Tag: ad tech

AAX Names Omayra Cruz SVP Account Management

Posted on by AAX Team

The appointment of Omayra Cruz as SVP Account Management reflects AAX’s increased focus and commitment to customer service excellence

AAX, the leading ad exchange dedicated to recovering revenue lost to ad blockers, strengthens its leadership team with a new Senior Vice President Account Management hire. Omayra Cruz is joining AAX’s leadership team, where she will be responsible for driving success for AAX publishers, reporting to AAX CEO, Scott Schwanbeck. As SVP Account Management, her primary role will be to drive strategic initiatives aimed at giving the best experience to the ever-growing list of AAX publishers.

“We’re working to realize sustainable and impactful publisher revenue that preserves user experience and creates value for brands,” Cruz said. “AAX helps publisher partners derive significant, incremental ad revenue from their content while remaining mindful of the user experience.”

Cruz is an accomplished leader in the ad tech space, with extensive expertise in publisher monetization. She joins AAX from Minute Media, where she served as VP Publisher Business Development, having previously held a senior leadership role at YieldMo. She holds a PhD in Literature from UC San Diego, MA in Cultural Studies from University of Leeds, and a BA in Philosophy from University of Tampa.

“We’re very excited to welcome Omayra to AAX,” says AAX CEO Scott Schwanbeck. “Her deep Publisher experience and her analytical and process-driven approach to customer success make Omayra the perfect fit for AAX and our customers,” continues Schwanbeck.

About AAX

AAX allows publishers, advertisers and users to benefit from a healthy, respectful and balanced ad ecosystem. We’re a programmatic ad exchange dedicated to serving a highly coveted audience of more than 250 million consumers that have consented to see user-friendly, respectful ads designated as “acceptable” by the Acceptable Ads Committee’s criteria. AAX’s mission is to foster a new type of marketplace—an ad exchange capable of reaching users seeking an alternative ad experience, driving significant incremental revenue to Publishers who’ve lost revenue due to ad blocking and offering buyers access to premium inventory and audiences from our direct-to-publisher deals.

How Do Ad Filterers Vote? Our New Study Finds Out.

Posted on by AAX Team

We live in a political world.

In 2022, politics informs more of our personal lives than ever before. And there’s an overwhelming understanding that partisanship—being affiliated with either the left or right, donkey or elephant, Democrat or Republican—is the name of the game.

But, as it turns out, there are plenty of people who occupy a political middle ground.

We penned American Ad Blocking Users’ Political Profile because we wanted to know how American ad blocking users, otherwise known as ad filterers—the 95% of users that have an ad blocker installed on their device but still consent to be served ads—fall on the red/blue divide.

We consulted the treasure trove of data that the GlobalWebIndex (GWI) keeps about online behavior. We examined voter affiliation, of course, but we also looked at reported values, demographic information, and the adjectives ad blocking users felt best described them.

And what we found is that, rather than being red or blue, ad filterers are…purple. This dynamic demographic doesn’t fit neatly into the Democrat or Republican box.

We’ve done a lot of deep digging into the ad blocking user profile in previous studies. In our last study, looked at the main—and auxiliary—reasons they block ads. In the previous study, we examined how and why ad filterers have such unsurpassed purchasing power and online activity. And, in our first report, we peered into why ad filterers lead the pack in terms of brand discovery and their appetite for digital content.

Interested in learning more about the motivations behind ad blocking? Just fill out the contact form below and American Ad Blocking Users’ Political Profile will be emailed to you—free of charge, of course.

Please fill in the contact form below and the report will be sent to you.

How ambitious are American ad filterers?

Posted on by AAX Team

We know that the average American ad filterer—ad filterer being the term used to describe a user who has an ad blocker installed on their device but still consents to be served ads—is successful.

This is a demographic, after all, that is more educated than average, has the disposable income to make significant purchases online as well as small ones, and takes on professional and leadership roles at work.

But despite all this success, ad filterers don’t seem content to rest on their laurels.

