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The first step in considering how to mitigate the effects of ad blocking, therefore, is to identify not only whether the problem exists, but that it does so to the extent that further action is justified. If only 10% of visitors to a website are using an ad blocker, for example, the website owner may reasonably make the judgement that the effort involved in adapting to the threat outweighs the benefits. To make this an informed decision, however, it is first necessary to gather and analyze website visitor behavior data.
The focus of this chapter, therefore, is to outline some steps that can be taken to obtain accurate data on how many visitors to a website have an ad blocker enabled. Two levels of ad blocker tracking will be introduced in this chapter. The first provides a simpler approach using a free service provided by PageFair (another free service, AdBlock X, will also be covered in the chapter entitled An Overview [http://www.ebookfrenzy.com/AdBlocking/index.html Reviews of BlockAdBlock, AdSorcery and AdBlock X]). The second option makes use of Google Analytics and provides a greater level of detail and data collection options.
== Tracking Ad Blocking with PageFair ==
== Detecting Ad Blocking ==
The next step in implementing ad blocker tracking is to add the detection code to the pages of the website. Once again, this code will need to be present in every page for which tracking is required. For the purposes of this example, the JavaScript detection code outlined in the chapter entitled Basic [http://www.ebookfrenzy.com/AdBlocking/index.html Ad Blocker Detection Techniques] will be repurposed to trigger Google Analytics events instead of sending output to the browser’s JavaScript console. As outlined in the previous chapter, the sample detection JavaScript code reads as follows:
<pre>
As an initial test, embed the above code into your website so that it appears on every page that is to be tracked. Make sure to place this code so that it is positioned beneath the Google Analytics tracking code added earlier in this chapter.
Display the JavaScript console for your browser (as outlined in the chapter entitled Basic [http://www.ebookfrenzy.com/AdBlocking/index.html Ad Blocker DetectionTechniques]) and load different pages while enabling and disabling the ad blocker. Check the console output to verify that the code correctly detects the presence of an ad blocker by outputting “Ad Blocker Detected” and “No Ad Blocker” messages.
== Triggering Google Analytics Events ==
