PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Instart Logic, Inc.:
- Ad blocker adoption grows to mainstream non-technical users – 2016 projected loss of $41.4 billion in advertising revenue globally by digital publishers (source: Adobe report, Sept 2015); ad blocking threatens business model of digital publishers of high quality free content
- End-users install Ad Blockers to prevent annoying and intrusive ads such as pop-up videos and ads that take over the screen. However, they act as a “blunt instrument” blocking all ads including relevant and contextual ads that research shows most users don’t mind.
- Instart Logic’s cloud-based ‘AppShield Ad Integrity’ solution circumvents ad blockers allowing premium digital publishers to monetize their sites through online advertising while delivering high quality free content; deployment requires only a simple DNS change. Solution deployed and operational in a large number of premium publishers.
- Ad Integrity comes on heels of Facebook successfully disabling ad blockers and unlocking significant Q3 ad revenue in the process
- Ad Integrity solution works across display and video advertisements and is transparent to ad delivery and measurement systems. No changes are required to the publisher’s existing ecosystem of ad exchanges, ad networks and ad serving systems.
- End-user desire to remove annoying ads should be respected - many premium publishers working with Instart Logic choose to adopt limited advertising for users with ad-blockers installed.
- Solution integrated into the world’s most advanced endpoint-aware application delivery service for high levels of performance, security and reliability with a globally-deployed delivery service
Ad blocking adoption has risen dramatically around the world putting digital publishers at risk of going out of business or having to lock all premium content behind paywalls. However, an elegant and holistic technology solution preserving the needs of both digital publishers and the digital media-consuming public has arrived to market from Instart Logic, a company that makes websites and mobile apps fast and secure. Instart Logic today announced AppShield Ad Integrity, a technology breakthrough that circumvents ad blockers so a healthy ecosystem of digital publishers of free high quality content continues to grow and thrive.
Susan Bidel, senior analyst at Forrester recently wrote in a recent 2016 report, “Marketers beware: ignoring the ad blocker problem today will cost you tomorrow. All but the largest publishers with the deepest pockets evaporate. As it is, the Big Five dominate now: AOL, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo generated 61% of total domestic digital ad revenue in 2014. Advertisers pay more to fewer players.” Bidel continued, “With just the slightest push from ad blockers, the vibrant -- if flawed -- digital environment turns into an ecosystem that more closely resembles the TV landscape of the 1950s in which advertisers had only three networks to choose from for their reach. Supplier consolidation transfers power from the buying community, where it now sits, to the big publishers, who set higher prices and smother innovation in a classic example of limited competition.”1
Today’s news from Instart Logic is on the heels of Facebook’s announcement earlier this summer that it would disable ad blockers. A cat-and-mouse game quickly ensued, but ultimately unlocking this revenue helped the company grow its desktop ad revenue in Q3 by 18 percent year-over-year.
Comparable in results to what Facebook’s engineers were able to accomplish internally for Facebook, Instart Logic’s cloud-based “Ad Integrity” product allows digital publishers to circumvent ad blockers, unlock lost ad revenue and drive revenue growth, while preserving the ability to serve up contextual, non-intrusive and relevant ads that do not annoy users. Deploying Instart Logic’s ‘Ad Integrity’ solution requires only a simple DNS change.
Ad Integrity addresses a rising global challenge to digital publishers as the use of ad blocking technology has risen dramatically, with usage rates approaching 30%. More alarming is that adoption rates are accelerating monthly as mainstream non-technical users become aware of ad blockers. In fact, a study by Adobe in 2015 predicted ad blocking would grow to 41 percent in 2016 with $20.3 billion in ad revenue blocked in the US. The same report predicted that $41.4 billion in ad revenue would be blocked globally.
Instart Logic believes a holistic approach is needed to solve the ongoing dilemma between digital publishers whose business model calls for offering free premium content monetized by the right advertising, and visitors who simply want a positive, free and secure user experience.
Instart Logic has built an easy to deploy solution that is delivered to readers without the need to make any changes to the application, while allowing premium web publishers to monetize their websites in spite of the rising deployment of ad blocking technology. Ad Integrity works by using Instart Logic’s advanced, real time “Nanovisor” technology coupled with its cloud-based algorithms to enmesh the website and advertising content together making it indistinguishable by the ad blocker. Ad Integrity is currently deployed and in operation by many of world’s largest digital publishers, including several in the Comscore Top 100.
“Ad Integrity is a breakthrough capability that’s now available as a value-added service on our existing endpoint-aware application delivery platform. It enables digital publishers to monetize their sites without complex integrations and enables the continued use of their existing ad technology stack,” said Manav Mital, CEO and founder at Instart Logic. Mital continued, “Premium digital publishers are already using our technology in production and finding that by delivering non-invasive advertising experiences to their visitors they can unlock new revenue without negative reaction.”