We took a look at how ad filterers describe themselves, as part of a larger project of understanding the political profile of American ad blocking user.

And, although ad filterers don’t describe themselves as affluent, they do describe themselves in terms of ambition. More than 40% self-identify as “ambitious.”

That ambition may or may not extend to wanting cold, hard, cash, however. Fewer than 1⁄4 of ad filterers describe themselves as “money driven.” Another interesting wrinkle: almost exactly the same percentage of ad filterers describe themselves as “traditional” as describe themselves as “ambitious.”

Who describes themselves as ambitious?

When looking at the descriptors that people employ to describe themselves, it’s vital to realize one particular thing about human nature: people are more likely to refer to themselves using words they have positive connotations with.

Just as we tend to choose flattering light and angles that minimize double chins when we take selfies, we pick words that we think will portray ourselves in the best possible manner, even to complete strangers asking the question “How would you describe yourself?”

And when it comes to descriptors like “ambitious” and “money-driven,” well…let’s just say that those words can be more than a little fraught.

Just take a look at a recent Harvard Business School article that asks the question, “How ambitious should you be?” In this piece, a committee chair in charge of hiring ruminates on the fact that it’s easy for people to dismiss you as too ambitious or not ambitious enough and it’s very hard for someone to hit the perfect, Baby-Bear’s-porridge-in-Goldilocks spot of just right.

The pitfalls of having too much or too little ambition are very real, the author of the piece states:

In excess, ambition damages reputations, relationships, and can lead to catastrophic failure. On the other hand, too little ambition can make the person in question look lazy and unmotivated. Further, it can result in mediocre performance, boredom, and a bleak sense of futility.

But how does someone go about finding the sweet spot that occurs halfway between these two extremes? Unfortunately, there’s no real roadmap. And that leads to people tending towards whichever option seems like the lesser of two evils. Is it better to be viewed as someone who might “damage reputations and relationships,” i.e. someone with too much ambition? Or is it better to risk being seen as lazy and unmotivated, i.e. someone with too little ambition?

The answer, as it turns out, depends a lot on your gender. According to a recent Forbes article,

the majority of women consider themselves to be ambitious, but only three in 10 (31%) overall say they are proud to call themselves “ambitious.” Their preferred euphemisms are motivated or confident.

The takeaway, we at AAX believe, is that the ad filtering demographic would be a lot more likely to define itself as “ambitious” if ambition were an attribute that more Americans felt comfortable with.

***

AAX is devoted to knowing everything there is to know about ad filterers. In one previous study we looked into what makes this demographic unique, another study examined their purchasing habits, and our most recent study dug deep into ad filterer motivation: the reasons ad filterers avoid advertisements, and how and why those reasons change.

Our passion for all things ad filterer is why we’ve turned our attention to an issue that’s capturing everyone’s attention: ad filterers’ political profiles. We’ve looked through the fascinating findings over at the GlobalWebIndex (GWI) to compile a new study—American Ad Blocking Users’ Political Profile—available for free download in May 2022.

Are Ad Blocking Users Success-Driven?

Posted on by AAX Team

When we talk about values, and how these values impact and inspire voting habits and political affiliation in any given demographic, we’re usually talking about selfless, altruistic values like building community, helping others before yourself, and helping the environment. (Interested in learning more? We talked a lot about these values and their relationship to political leanings in a recent post!)

But values are about more than helping others. Sometimes, they’re about helping yourself get ahead.

Values that revolve around success and self-interest motivate American ad filterers— the 95% of users that choose to run an ad blocker but have also consented to see ad—and reveal a striking fact: ad filterers are motivated to improve their lives and livelihoods.

In particular, ad filterers have a thirst for knowledge. They never want to stop learning. More than 2/3 of American ad filterers are inspired to keep acquiring new skills, answering affirmatively that “Learning new skills is important to me.”

They’re also interested in being successful (59%) and in challenging themselves (57.4%). But notably, they’re not in it for the attention: only 15% of ad filterers value “standing out in a crowd.”

