• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, March 8, 2017

The stereotypical image of ad blockers as militant ad haters, gleefully ripping off publishers with nary a concern for their commercial viability, may be a bit overstated.

In fact, a good proportion of the people who use ad blocking software do it for practical reasons – for example, device speed – and are actually receptive to ads as long as they are presented reasonably. Most important, they want options.

That’s according to new client data cited by Sourcepoint, a tech company which helps publishers combat ad-blocking by trying out different messages and monetization options, including asking ad-blockers to white-list their sites, soliciting an email address or asking them to sign up for an email newsletter.

The UK branch of Dennis Publishing, which began using Sourcepoint’s tech to engage with ad blockers late last year, reports that up to 57% of the visitors using ad-blocking software were willing to disable the technology after receiving a message from Sourcepoint’s “Dialogue” technology.

Additionally, up to 38% of visitors using ad-blocking software were willing to white-list Dennis sites in response to a message from Dialogue.

Dennis tested a number of different messages and approaches to ad blockers. These rates refer to the most successful options tried by the company. Overall, 13% of visitors to Dennis were using ad-blocking software during this period.

Offering users a choice appears to be key, as the ad-blockers’ willingness to engage with advertising increased 61% when they were offered a choice between two ads. Publishers can also try out different approaches for traffic from different sources, as visitors referred from search may respond differently than visitors from social.

One particularly successful tactic, asking ad-block users to watch a single video ad to access content, produced a 75% completion rate.

Of course, if the worst happens, publishers can also use Dialogue to enforce the nuclear option — blocking ad-blockers from seeing their content if they don’t agree to one of the other choices.

This may help produce the desired effect. Also, per Dennis, 80% of users who found themselves blocked from accessing content then engaged with Dialogue around access options.