Who are we?

How did we get here?

Early growth of digital marketing focused on maximizing profits, often at the expense of the user experience.

And internet users responded by installing ad blocking software. This was a scorched-earth approach that further compromised the value exchange between users, publishers, and advertisers.

But the era of ad blocking is over.

Studies show that ad blocking users don't hate all ads—just intrusive ads.

In fact, ad blocking users understand they should contribute to publishers for the content they consume. 83% of the more than 1 billion ad blocking users worldwide are happy to see ads that respect user experience.

These ads are often referred to as "Acceptable Ads."

What are Acceptable Ads?

The Acceptable Ads standard is developed and maintained by the Acceptable Ads Committee (AAC).

This fully independent committee uses user feedback as its main criteria for developing its standard and also has seats on its board for users as well as publishers, advertisers and adtech providers. While Acceptable Ads isn’t the only way to filter ads, it's the only truly independent standard that respects user choice—and that’s been validated in the market.

And AAX is a programmatic ad exchange that serves only AAC-certified Acceptable Ads.