So what inferences can we draw from this data?

How Do Republicans and Democrats View Success?

The definition of “success” varies depending on who you ask—as do the meanings behind “challenging yourself” and “learning new skills.” We turned to Pew Research for a little more information on what values, and what the definitions of personal challenge, skills, and success, might mean for Democrats and Republicans.

And we found that similar groups of values are at the core of both Democrats and Republicans’ list of what gives meaning to life.

These are listed as “material well-being, stability, and quality of life,” and “occupation and career,” by Pew, and both rank 3rd and 4th (out of a total of 5) for people across the political spectrum. (Source)

When asked which values gave life meaning, 21% of Democrats answered, “material well-being, stability, and quality of life,” placing it as the 3rd most important cluster of values. 19% of Democrats answered, “occupation and career,” meaning it ranked in 4th place.

Interestingly, these categories were ranked identically by Republicans. 17% of Republican voters felt that “material well-being, stability, and quality of life” gave meaning to their lives, and 17% of Republican voters felt “occupation and career” did.

We know that slightly more American ad filterers vote Democrat than Republican—although many are undecided or vote independent as well—so this data isn’t altogether surprising. Slightly more than half of ad filterers find success-driven values, a value set deemed marginally more vital for giving meaning to life by Democrats than by Republicans, “important to me.”

***

AAX is devoted to knowing everything there is to know about ad filterers. In one previous study we looked into what makes this demographic unique, another study examined their purchasing habits, and our most recent study dug deep into ad filterer motivation: the reasons ad filterers avoid advertisements, and how and why those reasons change.

Our passion for all things ad filterer is why we’ve turned our attention to an issue that’s capturing everyone’s attention: ad filterers’ political profiles. We’ve looked through the fascinating findings over at the GlobalWebIndex (GWI) to compile a new study—American Ad Blocking Users’ Political Profile—available for free download in May 2022.

How Selfless Are Ad Blocking Users?

Posted on by AAX Team

Politics isn’t just about Democrat vs. Republican.

Political decisions are predominantly values-based, especially among undecided voters, voters considering a change in political party allegiance, or voters that don’t have a strong tradition of voting one way or another.

That’s why AAX wanted to look into the nuances of the values that ad filterers, the 95% of users that choose to run an ad blocker but have also consented to see ads.

We took a look at some of the altruistic values that ad filterers hold. It’s an interesting split:
more than half of ad filterers are concerned about helping others and helping the environment, and less than half are concerned with feeling accepted and contributing to their immediate community.

The question was phrased in terms of importance: which of the following things are important to you. The possible categories?

    • Contributing to my community

    • Feeling accepted by others

    • Helping others before myself

    • Helping the environment

The last two categories saw positive response rates of 56.1% and 54.5%, respectively. The first two sections? 46% and 37.6%.

Is Altruism Politicized?

And, although finding these altruistic values important doesn’t necessarily correlate with voting either Democrat or Republican, there is a link between several of these stated values and an overall pattern of party allegiance.

For example, as stated by Pew Research, “trust in climate scientists is low among Republicans; considerably higher among liberal Democrats.” Belief in climate change is similarly politically charged: only 15% of conservative and 34% of moderate Republicans believe that “Earth is warming due to human activity,” whereas 63% of moderate Democrats and 79% of liberal Democrats believe the same. (Source)

Altruism, it seems, runs the gamut, from being seemingly universal and unconnected to any particular political party or affiliation to being deeply politicized and particularly attached to allegiance to either Democrats or Republicans.

***

AAX is devoted to knowing everything there is to know about ad filterers. In one previous study we looked into what makes this demographic unique, another study examined their purchasing habits, and our most recent study dug deep into ad filterer motivation: the reasons ad filterers avoid advertisements, and how and why those reasons change.

Our passion for all things ad filterer is why we’ve turned our attention to an issue that’s capturing everyone’s attention: ad filterers’ political profiles. We’ve looked through the fascinating findings over at the GlobalWebIndex (GWI) to compile a new study—American Ad Blocking Users’ Political Profile—available for free download in May 2022.

