, they’re seeing no other ads,” Ryan said. “These are real humans who have attention. Such a person has not existed on the web for 20 years, and the publisher is pushing them away.”
AdLatch is now available to publishers around the world following a two-month closed beta. It currently boasts a user base that includes 3,000 blogs with a combined 10 million visitors per day. “To our surprise, on average, 30% of visitors have ad blockers enabled,” said Sharma.
Publishers can use AdLatch free of charge for their first one million page views, with premium services — such as customization, layouts promising higher conversion rates and VIP-level support — available for a monthly or annual fee.
