How to prepare for Google Chrome's new ad blocker

So with rumours that a future version of Chrome will have a built-in ad blocker that will allow ‘non-intrusive’ ads and given that Chrome has a 50% market share, it’s a good opportunity to take a look at display best practice and compare to what you are currently producing.

From an ad specification perspective, there are a couple of basics to get right.

This includes:
• Max 15 second animation (30 seconds for video) with no looping. Strobing, blinking or flashing should not happen more than four times in the ad
• Your ad should be a max 200KB on initial load (if larger, use polite load) and your back-up image should be a max of 50KB
• The ad should have a solid contrasting border and should be the standard IAB sizes with the most popular being: 300×250, 336×280, 728×90, 160×600 and interstitials (50% of width and 40% of height)
• For those of you using interstitials or expanding ads, the close button needs to be in the top right corner
• I’d expect no matter what you do pop-under/overs will be on the block list.

From a data perspective you need to provide the user transparency around how data is used (primary and third-party), including the types of data collected and if it is shared with third parties.

Most importantly you will need to provide a way for users to easily opt-out from behavioural targeting.

In terms of the cat and mouse of trying to bypass the ad blocker, all the usual tricks apply, including changing ad server names on a regular basis, avoiding using certain words or ad sizes in the file names and for affiliates managing your first party ad server will be key.

There will probably be more specific rules and guidelines once the feature is launched, but this should get you into the right ballpark.

Managing partner of consultancy firm Revenue Engineers, Fintan Costello’s previous roles include senior industry head at Google and leading the online marketing departments for PokerStars and Paddy Power