The Little Black

Book of
Ad Blocking

jouncemedia.com
Jounce Media’s Little Black Book series is your
quick reference for all things ad tech. Each book
contains fundamental concepts that underpin the
advertising technology ecosystem. Master the
content in these books, and you’ll be armed to
tackle any digital marketing problem.

For more information about Jounce Media’s ad

tech consulting services, visit jouncemedia.com

© 2018 Jounce Media, LLC All Rights Reserved

 Must-Know Concepts
This book aims to be your ad blocking reference guide. It contains
descriptions of the fundamental concepts that underpin ad
blocking technology and provides an overview of the landscape of
consumer and publisher ad blocking products.
Must-Know Terminology
Throughout the book, we use the following industry-specific
terms to describe the programmatic buying and selling of
advertising inventory:

Ad Tech Foundation Publisher A seller of ad inventory – either a website or

an app. Also referred to as the sell side or the
❑ Programmatic Components supply side.
❑ Third Party Ad Serving
Advertiser A buyer of ad inventory. Also referred to as
❑ Impression Tracking the buy side or the demand side.

Consumer Ad Blocking
Ad Exchange A piece of technology that conducts real-time
❑ Ad Blocking Products and Consumer Adoption auctions for ad inventory. Supply-side
platforms (SSPs) all operate ad exchanges,
❑ Ad Blocking vs. Tracker Blocking
but also have additional pieces of publisher
❑ Connection Refusal & Element Hiding technology.

❑ Filtering Lists
Bidder A piece of technology that buys inventory on
❑ Mobile Ad Blocking ad exchanges. Demand-side platforms (DSPs)
all operate bidders in addition to other pieces
❑ Ad Blocking in Safari
of advertiser technology.
❑ Server-Side Traffic Filtering

Publisher Solutions Client Side Everything that happens on a consumer’s

device.
❑ Blocker Detection
Server Side Everything that happens remote from a
❑ Filter Whitelisting
consumer, either in the network or a data
❑ Content Gating center. Server side activities happen in the
cloud.
❑ Blocker Evasion
Open Internet Supply Chain
Each time an open internet publisher sells an ad impression, its
ad server selects from many potential demand sources. If the
publisher decides to fill the impression via a programmatic
auction, five technology components communicate with each
other to deliver the ad. These five components are consistent
across desktop and mobile devices, and across banner, video,
and native ad formats.

Optional step for

real time bidding
transactions

A Note About Real Time Bidding

The real time bidding (RTB) ecosystem relies on separating
the ad exchange and bidder into two independent pieces
of technology. Walled gardens and ad networks often
combine these buy-side and sell-side technology
components into a closed auction environment.
Third Party Ad Serving
Advertisers overwhelmingly deliver online impressions through a
third party ad server. This third party ad server delivers ads
across nearly all publishers on an advertiser’s media plan.
Some premium publishers require site served ads, in which
creative delivery is controlled by the publisher’s ad server.
In these cases, the publisher often loads an impression
tracker from the advertiser’s ad server.

Third Party Ad Serving Site Served Ads

1. Publisher traffics creative

assets in publisher ad server
1. Advertiser traffics
creative assets in
advertiser ad server

2. Publisher ad server 2. Publisher ad server

requests creative from delivers creative assets
advertiser ad server to page

3. Advertiser ad server delivers 3. Optional: Advertiser ad server

creative assets to page records that an impression was
delivered

Third party ad serving centralizes creative
management for advertisers, but requires
standardized ad formats that are supported by all
publishers.
Site served advertising gives publishers control
over the way ads are rendered on their properties.
This enables publishers to implement custom ad
formats that are tightly integrated with organic
content.
Impression Tracking
Advertisers who partner with an attribution specialist may load
an additional impression tracker each time an ad is delivered to
a user. These measurement trackers allow attribution
companies to maintain a complete record of each user’s ad
exposure, which enables path-to-purchase analysis.

Optional step for

real time bidding
transactions

Tracking for Site Served Ads

For site served advertising, impression
trackers are loaded by the publisher’s
ad server.

