text: #UK We now know another of the big companies that pays Adblock Plus to unblock its ads (CRTO) | Startup 365
  #UK We now know another of the big companies that pays Adblock Plus to unblock its ads (CRTO)
  Criteo, a public ad tech company that works with retailers to « re-target » online ads at users likely to be in the market for buying products, has joined the list of big internet advertising companies that pays the popular ad blocker Adblock Plus for its ads to be unblocked, French publication Le Journal du Net first reported.
  Companies including Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Taboola pay huge fees — The Financial Times pegged the price at « 30% of the additional ad revenues » they would have earned were ad unblocked — to appear on Adblock Plus' « Acceptable Ads List, » which means Adblock Plus users will see their ads unless they adjust their settings from the default to the strictest possible.
  The whitelist — which allows ads through the blocker that meet certain « non-intrusive » criteria (listed here) — is free for smaller sites, but bigger companies are asked to pay a fee. Only around 10% of companies (~70 companies) on the Acceptable Ads List have paid to be there, according to Adblock Plus owner Eyeo, which says the charge is levied because it takes a lot of work for its small team to whitelist a big advertising network or publisher.
  A demo page in the proposal shows the type of « personalized banner ad » Adblock Plus users might now see.
  Therein lies the issue around retargeting. Often these ads are really useful, and serve as useful reminders of products you once browsed but didn't go on to buy. Retargeting is hugely popular amongst advertisers because the method can lead to direct sales and results are easily measurable — hence why Criteo, which was once dubbed the « poster-child » of retargeting, has been outperforming the majority of the other publicly-traded ad tech companies right now.
  SEE ALSO: Adblock Plus held 'Camp David' peace talks with publishers and advertisers in New York last week — here's what it learned