Our research
The Acceptable Ads Committee uses research to understand what users find acceptable and to inform the Acceptable Ads Standard. Our studies examine users’ views and experiences to help protect their browsing experience while supporting the websites they love.
Explore the findings and download the reports below. Publishers, advertisers, researchers, and technology providers can use this evidence to help design better advertising experiences.
Research reports
- 2026
Ad refresh
A live experiment examining how refreshing after an unfilled bid, changing ad size on refresh, refreshing multiple in-view ad units, and combining these features affect publisher revenue and measured user behaviour.
- 2024
In-article ad survey: 300x250 revisited
A 2024 study that led the Committee to raise the Standard’s maximum in-content ad height from 150px to 250px, permitting the static 300 × 250 ad placed between paragraphs — a format the Committee’s original 2021 study had treated as a borderline case.
- 2023
Sustainable online advertising: user perceptions
A survey of 14,004 internet users across 14 countries on what they know about the environmental impact of online advertising, who they think is responsible for reducing it, and what role they see for independent oversight.
- 2022
In-view ad refresh survey
Ad refresh — reloading new ad content in a unit already on the page — was prohibited under the Standard. This study asked whether any implementation of it is acceptable to ad-blocking users, testing sizes, placements and refresh intervals against a static Acceptable Ads control.
- 2021
In-article and in-gallery ads survey
The Standard had assumed since 2011 that ads inside the primary content disrupt reading. This study tested that assumption directly, across article pages and image galleries.
- 2021
Video advertisement study
How ad-blocking users react to video ads in the context of a whole browsing experience, compared with Acceptable Ads formats and with pages carrying no advertising at all.
- 2018
Mobile ads study
Mobile advertising standards at the time were built on data from average internet users. This study asked ad-blocking users specifically how disruptive twelve common mobile ad types are on a phone browser.
An update to our research approach
Our earlier studies used commissioned panels, where participants explored mock webpages and shared their reactions. We now also accept evidence from A/B testing of live web experiences. The recent Ad refresh study used this approach. The Committee accepted it as comparable to the previous methodology and as sufficient research evidence to inform future decisions about the Standard.
The Committee’s Research Framework for Acceptable Ad Experiences (PDF), published in January 2026, was formally accepted by the Committee on August 20, 2026.
Using our research in your work, or have a question about a study? We would like to hear from you.
Contact the Committee