How Forbes.com has overcome ad blocking software

Lewis Dvorkin, the chief product officer at Forbes, writes about what has happened since the business magazine asked its users who use ad blocking software to turn it off.

Dvorkin writes, “The reaction to our testing was swift. A handful or two of our ad-blocking visitors who got the message took their criticisms to Twitter. Staffers, fearing fewer readers for their work, expressed worried confusion. So did a few contributors who are part of our audience-based incentive pay model. Notably, the most concerned contributors were those who write about video games as gamers wereearly users of ad blocking technology. We also heard from contributors who post through ad-blocking corporate networks. They’ve been unable to double-check their published work. We’re still working through these concerns.

“We’ve also been made aware of numerous glitches in our testing. In some cases, our messaging and execution was inconsistent — turning off the blocker still blocked a visitor or leaving it on still permitted access. Other public reports of issues are also being monitored, with as of yet no confirmed direct correlation with our ad blocking tests.

“The data so far has taught us a lot:

1) From Dec. 17 to Jan. 3, 2.1 million visitors using ad blockers were asked turn them off in exchange for an ad-light experience.

2) 903,000, or 42.4%, of those visitors turned off the blockers and received a thank you message.

3) We monetized 15 million ad impressions that would otherwise have been blocked.

As important, the ad-light experience has focused our attention on faster delivery of our digital screens to consumers.”

Read more here.