Damaging Effects of Blocking Ads

and Mitigating Them By Brett Kammer

Photo Credit: captplanetrocksmysocks on Flickr

Photo Credit: Jack Zalium on Flickr

Photo Credit: Kyle Pearce on Flickr

A staggering 34.4% increase in United States

adblocker usage occurred from 2015-2016,

signaling its increasing popularity. (eMarketer)

Certain websites have

significantly chance of

their users blocking

their ads than others.

Tech related websites

such as gaming websites

see 26.5% of their users

block ads. (Pagefair)

Less tech related, for

example Real Estate

websites see only 5% of

their ads blocked. (Pagefair)

But why block ads?

“(I) Clicked a green

button…and few than 10

seconds later ads had

vanished.This (web surfing

with adblock) immediately

became Web surfing nirvana:

pages loaded faster, my

browser stopped randomly

crashing, my whole computer

ran better.” (Rosenwald)

In a nutshell adblockers provide:

• Better Performance

• Less Annoyance

• Easy Installation

Many companies are losing

significant revenue due to adblocking.

An estimated 6 billion dollars of revenue

is lost annually by Google alone because

of adblockers. (Mortished)

But who cares?

How would this

affect the

average user?

Photo Credit: Kyle Pearce on Flickr

“We believe that ads help fund free services and content on the Web.”

(Rosenwald)

“Users are inadvertently putting their favourite

websites out of business.” (Rosenwald)

If too much ad revenue disappears many services typically offered for

free will likely disappear or become paid services.

With the

popularity of

adblocking the

problem will

only get worse.

Advertisers

must change to

stay relevant.

There are a number of

existing strategies to

circumvent or reduce

adblocking

Four available strategies for combating adblocking:

Customer Payments

Blocking Adblock

Native Advertising

Content Marketing

Photo Credit: Tony …. on Flickr

Photo Credit: 401(K) 2012 on Flickr

Photo Credit: kkirugi on Flickr

Photo Credit: Laurinha Lii on Flickr

Photo Credit: Nathaniel_U on Flickr

Customer

Payments

One way to recover some of the lost revenue is to provide a service where the users pay a small fee to remove ads of the site. (Rosenwald)

Both parties are happy, but this is not an effective strategy.

“Most users are unwilling to subscribe online (11%) and few would

pay to make ads go away.” (Rosenwald)

Since most users don’t want to pay therefore another strategy is

needed.

Photo Credit: Brad on Flickr

Blocking Adblock

The practice of having a program block the

user from seeing any of the websites

content unless they are whitelisted on the user’s adblocker. This ensures the users see

ads. (Anderson)

There is a major problem

with this technique however.

Websites that employ this technique usually

see a significant decrease in user base.

When Forbes introduced this strategy their daily page views decrease by

9% over one year. (Anderson)

Again, a better

strategy is needed.

Native Advertising

or “Sponsored

Content”

The method of promoting a good or service in an article or video in a way that is similar to how content would normally appear on a particular platform. (Campbell)

Currently this type of advertising cannot be blocked.

“Another means of reducing viewer disruption is by crafting

native advertisements that blend in with the surrounding

content. ” (Campbell)

This technique is successful because it takes advantage of

user’s high trust levels for seemingly

non-advertising content. (Campbell)

Much criticism has arose from the use of this technique.

Native Advertising is Controversial “Our findings show that no

matter what steps publishers have taken, there is still

significant confusion on the part of readers as to what constitutes an article and what constitutes

an ad.” (Lazauskas)

The inability to distinguish native advertisements from genuine

articles has raised ethical concerns. (Mombourquette)

Content Marketing

Non-traditional advertising strategy where the brand releases content with value to the target audience. (CMI)

John Deere releasing “The Furrow” magazine with content relevant to their user base while being clearly from John Deere is an example of Content Marketing. (CMI)

From 2014-2015 approximately 73% more content marketing was

produced. (Teicher)

Content marketing is becoming a leading form

of advertising for many companies as adblocking

becomes more popular.

“49% of marketers rate their content as somewhat

or very effective” (Teicher)

The problem is going

to get worse before it

gets better.

36% of Cellphones in the

Asia-Pacific region engage

in Adblocking (Scott)

“It’s only a matter of time

until mobile ad blocking

comes to the West.”(Scott)

Conclusion

As adblocking’s popularity

increases risks to user content

and advertiser’s revenue

increase.