Why Block Ads? AAX’s New Study Investigates.

Posted on by AAX Team

There are some questions that haunt the ad space.

What motivates people to block ads? What are the reasons that users weigh before installing ad blockers? What factors influence these decisions?

That’s why we penned Why Block Ads? Behind User Reasons and Motivations— in order to get to the bottom of these issues. We consulted the treasure trove of data that the GlobalWebIndex (GWI) keeps about online behavior, and teased out answers to pressing questions including:

  • How has COVID-19 changed ad filterers attitudes towards ad blocking?
  • Does education level inform ad blocking behavior?
  • Have ad blocking behaviors changed over the last four years?
  • Is there a difference in the ways that generations view ad blocking?

And:

  • What are the main reasons that people block ads?

The questions get even more pressing when discussing the demographic of ad filterers. These are the 95% of users that have an ad blocker installed on their device but still consent to be served ads.

And it’s these users AAX zeroes in on in our latest study, Why Block Ads? Behind User Reasons and Motivations.

As AAX explored in our last study, ad filterers are a group with unsurpassed purchasing power and online activity. And, as we detailed in our first report, ad filterers lead the pack in terms of brand discovery and their appetite for digital content.

Interested in learning more about the motivations behind ad blocking? Just fill out the contact form below and Why Block Ads? Behind User Reasons and Motivations will be emailed to you—free of charge, of course.

Beyond black and white: welcome to the new listings

Posted on by AAX Team

AAX is pleased to be revising our vocabulary. In the name of both a) dismantling harmful stereotypes and b) enhancing clarity, we’ll be replacing the term “whitelist” with “allowlist” and “blacklist” with “blocklist.”

These new naming practices reflect a change that’s been occurring industry-wide. The last year has seen a period of sorely-needed cultural consideration regarding racism and prejudice, and how best to dismantle and work against them.

And that includes grappling with terms like “whitelist” and “blacklist.”

When the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) changed their term usage last spring, they explained that:

[…] there’s an issue with the terminology. It only makes sense if you equate white with ‘good, permitted, safe’ and black with ‘bad, dangerous, forbidden’. There are some obvious problems with this. So in the name of helping to stamp out racism in cyber security, we will avoid this casually pejorative wording on our website in the future. (Source)

This issue—of racism embedded in the language we use, often without thinking—is well past due for a reckoning. In a recent piece for AdExchanger, Andrew Kraft harkened back to a famous 1971 interview where Muhammad Ali considered loaded terms that framed “white” as “good” and “black” negatively, writing:

[…] he recalled that all the positive things he grew up with were white, from White Cloud tissue paper to the White House, while all the negative things, from the bad luck of a black cat to the term blackmail, were black. Nearly 50 years later, that linguistic measuring stick is alive and well. (Source)

We think that it’s time to change our vocabulary.

There’s an additional benefit to this terminology change. Terms like “whitelist” and “blacklist,” while understood within the industry, can be confusing to newcomers to the ad space. Replacing these terms with the more explanatory “allowlist” and “blocklist” makes these words instantly accessible: an allowlist allows, and a blocklist…blocks. If doing away with outdated terminology helps us communicate more effectively and succinctly, we consider that to be a bonus.

Because the words we use matter. And AAX is committed to working against racism in all forms, including at the linguistic level.

How COVID shaped ad blocking

Posted on by AAX Team

March 11, 2021 marked a grim milestone: one year since the World Health organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic.

Since then, our lives have changed in a myriad ways. Even putting the vital health- and healthcare-related issues aside, the past twelve months saw upheaval that touched every individual personally. Living rooms were turned into offices, classrooms, and yoga studios. Priorities were reshuffled, dogs were purchased, hair went un-cut.

And, of course, we’re all been very online.

We’re swapped movie theaters for streaming services (even more than in past years), concert venues for live-streams, and social activities basically now take place over a combination of video calls and social media.

