The five-second answer
The best way to deal with ad blockers is not to beat them.
It is to build a site where 100% of the ads can vanish without 100% of the income vanishing too.
Ads, affiliate links, coupon codes, sponsors, your own products, memberships, newsletters, and deals with businesses.
Stack enough of these and a visitor who blocks every ad is no longer worth exactly zero.
You don't need to bet your whole site on winning the "Please Turn Off Your Ad Blocker" championship.
1. The awkward truth: site owners want ads, but block them too
As a site owner, you want ad money.
But when you browse the web yourself, you probably want:
- no banners
- no pop-ups
- less tracking
- fewer sneaky affiliate redirects
- faster pages
So your two personalities sit down for a meeting.
Site owner: "Please look at the ads."
Reader: "No."
Site owner: "But I have bills."
Reader: "Not my problem. Back button."
This contradiction is really common.
And ad-blocking extensions are only part of the story.
Apple says Safari Private Browsing stops known trackers and strips tracking info used to identify people out of web addresses.[1] Brave says it blocks privacy-invading ads and trackers by default.[2] Firefox turns on Total Cookie Protection in its standard mode, which keeps each site's cookies in their own box so you can't be followed from site to site.[3]
So "ad tracking is fine as long as people don't install an extension" is no longer true.
The browser itself is slowly turning into a security guard.
2. First, separate "the ad shows up" from "the sale gets credited"
Ad blockers don't cause just one kind of damage.
A. The ad itself disappears
Banner ads, ad network code, and ad boxes embedded in the page can get stopped.
If the ad never appears, you get paid nothing for it.
B. Tracking gets weaker
Even with no ads involved, limits on cookies, redirects, link codes, and outside trackers can make it harder for affiliate programs to tell that a sale came from you.
C. Some income doesn't break at all
A reader signs up as a paying member.
Someone buys your own product.
A sponsor pays a flat monthly fee.
A company pays to use your API.
None of this really depends on whether the ad code loaded on that page.
This is the key point.
Being "ad-block proof" isn't about sneaking past blockers. It's about how little your income depends on showing ads.
3. Ranking income sources by how well they survive ad blocking
Nothing is fully block-proof, but they depend on very different things.
| Income source | How well it survives ad blockers and tracking limits | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| Ad networks | Low | Easy to run on autopilot, but if the ad doesn't show, you earn nothing |
| Regular affiliate links | Medium | May rely on redirects, link codes, or cookies |
| Coupon codes | High | The store counts code use on its own side |
| Direct sponsors | High | A flat fee doesn't depend on how many times an ad is shown |
| Your own products and apps | Very high | You control price, profit, and how it works |
| Memberships and tips | Very high | Readers support the site directly |
| Paid newsletters | Very high | Gives you a way to reach people outside web ads |
| Selling data, content, or an API to companies | Very high | Runs on a completely different kind of deal |
In short: if you build your house on ad networks alone, the foundation disappears the moment an ad blocker shows up.
So put up about eight pillars from the start.
At that point it's less a house and more a fortress.
4. Strong option #1: coupon codes
A weak spot of affiliate links is that some of them rely on tracking inside the browser to know who sent a buyer.
Coupon codes give you a separate route.
Example:
"Get 10% off with code MENDOI10."
Reader ↓ reads the article ↓ goes to the store ↓ types in the code ↓ the store logs the code ↓ you get paid for the sale
This way, the proof that you sent the buyer doesn't have to live only in a third-party cookie.
It's not perfect, though.
- The code can get copied onto other sites
- It can become unclear who recommended it first
- The store has to agree to make a code just for you
- You may have to negotiate the payout yourself
- You need rules for abuse and for codes leaking onto coupon sites
Still, having a second way to get credit beats betting everything on a tracking link surviving.
5. Strong option #2: sell sponsorships directly, without an ad network
With an ad network, the chain looks like this:
Advertiser ↓ Ad network ↓ Your site ↓ Reader
When you sell directly, it becomes:
Company ↓ Your site ↓ Reader
What you can sell:
- a monthly site sponsorship
- a sponsor for a special feature
- a sponsor for one category
- a newsletter sponsorship
- "This month's sponsor" slots
- sponsored research reports
With a flat monthly fee, you don't have to leave everything to an auction that pays per ad view.
The important part: the goal is not to hide that it's sponsored.
It's the opposite.
Label it clearly, with words like "Sponsored," "Ad," or "Presented by."
In Japan, since October 1, 2023, hidden advertising that people can't easily recognize as an ad has been regulated under the country's law against misleading ads and promotions.[5] The U.S. FTC also has guidance on making sure readers can tell native ads apart from regular content.[6]
Surviving ad blockers and disguising ads as articles are two completely different things.
The first is about how you make money.
The second is about honesty.
6. Strong option #3: your own products are the simplest route
Apps, ebooks, templates, tools, data, software, courses, physical goods.
Inside your site, add a normal link like:
"Here's our own tool that fixes the problem in this article."
That's not an ad slot.
If a reader goes to the product page and buys, the sale happens with no ad company in the middle.
The flow is simple:
Article ↓ reader understands the problem ↓ reader finds the fix ↓ your product ↓ purchase
You go from "showing someone else's product for a few cents"
to "selling your own product and keeping the profit."
Yes, making a product takes more work.
But in return, you control the price, the experience, the brand, subscriptions, and how fast you improve it.