Tracking for 3rd Party Served Ads

For third party served advertising, impression
trackers are loaded by the advertiser’s ad
server.
Consumer Adoption
Consumers have access to tools that block ads in both desktop
and mobile contexts. According to a study commissioned by
Ad Blocking Products
PageFair and Adobe, nearly 200 million global consumers had
installed ad blocking software as of February 2017. Browser Plugins

Ad Blocking Penetration (%)

February 2017
Ad Block Plus AdBlock uBlock Ghostery

Ad Blocking Browsers

18%
15% iOS Blockers

>25% penetration in Greece, Poland, 1Blocker Purify Crystal Blockr Silentium

Malta, Estonia, Germany, and Sweden

Publisher Solutions

Source: https://pagefair.com/blog/2017/adblockreport/
Ad vs. Tracker Blocking
Most ad blocking software focuses on preventing ad content
from loading on page. This is typically accomplished by
preventing calls to third party ad servers. Some ad blocking
products also prevent tracking pixels from loading and collecting
user data.
Even when an ad blocker does not explicitly block tracking
pixels, “third party” impression trackers will automatically
be blocked because they depend on an ad being
successfully delivered to the user’s browser.

Ad Server:

DMP:

Attribution:

Verification:
Connection Refusal & Element Hiding
To maximize the number of ads that can be successfully blocked,
most ad blocking products utilize two blocking techniques.
When possible, the ad blocker prevents the user’s browser from
requesting ad content. This is called connection refusal.
Connection Refusal
Prevent client-server connection for known
ad serving domains
In cases where connection refusal fails and ad content is
delivered the user’s browser, the ad blocking product may
utilize a technique called element hiding, which prevents
the ad content from rendering on screen.
Element Hiding
Allow ad content to be downloaded, but
prevent content from rendering
Element hiding is most commonly employed for
publishers who utilize ad stitching. See the final
page of this document for details on ad stitching.
Filtering Lists
Ad blocking products require extensive sets of rules that inform
decisions on which content should be allowed to load and which
content should be blocked.
Most browser-based blockers rely on a community-
managed set of filtering rules called EasyList. Ad blockers
periodically download the EasyList filtering rules in order
to ensure maximum ad blocking success.

When ad blocking consumers find cases of

failed ad blocking, they may submit new On a regular basis, consumer ad blockers
filtering requests to the EasyList community1 fetch the latest set of EasyList filters

The EasyList community

manages a master list of ad
blocking filters that are used
by default in most browser-
based ad blockers2

EasyList filtering rules are downloaded

and held locally in the user’s browser to
inform ad blocking decisions

1: http://bit.ly/2bytaFM
2: https://easylist-downloads.adblockplus.org/easylist.txt
Mobile Ad Blocking
Ad blocking is now possible on both Android and iOS mobile Mobile browsers now broadly support ad blocking, but in-
devices, through ad blocking behavior is inconsistent across app ad blocking as well as ad blocking within webviews
operating systems and across mobile contexts. (websites loaded within apps) is only partially supported.

Mobile • Browser-specific plugins, • No blocking supported in iOS 8 and

identical to desktop earlier
Browser
• Custom Safari extensions supported in
iOS 9 and later

Mobile • Blocking only possible through • Blocking only possible through server-
server-side traffic filtering side traffic filtering
Apps

App • Blocking only possible through • Safari blocking rules employed for
server-side traffic filtering apps that use SFSafariViewController,
Webviews but not WKWebView or UIWebview

• Blocking also possible through server-

side traffic filtering
Ad Blocking in Safari
Apple has developed a unique solutions for ad blocking in Safari,
which is the exclusive web rendering engine on all iOS devices.
Beginning with Safari version 9 on both deskop and iOS, Apple
does not permit browser plugins.
Instead, Apple allows third party apps to supply ad
blocking rules to Safari. Safari then manages all ad
blocking execution, creating both speed and privacy
benefits for consumers.