Of course, thanks to massive and heroic vaccination efforts, things will change soon—but for now we’re living a highly digital existence.

So: how has all this time online shaped our attitudes towards ads? And have ad filterers in particular—the 95% of all ad blocking users who have an ad blocker installed but still consent to be served ads—changed their relationship to ad blockers?

We looked at data gleaned the GlobalWebIndex (GWI) keeps about internet behavior, examining in particular how answers to the question “Why do you use an ad blocker” changed between Q4 2019 and Q3 2020.

And what we found is interesting: there’s been a subtle shift away from issues of annoyance—specifically respondents choosing answers like “Ads are too intrusive” or “Too many ads are irrelevant.” But more people in general seem to choose answers that suggest changing priorities and principles, opting for answers such as “I try to avoid all ads wherever, whether on TV or online.”

There was also a noted shift away from responses that addressed browsing on the go, or away from an energy source. Answers like “To stop my device’s battery being drained” and “I want to stop my data allowance from being used up” both showed a marked decline in Q3 2020—unsurprisingl, given the fact that, for most people, a socket and Wi-Fi connection were never far away during the past year.

But in general, the differences between ad blocking motivation in Q4 2019 and Q3 2020 were less marked than one might imagine, given the tumultuous nature of the past year. Maybe this means that the post-vaccine re-opening we’re all eagerly anticipating will see us seamlessly re-integrating into something very close to the life we left behind last March.

***

If you’re interested in learning more about ad filterer motivations and psychology, make sure to check out our forthcoming study, Why Block Ads? Behind User Reasons and Motivations, a study that examines, well, the reasons and motivations behind ad blocking habits.

Why Block Ads? Behind User Reasons and Motivations will be published in April, but we’ll be teasing its release with posts just like this one. And if you’re interested, check out some of our previous ground-breaking studies.

Last November we released Ad Filterers Online: Purchasing Habits and Media Consumption In The USA, which shed light on the subject of how ad filterers spend time online…and how they spend their hard-earned dollars.

And back in January of 2020 we published our groundbreaking study, “10 Things You Didn’t Know About Ad Blocking Users,” which drew back the curtain on the youthful, affluent, and well-educated users that have ad blockers installed on their devices.

Surprising links: education and ad blocking

Posted on by AAX Team

In general, the more educated you are the more likely you are to turn to an ad blocker.

People who block ads—and especially ad filterers, the name given to the 95% of ad blocking users who have an ad blocker installed but also consent to be served respectful, non-intrusive ads—are a well-educated bunch. Whereas only 23.3% of non- ad blocking users held a university degree, and only 4.9% held a postgraduate degree, an impressive 27% of ad blockers held a university degree and 11.7% of ad filterers had a Masters or higher. (Source)

But that doesn’t mean that, within ad filterers as a demographic whole, there isn’t a range of education levels. Approximately 60% have either a high school degree or some amount of college education, and more than a quarter hold a university degree. The only outlier is high school: only 0.9% percent of ad filterers fail to graduate.

This made us curious. We wanted to know whether motivations for ad blocking differed by education levels…or if they remained constant whether or not a user had a high school education or a PhD.

So we consulted the trove of data that the GlobalWebIndex (GWI) keeps about internet behavior. This data is accumulated by actual users responding to questions, and GWI amends it on a frequent, rolling basis.

To streamline the data we looked exclusively at users with a high school degree, a university degree, or a postgraduate degree. We also focused specifically on the top five reasons for ad blocking. And we found out a lot.

When examining the main reasons users gave ad blocking, we noticed that those ad filterers with a high school education replied affirmatively to more statements than those ad filterers with a university degree or a postgraduate degree. Across the board, percentages were higher—from “There are too many ads on the internet” to “To speed up loading times.”

The answer that was most overwhelmingly affirmative? When asked “Why do you use an ad blocker?” 49.5% of ad filterers with a high school education answered “Ads sometimes contain viruses or bugs.” When asked the same question, only 45.3% percent of users with a university degree and 40.9% of users with a postgraduate degree answered “Ads sometimes contain viruses or bugs.”