7. Memberships and tips: not "watch the ads," but "pay if you want to help"
You don't have to charge every reader.
Keep free articles free.
Then add things like:
- ad-free membership
- supporter membership
- tips
- members-only articles
- early access
- saving and collecting articles
- better search
- AI helper features
Google itself says AdSense's ad-block recovery messages can do more than ask people to allow ads. They can also offer other ways to support the site, like a subscription the site sets up.[4]
So even the ad platform agrees with the idea:
"If ads can't run, offer people another way to support you."
Trying to get 500 yen a month out of everyone is miserable. A setup where only your biggest fans pay is a different story.
8. Newsletters give you a way to make money outside the browser
If your website is the only way you reach people, every change in search rankings, social media feeds, browsers, and ad blockers hits you head-on.
With an email list, you get another route:
Website ↓ reader subscribes ↓ newsletter ↓ reader comes back ↓ sponsors, products, memberships
The value isn't that you can blast out promo emails.
It's that you don't have to beg a search engine every time you want to reach the same person again.
You can sell a sponsor slot in the newsletter itself, or tell people about your own products.
Of course, you still have to get consent, offer an easy unsubscribe, and follow email laws where your readers live.
9. Once you grow, selling to businesses suddenly gets strong
Site owners tend to think in terms of "how much is one page view worth?"
But as your site grows, page views stop being the only thing you can sell.
For example:
- article feeds
- content in many languages
- product data
- comparison data
- your own rankings
- API access
- research reports
- content licensing
- white-label versions others can rebrand as their own
- dashboards for companies
If a company pays you every month, it doesn't really matter how many ads your readers blocked that month.
At that point your website isn't just a place to show ads. It becomes a factory that turns out data, content, and reach.
The conversation goes from
"Our ads got blocked!"
to
"Okay, anyway, the company contract just renewed."
Different world.
10. What you shouldn't make your main plan
An endless tech war with ad blockers
Detect the blocker ↓ serve ads under a new name ↓ blocker updates ↓ disguise them again ↓ blocker updates again
You and the extension end up playing tag forever.
Even if you win, your readers' experience can get worse.
Forcing people to turn off their ad blocker
That can work for some sites.
But if a free article site suddenly says, "You can't read a single word until you turn off your ad blocker," a lot of people will just hit the back button.
Google AdSense has a message feature for ad-block users that can offer other choices, not just ask people to allow ads.[4]
So the choice doesn't have to be "watch ads or leave."
Disguising sponsors as normal articles
That's not finding new income.
That's just wrecking trust.
You beat the ad blocker and lose your readers' trust.
A pretty sad victory.
11. The strongest setup is a mix of income sources
It helps to write your income as a formula:
Total income
ads + affiliate links + coupons + sponsors + your own products + memberships + newsletters + business deals
Reader A sees the ads.
Reader B blocks every ad but buys your product.
Reader C buys nothing but shares your articles with friends.
Reader D becomes a member.
Company E becomes a sponsor.
Company F pays for your API.
They don't all have to pay you the same way.
Instead of asking "how much ad money can I get from one page view?", ask "what kind of fair trade can I build across my whole relationship with this person?"
Once you think this way, your ad-block rate is still worth watching, but it's no longer the one number that decides whether your site survives.
12. An easy order to roll this out
You don't need to do everything at once.
Stage 1
Keep your current ads and affiliate links.
There's no reason to throw away money that still comes in.
Stage 2
Measure how many visitors block ads and how much ad money you're losing.
Google AdSense lets you add a tag that collects ad-block data even if you never show a recovery message.[7]
First, check the enemy's health bar.
Stage 3
Add coupon codes, direct sponsors, and links to your own products, one at a time.
Watch whether money that isn't from ads starts coming in.
Stage 4
Add an email newsletter and memberships.
This builds return visits and a direct relationship.
Stage 5
Only once something has grown big enough, sell it to businesses.
Expand into API access, data, licensing, and company plans.
Start everything at once and you won't get more income streams. You'll just get more dashboards to manage.
And that's honestly exhausting.
13. Bottom line: don't beat ad blockers, make them not matter
Ads aren't going away.
Affiliate links still work well.
So there's no need to drop them.
What's weak is having nothing else.
Even if readers can't see your ads, if:
- people use your coupon codes
- sponsors pay you
- your own products sell
- members support you
- readers come back from your emails
- companies sign contracts
then an ad blocker stops being a switch that turns your income to zero.
The real goal isn't writing some genius JavaScript that sneaks ads past every blocker.
It's building a setup where readers who block ads still get real value from you, and you still get paid in other ways.
Your ads got blocked?
That's fine.
You've got seven other cash registers.
References (7)
[1] Apple Support — Safari private browsing and tracking protections
https://support.apple.com/ja-jp/105028
[2] Brave — Browser privacy, ad and tracker blocking
https://brave.com/
[3] Mozilla Support — Enhanced Tracking Protection and Total Cookie Protection
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/total-cookie-protection-and-website-breakage-faq
[4] Google AdSense Help — About ad blocking recovery messages
https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/11576589
[5] Japan Consumer Affairs Agency — Stealth marketing under the Act against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading Representations
https://www.caa.go.jp/policies/policy/representation/fair_labeling/stealth_marketing
[6] U.S. Federal Trade Commission — Native Advertising: A Guide for Businesses
https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/native-advertising-guide-businesses
[7] Google AdSense Help — Tag your sites for ad blocking recovery messages
https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/11575177
