FAQ: Why am I not seeing Brave Ads?

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A Note about Brave Ads

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Before we jump into troubleshooting issues, it seems that there may be a slight misconception about the goals and the way in which the Brave Ads feature is designed. This misconception generally takes the form of:

"When I opt in to Brave Ads, my browser will show me ads whenever I use it."

This is not entirely true. In reality, this statement should be:

"When I opt in to Brave Ads, my browser will try to show me ads which are relevant to me."

The difference in wording may seem small, but there is a substantial difference conceptually. The goal is to show you privacy respecting ads that are relevant to the user in the right context (a “match” is found) – not to make sure that all users “see some ads”. Enabling Ads does not guarantee that you’re going to see ads – if the system does not find a match for you in the ads catalog, then you will not see any (more information on this below).

Further, you may see ads appearing regularly today, but tomorrow you may not see any – and that’s perfectly fine. In this situation, it really is a feature, not a bug. We appreciate everyone’s understanding of this distinction and implore you to keep this in mind before assuming that the feature simply “isn’t working”.

That said, we also recognize and acknowledge that some users are are encountering certain bugs or issues preventing them from otherwise seeing Brave Ads as intended. Please check the following common causes for this and ensure that you are set up correctly.

Why am I not seeing Ads?

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Ensure both Brave Rewards and Ads are enabled

You can enable Brave Rewards by navigating to brave://Rewards in your browser.
Here on the Rewards Settings page, you will see the option to enable Ads – please be sure this option is toggled correctly.

I set Ads to display X ads per hour - why am I not receiving X ads per hour?

Please note that this setting is a ceiling rather than a floor.

That is; it does not dictate how many ads you will see per hour – it dictates the maximum number of ads you may see per hour. This number will always fall between 0 and X, inclusive.

Make sure Brave Ads are currently supported in your region

Check and confirm that Brave Ads is currently available in your region. You can see the full list of supported regions on our website.

Adjust OS notification settings

Check your Operating System notification settings and ensure that they’re not inadvertently blocking Brave from serving ads:

• Windows 10 – Please refer to our comprehensive Community guide for configuring Windows Focus Assist.
• macOS – Ensure that Do Not Disturb mode is either off or configured to the correct times. Using OSX’s “mirror display” mode when using a multi-monitor setup may result in Do Not Disturb being activated on its own.

You may have hit the daily cap

There is a maximum number of ads that can be viewed per-day. If ads stop “suddenly”, this is likely the culprit.

You may have exhausted current ads catalog/Match not found

As stated in the note above,
The algorithm that matches users with Ads is designed to find and showrelevant Ads, not just “any ad”. Therefore, you may encounter a situation where (assuming other factors are configured appropriately),

• You’ve been receiving ads as expected and they seem to have suddenly stopped – you may have been served all relevant ads in the catalog (according to the algorithm). Don’t worry – ads will resume when the catalog is updated and additional/different ads are made available
• You’ve enabled Ads but have never seen any appear – given that the system uses your (local) profile data to match you with a relevant ad, there may not be any ads relevant to you with respect to your profile data. Don’t panic! Continue to browse normally and let the algorithm work.

"Why does my browser say Brave Ads "Coming soon"?

Please ensure that you’re using the latest release of the browser. You can manually check for updates by going to Menu --> About Brave

I'm in a supported region, but Brave says "Ads are not available" in my area.

This is a known issue that the Rewards team is currently addressing. You can track this issue’s progress on our Github. We apologize for any inconvenience and should have this issue resolved shortly.

Do I have to disable the ad-blocker or Brave Shields to receive Ads?

No, you do not need to turn off Shields; Brave Ads are initially displayed as system notifications on your machine, rather than “traditional” advertisements that are placed on a webpage.

Additional resources for Ads

Help Center – Ads FAQ
Help Center – How to enable and use Brave Ads
Windows 10 Focus Assist troubleshooting
Official launch announcement (Brave blog)
Start your own Ad campaign on Brave Ads