Jim Davis, senior analyst for service providers at 451 Research, said, “The notion of what a traditional CDN provider delivers to customers continues to expand not only into mobile content delivery services but to end-to-end security as well. Ad Integrity is an interesting example of the value-added services that can be built on top of a content and application delivery platform. The ‘ad-lite’ experience can help minimize the irritation caused by ads that pop up in the middle of content, while still helping digital publishers monetize their sites. In terms of security, this type of solution could also help prevent the introduction of malware and click fraud.”
Examples of how Instart Logic’s ‘Ad Integrity’ solution adds value and helps digital publishers recapture revenue include the ability to unblock:
- Direct Display and Video Ads: For most publishers, this is where the revenue potential is the greatest. Highly valuable impressions, such as those on the homepage, historically have high direct sell rates.
- Programmatic Display and Video Ads: Just as with direct impressions, ad blockers drastically reduce the supply of ads that publishers sell programmatically.
- Native Ads: Native advertising is a form of paid media where the ad experience follows the natural form and function of the user experience in which it is placed and has become extremely popular.
Ernie Regalado, chief strategy officer at Bizety Technologies, said, "Instart Logic’s Ad Integrity is a unique technology breakthrough that has the power to restore a significant amount of ad revenue currently being lost to digital publishers by ad blocking. The solution deploys quickly and helps improve the overall advertising experience for readers who don’t have a big issue with digital advertising per se, but resent obnoxious and annoying ads, such as those that take over their computer or introduce malware. Ad Integrity helps restore much needed equilibrium to the digital publishing industry enabling a healthy eco-system of high quality free content to remain broadly available for the media-consuming public. It’s a win/win solution for both sides.” Regalado continued, “And Ad Integrity sits atop an elegant and integrated platform that includes an endpoint-aware content and application delivery network, and that also provides end-to-end security. This is a powerful solution for publishers.”
The Instart Logic Platform
The Instart Logic platform is the world’s first endpoint-aware application delivery solution that provides a disruptive and completely new way to accelerate web and mobile application performance. The platform provides unprecedented degrees of performance, security and control, as well as endpoint-aware application virtualization, a big data machine learning platform for continuous analytics and automatic optimization of application delivery components.
The foundation of Instart Logic’s end-point aware application delivery platform begins with the company’s globally optimized delivery network that optimizes the delivery of content and applications for all devices across wired and wireless networks. It provides customers with the ability to manage application delivery via a web-based portal or APIs for complete control. All it takes is a DNS switch, and you can be up and running with the service in as little as 15 minutes. Instart Logic’s world-class CDN optimizes user experience through geographic distribution of caching and network level optimization, load distribution (freeing up capacity and lowering delivery costs), and spike management to ensure ‘always on’ reliability. On top of this platform, Instart Logic delivers value-added services including:
AppSpeed, a completely new way to accelerate web and mobile application performance that optimizes images, HTML, JavaScript and other page elements based on each user’s specific device, browser and network conditions. AppSpeed disrupts traditional content delivery network (CDN) technology by enabling businesses to deliver extremely fast customer-centric mobile application and website performance that optimizes the critically all-important last mile experience.
AppShield, an end-to-end highly scalable security solution that protects and defends against attacks before they reach origin servers. AppShield delivers unprecedented protection across the entire application delivery path because it sees traffic and threats coming from all corners of the world. Instart Logic’s unique global view automatically learns about new security vulnerabilities and tracks attackers, while making application performance faster and more reliable.
AppFlex, a breakthrough new way to control all your mobile and web traffic to bring customers the fastest and most innovative user experiences possible. AppFlex gives you complete control and flexibility to move at the speed of business, and innovate ahead of demand. Advanced analytics provide up-to-the-minute granularity so you can slice and dice the data by time period, device type, content type, browser and geo location.
About Instart Logic
Instart Logic, Inc., is the world’s first endpoint-aware application delivery solution that makes applications fast, secure, and easy to operate. Instart Logic’s platform combines machine learning, virtualization, and open APIs with a content delivery network (CDN) for global delivery. Using Instart Logic, enterprises can provide ultra-fast, visually immersive and secure experiences on any device to maximize revenue, deliver superior customer experiences and gain competitive advantage. Instart Logic is funded by Andreessen Horowitz, Four Rivers Group, Geodesic Capital, Greylock Partners, Hermes Growth Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Sutter Hill Ventures, Telstra Ventures, Tenaya Capital, Wing Venture Capital and several notable Silicon Valley angel investors. Learn more at https://www.instartlogic.com or follow us on Twitter at @InstartLogic.
1 Ad Blockers Rock The Media Ecosystem, Forrester Research, Inc., May 10, 2016
