Highlights:

• Live on 68 websites within 3 months
• Measured adblock traffic: 2-4X other ad recovery vendors
• Recovered revenue: 2-4X other ad recovery vendors

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Business Problem

Freestar is the leading adtech monetization partner for large digital publishers. It works directly with over 1,000 websites, reaching more than 70% of U.S. internet users and delivering over 30 billion ads per month.

A growing share of the traffic they manage was going unmeasured and unmonetized — due to adblocking. Conventional adblock recovery methods such as Acceptable Ads and “turn off your adblocker” walls were losing effectiveness, leaving much needed publisher revenue on the table.

Ad-Shield’s industry data revealed the problem: 79% of adblocked traffic is no longer compatible with Acceptable Ads or adblock walls. A new generation of “brutal adblockers” now dominates, blocking not only conventional adblock revenue recovery solutions but also the analytics tools they use to detect adblocker usage.

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This hidden and unmonetized audience is known as dark traffic — representing around 18% of all internet users. That meant it was causing billions of blocked ad impressions each month across the publisher websites Freestar manages. Equating to millions of dollars in lost ad revenue annually.

The growth of dark traffic undermines the ability of publishers to fund the production of quality content, or even operate as a business. Once we became aware of it, this became a priority for us to investigate and address.

- Tim Glenn, VP of Business Development at Freestar

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Objective

Freestar set out to solve the problem that around 18% of the audience it managed was not being monetized by ads.

Goals:

• Make dark traffic measurable within analytics to assess the lost opportunity
• Restore Freestar’s ad stack, allowing its publishers to show ads to this audience again and support a fair value exchange

Requirements:

• Easy setup with minimal technical overhead and scalable infrastructure
• Recover Freestar’s existing ad stack at high-CPMs
• Support a phased rollout with robust performance monitoring
• Deliver a user-friendly ad experience that keeps audiences happy
• Provide both technical and sales enablement support for the Freestar team
• Long-term sustainability and durability of the solution

All requirements met? ✅

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Solution

The solution began with measurement. The team first deployed Ad-Shield Analytics to detect and quantify dark traffic across Freestar’s publisher network.

For the first time, Freestar had a clear dashboard view of this hidden audience. Plus, actionable data to determine the scale of the problem and assess its revenue impact.

Unlike conventional adblock measurement tools, Ad-Shield Analytics is built to capture the full range of adblockers, from browser extensions and privacy browsers to network-level blocking, VPNs, and apps.

With its dark traffic audience now visible, the second step was revenue recovery. Ad-Shield’s technology allowed Freestar to reintroduce ads with a simple JavaScript integration, seamlessly restoring their existing ad stack. All ads were served in compliance with the Better Ads Standards, ensuring a lighter, user-friendly experience that avoided heavy, intrusive formats.

This approach minimized audience pushback, supported by Ad-Shield’s research showing that 85% of dark traffic users either expect to see ads or find certain ad formats tolerable.

Throughout the roll out, Ad-Shield worked closely with Freestar as a strategic partner — providing hands-on support across technical integration, performance monitoring, and commercial enablement. This included dedicated sales training, a shared Slack channel for real-time customer success support, and equipping Freestar’s customer-facing teams with the tools and confidence to scale the solution across their publisher partners.

The combination of Ad-Shield’s easy-to-install JavaScript integration and hands-on customer support enabled Freestar to roll out the solution quickly across the publishers in its network.

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Specification:

• Dark traffic analytics dashboard for actionable measurement
• Detection across all major adblocking methods (extensions, browsers, network-level, VPNs, apps)
• Sustainable ad reintroduction technology via simple JavaScript integration
• Recovery of Freestar’s existing ad stack at scale across its partner websites
• Compliance with Better Ads Standards for a positive user experience
• Audience-friendly recovery, aligned with research showing 85% of dark traffic accepts or expects ads
• Dedicated support: technical integration, performance monitoring, and sales enablement

Ad-Shield’s integration made it easy for us to recover our stack across publisher properties at scale. Their team has been incredibly supportive, from smooth implementation and reporting to sales enablement.

- Tim Glenn, VP of Business Development at Freestar

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Results

Ad-Shield’s measurement and ad recovery solution was live on 68 websites within 3 months following the pilot. This delivered a measurable impact for Freestar and its publishers — meeting all objectives. Following this initial rollout, the solution continued to scale across Freestar’s publisher network.

Below are the results for 3 representative websites.

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Key outcomes:

• Measured adblock traffic and recovered revenue were both 2-4X more than other ad recovery vendor.

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✝️ A Popular Christian Website

📈 Measurement - Adblocking Traffic

• 2.1X other ad recovery vendor

💲 Monetization - Recovered Revenue

• 2X other ad recovery vendor

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📝 A Popular Event Planning Website

📈 Measurement - Adblocking Traffic

• 2.9X other ad recovery vendor

💲 Monetization - Recovered Revenue

• 3X other ad recovery vendor

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👨‍💻 A Popular Tech Website

📈 Measurement - Adblocking Traffic

• 3.8X other ad recovery vendor

💲 Monetization - Recovered Revenue

• 4X other ad recovery vendor

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The revenue results exceeded our expectations. We routinely have adblock recovery vendors approach us claiming they can deliver better recovery rates. None of them specialize in recovering dark traffic, which is why we chose Ad-Shield. 
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- Tim Glenn, VP of Business Development at Freestar

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Conclusion

Traditional adblock recovery captures less than 21% of adblocked traffic. The remaining 79% — dark traffic — goes unmonetized. Ad-Shield changed that for Freestar, turning dark traffic from an invisible threat into a measurable, valuable audience