There was one category that stood out: the one that was favored by those with a university degree. “Ads are too intrusive” was an answer from 46.8% of university graduates compared with 456% of high school graduates and 44.4% of respondents with a postgraduate degree.

***

If you’re interested in learning more about ad filterer motivations and psychology, make sure to check out our forthcoming study, Why Block Ads? Behind User Reasons and Motivations, a study that examines, well, the reasons and motivations behind ad blocking habits.

Why Block Ads? Behind User Reasons and Motivations will be published in April, but we’ll be teasing its release with posts just like this one. And if you’re interested, check out some of our previous ground-breaking studies.

Last November we released Ad Filterers Online: Purchasing Habits and Media Consumption In The USA, which shed light on the subject of how ad filterers spend time online…and how they spend their hard-earned dollars.

And back in January of 2020 we published our groundbreaking study, “10 Things You Didn’t Know About Ad Blocking Users,” which drew back the curtain on the youthful, affluent, and well-educated users that have ad blockers installed on their devices.

Motivations for ad blocking across gender lines

Posted on by AAX Team

Popular psychology tells us that men are from Mars and women are from Venus. But when it comes to the reasons they block ads, both XX and XY chromosome-havers are solidly together on planet Earth.

In teasing out the reasons that ad filterers—the name given to the 95% of ad blocking users who have an ad blocker installed on their device but still consent to be served ads—decided to curate the ads they’re served in the first place, we wanted to look at a variety of factors. Did a person’s age impact their reasons for ad blocking? Did their education level?

And…did gender?

As it turns out, there’s not a clear pink/blue divide when it comes to the motivations for ad blocking. Men and women seem to be largely in agreement when it comes to the reasons they have for ad blocking…although there are slight differences that we found interesting to tease out.

Speed and intrusiveness: largely male concerns

When we looked at the top five reasons for ad blocking, male respondents were more likely than female respondents to choose the answers “Ads are too intrusive” and “To speed up loading times” when asked “Why do you use an ad blocker?” 48.1% expressed concerns about intrusiveness compared to 44% of women, and 45.8% were worried about ads’ adverse effects on loading times compared to just 40.4% of women.

Unity of opinion?

What is perceived as a browsing experience cluttered with so many ads resulted in a moment of peace and understanding in the battle of the sexes. “There are too many ads on the internet” was the answer given by roughly half of both men and women.

Men and women agreed in almost equal percentages—52.2% of men and 53% of women—that a main point of concern was the sheer quantity of ads online.

Women are aggravated by irrelevant ads and virus threats

When asked “Why do you use an ad blocker,” female ad filterers were most concerned about two things: “Too many ads are annoying or irrelevant” and “Ads sometimes contain viruses or bugs.” 49.4% of women were concerned about the safety issues of ads and viruses/bugs, compared to only 45.4% of men.

But it’s worth noting that the most important issue for both men and women was annoyance/irrelevance. 61.1% of women cited this as the most pressing concern. And, while a slightly smaller percentage of men were troubled by annoyance and irrelevance, it was, at 58.8%, still the most popular response given.

***

If you’re interested in learning more about ad filterer motivations and psychology, make sure to check out our forthcoming study, Why Block Ads? Behind User Reasons and Motivations, a study that examines, well, the reasons and motivations behind ad blocking habits.

Why Block Ads? Behind User Reasons and Motivations will be published in April, but we’ll be teasing its release with posts just like this one. And if you’re interested, check out some of our previous ground-breaking studies.

Last November we released Ad Filterers Online: Purchasing Habits and Media Consumption In The USA, which shed light on the subject of how ad filterers spend time online…and how they spend their hard-earned dollars.

And back in January of 2020 we published our groundbreaking study, “10 Things You Didn’t Know About Ad Blocking Users,” which drew back the curtain on the youthful, affluent, and well-educated users that have ad blockers installed on their devices.