Dive Brief:

• Ad blocking software is affecting digital publishers, particularly ad blocking by desktop visitors, but publishers are meeting the challenge through alternative ways of generating ad revenue, such as through sponsored content, which circumvents ad blocking.
• Digital publisher Slate told the Wall Street Journal it is losing 8% of potential ad revenue due to ad blocking, but the mobile ad blocking threat "hasn’t fully materialized," per Slate’s Director of Product Development David Stern.
• Meanwhile, ad block software developer Adblock Plus said in a blog post that its representatives have been uninvited from the upcoming Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) annual leadership meeting and that registrations have been canceled and attendance fees refunded.

Dive Insight:

It is clear tensions are mounting between the advertising community and ad block technology providers.

"Unfortunately, the top brass at the US IAB don’t want us coming to their Leadership Summit next week," the Adblock Plus blog post reads.

After Adblock Plus called out the decision-makers of the ad industry in its blog post for the reported disinvitation to the IAB conference, and IAB spokesperson responded to the Journal saying, "The IAB Annual Leadership Meeting is for serious conversation among important digital industry stakeholders."

Conversation, however, is necessary in addressing the increasing issue ad block technology has become for publishers. 

Even though Slate is losing a notable amount of ad revenue due to ad blocking technology, Stern told the Journal the publisher has engaged in internal debate on how much it’s worth fighting for that revenue. Slate concluded that punishing users for blocking ads might alienate tech-savvy readers that Stern described to the Journal as being potentially more likely to share content that might reach readers not using ad blocking tech.

The Huffington Post agrees with not directly battling visitors using ad blocking software, instead ramping up its sponsored content. Kirsten Cieslar, senior strategy and development manager for Huffington Post Global, told the Journal that native ads will likely become more important on Huffington Post websites than ads sold in the general media space.

One trend that is helping both publishers is they report more readers are finding their content on Facebook and Apple News, two platforms that don’t allow ad blocking. In fact, Slate told the Journal it expects a majority of its readers will be found on platforms that don’t allow ad blocking within five years.