Acceptable Ads by the Numbers: Interesting data about Acceptable Ads

Acceptable Ads has an important value proposition, namely to facilitate a sustainable value exchange between publishers and ad-blocker users. This ecosystem is made up of various parties, including users, publishers, advertisers, solution providers and authorities, all working together toward a better web and a fair alternative to the current state of affairs.

But how relevant is Acceptable Ads in today’s online landscape? In this article, we take a look at the numbers in each of these diverse groups.

Let’s start with users:

• Acceptable Ads reaches up to 200 million users on desktop and mobile across the world.
• YouGov Adblock User Report found that over 80% of UK online users and 71% of US online users understand the importance of advertising for a free internet.
• GlobalWebIndex (Q3 2018) found that the ad-blocking rate for users between the ages of 16-44 ranges between 20-32%

The acceptance of nonintrusive ads that respect user experience means that not all internet users hate ads, or at least are not against all forms of advertisement. This, coupled with the high percentage of users in the most valuable user-demographic groups, is why more and more publishers are looking to monetize the ad-blocking audience.

Thus, we turn to publishers:

• There are approximately 13,000 websites benefiting  from Acceptable Ads.
• Approximately 90% of the websites benefiting from Acceptable Ads do so without being charged a fee.

Many of these publishers are able to profit from Acceptable Ads thanks to participating solution providers:

• There are currently 12 solutions participating which can directly support publishers to join Acceptable Ads:
  • AAX
  • AdRecover
  • Blockthrough
  • Carbon/BuysellAds
  • CodeFund
  • Criteo
  • Dianomi
  • Outbrain
  • Relap/Surfingbird
  • RevContent
  • Sovrn
  • Taboola

This brings us to the authorities:

• The Acceptable Ads Committee (AAC), which is the regulating authority behind Acceptable Ads, is comprised of roughly 40 different companies, organizations and individuals.
• The AAC has 3 Representative Groups, namely, the User Advocate Coalition, a For-Profit Coalition and an Expert Coalition.
• There are a total of 11 Representatives across the Representative Groups.
• The number of entities per Member Group is capped at 50. The Facilitator may decide to lift this cap upon the request of a Member Group.
• There are 2 in-person AAC meetings a year with representatives only, and four quarterly check-in calls with all members.

Lastly, but definitely not least, are advertisers, a group where numbers are almost impossible to count; therefore, we become a little philosophical:

• There is no limit to the number of brands in the world that could benefit from Acceptable Ads, so long as they are buying their ad space from participating publishers, and/or via a participating solution provider.

So there you have it. Five participant groups of Acceptable Ads, working together toward growing an ecosystem that provides a sustainable and profitable web for the future. It is this synergy between participants that distinguishes Acceptable Ads as truly innovative and collaborative.

This article is intended as a guideline only, and none of the statements constitute approval for allowlisting. All applications must be considered and approved by eyeo on a case-by-case basis.