Safari 8.0 and Earlier iOS 9+ and Safari 9.0+

(desktop only) (desktop and mobile)

onBeforeLoad() request to
browser extension Filtering Rules filtered http
requests
1 Apple-specified
1
JSON format1

filtered http 3
requests element hiding
executed by Safari
3 2 2
Filtered HTML
elements HTML elements

HTML
elements 3

This early implementation of ad blocking in Safari Note that even non-Safari browsers on iOS devices
is identical to the approach used by the Chrome, (e.g., Google Chrome) are powered by the Safari
FireFox, IE, and Edge browsers. web rendering engine and are subject to Safari’s
ad blocking policies.
Server-Side Traffic Filtering
Blocking in-app advertising on both iOS and Android devices is
currently not supported with client-side tools. Instead, blocking
ads requires routing all traffic through a server-side ad blocker.
Consumers can enable server-side ad blocking by
configuring a proxy server. Alternatively, some mobile
carriers are implementing server-side ad blocking on
behalf of their customers.

Proxy Server (VPN) Blocking Carrier Network-Level Blocking

request content via request content

proxy server
1
1

prevent network
requests for ad content
Proxy
3
Server
deliver filtered Network
content to client
3 Filter

1 deliver content to
network filter 2
return pre-filtered content to
client

Note that neither approach to server-side traffic

blocking is effective for content delivered via end-
to-end encryption
Blocker Detection
Publishers who want to measure the prevalence of ad blocking By measuring whether an easily-blocked piece of code is
and identify which specific visitors are utilizing an ad blocker loaded for each page view, publishers can detect the
can implement a “blocker baiting” technique. presence of ad blockers.

1
Create a site variable called
isAdBlockActive and set to TRUE.
Then request loading ads.js

publisher.com publisher.com/ads.js

2
When loaded, ads.js sets
3 isAdBlockActive to false. Ad blockers
Check value of isAdBlockActive will prevent this file name from
variable to determine whether ad loading and will therefor keep the
blocker is installed. isAdBlockActive variable set to TRUE
Content Gating
After detecting the presence of an ad blocker, publishers may
present content gates that prevent ad blocking users from
accessing the site’s content.
Some publishers ask users to whitelist their site within the ad
blocker, allowing that specific website to display ads. Other
publishers ask users to upgrade to a paid ad-free version of the
site.
Companies like PageFair, SourcePoint, and Secret
Media provide off the shelf content gating
solutions for publishers.
Blocker Evasion
Other publishers implement techniques that attempt to The two primary techniques are ad stitching and dynamic
circumvent the ability of ad blockers to implement connection element naming, though the implementations continually shift
refusal and element hiding filters. as ad blocking rules learn how to cope with publisher evasion.

Ad Stitching Dynamic Element Naming

Ad stitching delivers ad content from the same Dynamic element naming changes the labels of HTML
domain as the site’s primary content, forcing ad elements for each page view, breaking the
blockers to either allow ads or incorrectly block effectiveness of element hiding rules.
website content.

pub.com pub.com <div

class=
"[]">

Page content and ad content is Element name is generated

loaded from same domain to on the fly to prevent
prevent connection refusal element hiding

While ad stitching can successfully deliver

advertising to ad blocking users, all third party
tracking will be disabled, causing reporting and
verification challenges for advertisers.
Filter Whitelisting
In addition to maintaining a set of blocking rules, EasyList also
contains rules for allowing ads to load under certain conditions.
The Acceptable Ads Manifesto outlines the characteristics of
advertising that should not be blocked.
Publishers may petition the EasyList community to be
whitelisted. After community debate a new ad blocking
exception may be added to the EasyList filtering rules.

Ad Blocking Exceptions
1. Acceptable Ads are not annoying.

2. Acceptable Ads do not disrupt or distort @@||taboola.com^$script,

the page content we're trying to read. domain=activistpost.com
3. Acceptable Ads are transparent with us
Allow ads from Taboola on
about being an ad.
activistpost.com
4. Acceptable Ads are effective without
shouting at us.

5. Acceptable Ads are appropriate to the site

that we are on.
For some large publishers, ad blocking products have
accepted fees in exchange for obeying EasyLists’s
whitelisting filters. This, however, is not a strict
requirement of the EasyList community.