Google AdSense is one of the prominent ways for small scale publishers to monetize their content. However, ad blockers can drastically pull down your revenue by stopping the ads shown on your website. There are many third-party companies offer ad block recovery service based on revenue sharing of recovered amount. Good thing is that you do not need to pay for that anymore and setup ad block recovery right in your Google AdSense account.
Google AdSense Ad Block Recovery
Here are some of the features:
- Native setup from Google without any other third-party involvement.
- You can enable or disable anytime as you need.
- Possible to exclude specific pages on your site.
- Optionally you can use error handling to show a message if ad blockers stop the recovery script from loading.
Basically, this is a cool free option for those who can’t go for paid solution. At this moment, AdSense ad blocking recovery only works on desktop devices and not on mobiles. However, you can expect this to be extended on mobiles soon.
Setup AdSense Ad Block Recovery
If you wanted to test the recovery option, here is how you can setup in your AdSense account.
- Login to your AdSense account and go to “Privacy & messaging” section.
- You will see list of options like GDPR, CPRA, LGPD and Ad blocking recovery.
- By default, all these options are turned off and click on the “Ad blocking recovery” option.
- Read the brief instructions shown on the pop-up and click on “Get Started” button.
The process consists of three steps – create, style and publish.
Step 1 – Create a Message
First step is to create a message which will be shown to users when ad blocker is detected in their browser. Make sure you are in the “Messages” tab and click on “Create message” button.
Fill out the name for your message in the box showing on top left corner. After that click “Select sites” button on the right under “Setup” section.
- You will see a list of sites in your AdSense account and select the site(s) that you want to show ad blocker message. For each site, you can add site name, logo, custom URL and footer URL by clicking on the corresponding links. All these details will be shown in your ad blocker message pop-up. After adding required details, click on “Confirm” button.
Inclusions and Exclusions of Pages
Google will apply the ad block recovery on all pages of the selected site. However, you can include of exclude pages by clicking on the “Add URLs” option under “Page inclusions and exclusions” heading. Remember, if you add any inclusions then the message will be shown only on those pages and not on the entire site. For showing the message on entire site, do not add any inclusions.
You can use the inclusion / exclusion for a single page or for a section on your site (like subdirectory). Google allows to add 5 items in the inclusions and exclusions list each.
Language and Placement
By default, English language is used for the sample message. Click the “Language” dropdown and select your language from the list. You have three placement options for the message and choose the one you like:
- Centered modal
- Centered modal (non-dismissible)
- Bottom pinned
It is recommended to select dismissible message instead of forcing users with non-dismissible pop-up.
Adding User Choices
You have two options under “User Choices” section. These options will add corresponding buttons on the message which you can see in the preview.
- Allow ads – this is set as “On” and you can’t remove this button as this is the purpose of ad block recovery setup.
- Custom choice – enabling this option will add an additional button in the message linking the custom URL you have included in the site selection section. For example, you can allow users to subscribe and read the page without ads. However, it needs custom development to configure the button and trigger the required action.
Step 2 – Styling the Ad Block Message
Now that you have configured the setup, next step is to edit the content and style the pop-up. Go to “Styling” section. Note that you can also hover over the preview message and click on any item to directly go to that styling section.
You can change the applicable parameters like font, text color, background color, border, padding, etc. for each element on the message.
For editing, simply click on the preview message and modify the content.
Step 3 – Publish Your Message
After finishing styling, you can either save the message as a draft or click “Publish” button on top right corner to apply to your site. You will see a pop-up showing you to apply the ad block recovery tags for the message to show.
Click “OK” to go to “Privacy & messaging > Ad blocking recovery > Tagging” section.
Implementing AdSense Ad Blocking Recovery Tags
You can find two scripts under “Tagging” tab:
- Ad blocking recovery
- Error protection message (optional)
Error protection code will help to display a message for allowing ads if the ad blocker prevents Google AdSense ad blocking recovery script to run and show the setup message. However, it needs a large amount of code which is not recommended.
So, click on “Copy” button under “Ad block recovery” code and insert it between opening and closing head tags on your site. Remember, this code should appear on all the pages of your site and not only on the home page. As mentioned, you can also insert “Error protection message” code if you still need that. Content management systems like WordPress offer plugin to easily insert the code in header section. For other platforms, check the documentation or get help from developer to properly insert the code in header section.
After adding the recovery code on your site, users will see a message like below when using ad blocker:
Clicking on the “Allow ads” will show the instructions on how to disable various ad blockers and exclude your site to show ads.
Users can select the ad blocker they use, follow the steps and then refresh the page to read your content.
For WordPress Sites Site Kit Plugin Users
If you are using WordPress, there is a Site Kit plugin which can help you to add the header tags without hassle. However, it still needs the message / styling to be created in your AdSense account. You can learn the complete process as explained in this official Google documentation. It will be two separate parts in setting up your ad blocking recovery if you are using Site Kit plugin. So, we recommend using the steps explained in this article to setup and manage everything from your AdSense account.
Learn more on how to detect ad blockers with WordPress site.
Reports and Editing Setup
You can anytime go to “Privacy & messaging > Ad blocking recovery > Messages” section to view the reporting. It will show the details of number of times recovery message shown, extension rate and conversion rate. Click the “Download reports” link to get the report as a local file.
You can also edit, disable or delete the ad blocking recovery setup from here.
