iMedia Connection - ad:tech blog

A couple of months ago I read an article by Tom Hespos called "Is our ad delivery infrastructure overtaxed?" Besides doing a good job highlighting the growing issue of complexity and latency issues in our ad delivery infrastructure, it reminded me of a debate that we've had here at Adometry: is ad blocking the right approach?
A number of companies have sprung up to block ads that would appear next to objectionable content. From a brand protection point of view, we understand the appeal of ad blockers. If you could ensure that you could stop your brand appearing next to inappropriate content 100% of the time, why wouldn't you adopt one of these services? But when you look more deeply at the reality of what these services deliver and the potential unwanted side effects, the value proposition becomes less clear.
Additional Latency
Ad blockers work by inserting themselves in the ad delivery chain.  Ad blockers need to make a decision whether to allow or reject an ad on a particular page without delaying unduly the delivery of the page.  Most of the time, they do this by matching a URL in their cache. For a new URL, they schedule the page for examination in... Read more