Chrome's move to block ads on sites that violate the Better Ads Standards shook the digital publishing industry before it was even rolled out. Part of the reason is because publishers don't know how to stay compliant and prevent penalties.

It true that removing the intrusive ads defined by the Better Ads Standards require simple configurations in the demand providers they use. The real challenge and cause for concern is how to comply with the 30% ad density maximum the Better Ads Standards call for. 

It's a challenge because ad density is dependent on the total space of an article. The length of most publishers' articles are not uniform, meaning that they need to dynamically calculate ad density for every article or configure their ad setup for their smallest articles to ensure they don't violate the Better Ads Standard's policy and trigger Chrome's ad blocker.

It's difficult to find the resources and sophistication for the former, so in many cases, the only realistic option is a static setup that promises compliance at the cost of lost ad revenue, unless of course, you're a Marfeel publishing partner. 

How Marfeel helps

Marfeel has developed a proprietary tool to dynamically measure and adjust the ads displayed on a page so that they stay as close to the 30% ad density barrier without surpassing it. It's something that will keep Marfeel publishing partners ahead of the curve in a rapidly changing advertising ecosystem.

While it's true that the Ad Experience Report and Chrome Ad Blocker may take some time to universally impact the whole industry as it's rolled out, publishers won't want to tempt fiscal fate with an ad density violation. This means that they will statically configure their ad setup regardless of article size to stay at roughly 20% ad density because they lack a solution that can dynamically do this while staying as close as possible to the 30% summit, forfeiting potential ad revenue in the name of compliance.

How it works

Marfeel's ad density tool tracks the total size of ads against the total size of the content (text and images or media) on a page according to pixels. It then dynamically adjusts the ad requests being made in real-time to not surpass the 30% ad density.

At a more granular level, when a page is loaded, the total size of the content is measured to determine how much space is available for ads. 

When the first ad is returned and loaded, it again calculates how much space is available for subsequent ad spaces depending the previous ad format. The process is repeated until the maximum 30% ad density is reached.