Today we’re previewing our new digital advertising model in Brave’s Developer channel. Developers and testers using the latest desktop browser build for macOS and Windows can activate opt-in Brave Ads within the Brave Rewards settings in the browser.

Brave Ads Setup

To participate in Brave Ads, download the developer build of Brave, and then opt into Brave Rewards. If you’re already using our developer build, you will need to manually activate the Ads toggle within Brave Rewards.

This version provides a preview for users to test ad display and delivery, but does not yet include advertiser confirmation or user payment for ad views. The ability to earn BAT (Basic Attention Tokens) for viewing ads will come in several weeks in our beta channel. Users will then be able to earn 70% of the revenue share coming from those ads. Brave Ads will be integrated in Brave’s upcoming 1.0 desktop browser on all platforms (macOS, Windows, Linux), as well as in the Android app (iOS will be available later). As part of Brave Rewards, Brave Ads are opt in and always will be.

Brave is working with several ad networks and brands to test and integrate the current inventory in the Brave Ads catalog, including BuySellAds, TAP Network, AirSwap, Fluidity, and Uphold.

How Brave Ads Work

Opt-in

Users who choose to see Brave Ads are presented with offers in the form of notifications as they browse the web, at a time that the browser finds appropriate and not disruptive. When users click to engage with these notifications, they’re presented with a full page ad in a private ad tab. Brave Ads are opt in, and do not replace ads on websites. Users can also customize how many ads they would like to see.

Privacy by design

Brave Ads put the user in control with privacy by design, and do not leak the user’s personal data from their device. Unlike conventional digital ads, ad matching happens directly on the user’s device, so a user’s data is never sent to anyone, including Brave. Accessing user attention no longer entails large scale user data collection.

70% revenue share to users

With the upcoming Brave Ads version 1.0 release, users will receive 70% of the gross ad revenue, reaping rewards for their attention while preserving their privacy. Users will be rewarded with BAT via the integrated Brave Rewards in their browser.

The BAT can be automatically donated on a monthly basis to the user’s most visited sites, or used to tip favorite content creators. In the future, users will be able to use BAT for premium content, services, or withdraw it from their wallets for personal use. Users that participate in the Brave Ads program will be remunerated at the end of each calendar month when confirmations become available.

Relevance

Brave pushes ad catalogs (one per region and natural language) to available devices on a recurring basis. As the user browses, Brave locally matches the best available ad from the catalog (via keywords in the page) to display that ad at the appropriate time. Because it’s local to the device, ad delivery becomes relevant to the entire browsing experience.

Users see rewarding ads, without web-wide mass surveillance. During our trials which started last June, we worked to improve user modeling and to integrate specific usage of the browser, in order to deliver ads at the right time based on behavior in the browser. We strengthened our modeling and data classification engines and refined our system’s machine learning.