Advertisers have to use new

techniques to combat lost revenue and

prevent loss of user content.

Content marketing and

Native advertising are the best current

options for advertisers.

Works Cited

• Anderson, Martin. “Sites That Block Adblockers Seem to Be Suffering.” The Stack. N.p., 21 Apr. 2016. Web. 1 Mar. 2017.

• Bilton, Ricardo. “What Is Ad Blocking?” Digiday. N.p., 14 Sept. 2015. Web. 1 Mar. 2017.

• Campbell, Colin. “Good Native Advertising Isn’t a Secret.” Science Direct. N.p., Dec. 2015. Web. 1 Mar. 2017.

• CMI. “What Is Content Marketing?” Content Marketing Institute. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Mar. 2017.

• eMarketer. “US Ad Blocking to Jump by Double Digits This Year - eMarketer.” N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Mar. 2017.

• Lazauskas, Joe. “Article or Ad? When It Comes to Native Advertising, No One Knows.” The Content Strategist. N.p., 8 Sept. 2015. Web. 1 Mar. 2017.

• Mombourquette, Angela. “A Look at the Ethically Complex World of Native Advertising | J-Source.” J Source. N.p., 1 June 2015. Web. 1 Mar. 2017.

• Mortished, Carl. “Canadian Periodicals Index Quarterly - Document - Readers Have Declared War on Publishers.” Globe & Mail. N.p., 3 July 2015. Web. 26 Feb. 2017.

• PageFair. “The 2015 Ad Blocking Report.” PageFair. N.p., 10 Aug. 2015. Web. 1 Mar. 2017.

• Rosenwald, Michael. “The Digital Media Industry Needs to React to Ad Blockers … or Else.” Columbia Journalism Review. N.p., Oct. 2015. Web. 26 Feb. 2017.

• Scott, Mark. “Rise of Ad-Blocking Software Threatens Online Revenue.” The New York Times 30 May 2016. NYTimes.com. Web. 2 Mar. 2017.

• Teicher, Jordan. “Content Marketing 2016: Staffing, Measurement, and Effectiveness Across the Industry.” The Content Strategist. N.p., 11 Jan. 2016. Web. 2 Mar. 2017.

Extended Photo Credits

• (Title) https://www.flickr.com/photos/34997486@N02/5441104104/ (Captplanetrocksmysocks)

• (Slide 1) https://www.flickr.com/photos/joojaebum/8047664173 (Jaebum Joo)

• (Slide 2) https://www.flickr.com/photos/kaiban/3514043632 (Jack Zalium)

• (Slide 3) https://www.flickr.com/photos/keepitsurreal/5236525729 (Kyle Pearce)

• (Slide 4) https://www.flickr.com/photos/23119666@N03/5424139604 (Mark Bonica)

• (slide 5) https://www.flickr.com/photos/sidewalk_flying/226536207 (Seth Sawyers)

• (Slide 6) https://www.flickr.com/photos/cesnet/5870529678 (Cesar Solozano)

• (Slide 7) https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattymatt/3017263513 (Matt Baume)

• (Slide 8) https://www.flickr.com/photos/khawkins04/5333418174 (Ken Hawkins)

• (Slide 9) https://www.flickr.com/photos/17989497@N00/541050703 (Monika)

• (Slide 10) https://www.flickr.com/photos/damionroeien/11122262203 (Eigenberg Fotografie)

• (Slide 11) https://www.flickr.com/photos/nooone/1795729648 (Tony ...)

• https://www.flickr.com/photos/68751915@N05/6355318323 (401(k) 2012)

• https://www.flickr.com/photos/kkirugi/4543261380 (kkirugi)

• https://www.flickr.com/photos/mundoworldmonde/5621803163 (Laurinha lii)

• (Slide 12) https://www.flickr.com/photos/nathan_u/7156545068 (Nathaniel_U)

• (Slide 13) https://www.flickr.com/photos/brad_t/7539784386 (Brad)

• (Slide 15) https://www.flickr.com/photos/lex-photographic/15165267751 (Lex McKee)

• (Slide 17) https://www.flickr.com/photos/veggiefrog/2573076568 (Veggiefrog)

• (Slide 18) https://www.flickr.com/photos/philipbrookes/16646514046 (Philip Brookes)