General Question

elbanditoroso's avatar

I use an ad blocker on my browser. When I go to a website that would (normally) display advertising, I don't see it. Does the advertiser still get charged for placing the ad?

Asked by elbanditoroso (33469points) September 9th, 2023

Not that I have much sympathy for the advertiser, but are they paying an advertising fee but not getting anything for it, because I never saw the ad?

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8 Answers

smudges's avatar

I would guess that out of the billions of their ads that are on websites, a few hundred thousand or even a million ad blockers aren’t going to affect them, even if they still have to pay (and I would guess they do). The logistics of breaking it down to how much they pay for each individual ad on each individual site would make it unfeasible. They’d need a whole ‘nother department just to attempt it. Like the tv channels where you can pay a little bit extra to eliminate ads…it doesn’t have an effect. Just my thoughts.

janbb's avatar

I have an ad blocker too and sometimes the site will tell me that they notice I am using an ad blockerand that I have to suspend it to see the content. Usually, I can suspend it just for that page but that does mean that the website is aware of it.

Lightlyseared's avatar

If you’re using an ad blocker the website doesn’t get paid for show you ads. Tracking if a website shows a viewer an ad or not is incredibly simple. The ad is stored on a different website. Every time you view a page that page will ask the ad company for an ad to display. Adblockers work by stopping the website from asking for the ad to display so keeping track of how many ads a website has shown is child’s play. This is also why some lower quality websites split an article into multiple pages so you have to view multiple pages to see the whole article.

SnipSnip's avatar

The site owner will not get paid because your activity will not include you clicking on advertiser ads.

LadyMarissa's avatar

Most ads are “pay-per-click”. If you see the ad & click on it, the website gets paid a minimal amount by the advertiser. If you can’t see the ad & don’t click on it, the site gets paid nothing. Then again, they are out of nothing. I don’t know about now, but a friend used to make her income placing those affiliate ads & she was only paid a penny per click. Her income was made on a popular ad that received millions of clicks. The advertiser pays nothing to be on the website until somebody clicks on the ad & then they pay an affiliate fee of whatever was agreed with the person who set up the ad. Many websites have their own affiliate account so the website is the one earning the money.

kritiper's avatar

The advertiser doesn’t get paid for individual ad placements, but, rather, bulk placements, wherever and with whomever that might take place.

Entropy's avatar

My understanding is that the ad blocker prevents the URL from loading. Therefore the ad servers would not get an ‘impression’ and the advertiser would not be charged.

janbb's avatar

@Entropy No, some let you go to the content and some won’t let you load content until you disable the ad blocker. If the ad blocker never worked, it wouldn’t be much use.

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