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Ad blocking app installs just spiked 3x(here's what marketers need to know)

2016

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Executive Summary

MOBILE AD BLOCKING 2016: AD BLOCKING APP INSTALLS JUST SPIKED 3X (HERE'S WHAT MARKETERS NEED TO KNOW)

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

ADVERTISING AND PRIVACY HAVE BECOME INCREASINGLY TOP-OF-MIND IN THE LAST YEAR.

Recent data suggests that up to 70% of mobile users are either blocking ads or interested in blocking ads, and that a strong majority of smartphone owners are concerned about how advertisers monitor and track their digital behavior.

What we’ve seen in surveying almost 4,000 smartphone owners in the U.S. and Europe confirms that interest in ad blocking and actual ad blocking on mobile is accelerating. Fast.

In just the last three months, the growth rate of new users downloading and installing mobile ad blockers has more than tripled. Shockingly, if this recent accelerated growth rate of ad blocking growth were to continue, more than 80% of smartphone owners could be blocking ads by mid to late 2017.

In spite of that massive growth, there is still a huge amount of confusion and uncertainty about what ad blockers do, how they operate, and whether or not they protect digital privacy in mobile environments. Consumers are confused, and so are publishers and marketers.

What smartphone owners are sayingWho is installing ad blockersWhy smartphone owners are installing ad blockersWhat ad blocking does and how it worksWhat limit ad tracking does and how it worksWhat mobile platform players such as Google, Apple, and Facebook are doingHow marketers should respond

In this report, we break down:

http://www.globalwebindex.net/blog/mobile-ad-blocking-led-by-men-and-16-34s

https://www.truste.com/about-truste/press-room/68-us-smartphone-users-concerned-activity-tracked-use-targeted-ads/

Contents


CONTENTS

SHOCKING, EXPLOSIVE GROWTH25% HAVE DOWNLOADED AD BLOCKING APPSAD BLOCKING IS ACCELERATING FASTIMPORTANT NOTE: DOWNLOADS DO NOT EQUAL USAGE

YOUNG VS OLDMEN VS WOMENANDROID VS IOSUSA VS EUROPETECHIES VS MUGGLES?

JOHN KOETSIER @johnkoetsierJohn Koetsier is TUNE’s mobile economist. He studies, analyzes, and forecasts trends affecting the mobile ecosystem.

AUTHOR

WHO IS INSTALLING AD BLOCKERS?

USER EXPERIENCE/PERFORMANCEPRIVACYDATA USAGE

WHY SMARTPHONE OWNERS ARE INSTALLING AD BLOCKERS

INSTALLATION IS ONE THING; USAGE ANOTHERMOBILE WEB VS MOBILE APPSIGNIFICANT AND RECENT RAMP-UPNUMBER OF AD BLOCKING APPS GROWING FASTUSAGE AND COMPLEXITY

INSTALLS VS USAGE

MARKETING STILL EXISTSADVERTISING WILL ADAPTNATIVE ADVERTISING IS GROWINGPATIENCE: THE PENDULUM IS SWINGINGGET THE APP RELATIONSHIP

MARKETERS: WHAT TO DO

AD BLOCKINGLIMITING AD TRACKINGMOBILE WEBMOBILE APPSA NOTE ABOUT THE DATAABOUT TUNE

APPENDIX

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https://twitter.com/johnkoetsier

1


EXPLOSIVE GROWTH

25% HAVE DOWNLOADED AD BLOCKING APPSThat’s likely a higher install rate than desktop ad blockers, particularly in the US, where actual usage of ad blockers was at 10% in 2012 and is currently somewhere between 10 to 20%, depending on whose numbers you trust most. (European and Asian desktop ad blocking is much higher, in the 20-30% range, and at least one American study, for the Interactive Advertising Bureau, placed ad blocking prevalence at 34% in the US in 2014.)

The fact that 25% of mobile users report having downloaded an ad blocking app is significant, and an indicator of changing attitudes and behavior. Given that time spent on mobile is increasing and time spent on desktop is decreasing, this has to be a concerning development for both advertisers and publishers, who rely on ads to sell products and services, and to fund content development, respectively.

Have you installed an ad blocking app?

As of January 2016, 25% of mobile users in the U.S. and UK have installed an app or browser that can block ads. (Total sample size: 3,939. No: 2,141; Yes: 969; Not sure: 829)

NO:

54.4%NOT SURE:

21% ?

YES:

24.6%

US/UK 829

US/UK 969

US/UK 2,141

US & UKmobile users

http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/18/clarityray-ad-blockers/

http://www.wired.com/how-wired-is-going-to-handle-ad-blocking/

http://marketingland.com/ad-blocker-usage-highest-among-key-advertiser-demos-millennials-and-high-earners-143546

http://www.iab.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/IAB_Ad_Blocking_Study_2014-09.pdf

http://www.kpcb.com/internet-trends

2


AD BLOCKING IS ACCELERATING FASTMore concerning to both advertisers and publishers is that the number of people using ad blockers is growing, and growing fast. In fact, according to our data, the growth rate of ad blocking mobile users more than tripled in the last three months alone.

While only 2.4% of our almost 4,000 respondents said that they installed an ad blocking app or browser in the previous 4-6 months, 7.8% said they had done so very recently (in either November or December 2015, or in January 2016).

That’s a more than three-fold jump.

Ad blocking app downloads: growing fast

90

80

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

0

Q2

2015

Q1 2

016

Q1 2

017

Q3

2015

Q4 2

015

Q2

2016

Q2

2017

Q3

2016

Q3

2017

Q4 2

016

Q4 2

017

Downloads of ad blocking apps and browsers have been growing fast in 2015 and early 2016. At the current rate, 80% of mobile users could have the capability of blocking mobile

ads by late 2017.(Projections based on surveyed changes in 3,939 smartphone owners’ behavior from Q1 2015 to Q1 2016)

3


If growth rates in ad blocking continue as we’ve seen from Q2 2015 to January 2016, mobile ad blocking will not be a minority behavior for long. Far from it: mobile users who have installed ad blockers will be in the majority in late 2016, and breach the 80% benchmark in the third quarter of 2017.

Shortly thereafter, they will be almost ubiquitous.

IMPORTANT NOTE: DOWNLOADS DO NOT EQUAL USAGEWhile some mobile users are concerned about privacy and others are annoyed by ads, most have not yet taken significant steps about those concerns. Clearly, if 25% of people have installed ad blocking apps on their phones, 75% of people have not, or are confused enough about the topic that they are not sure whether they have or haven’t.

And it’s important to note that installing an ad blocking app on a phone does not mean that person is using that app all the time, or even part of the time. (See more about this below, in “Installs vs Usage.”)

It does mean, however, that many mobile users have the immediate capability to access the mobile web without viewing any ads, or being tracked by advertisers. And, very likely, it means that many are concerned about advertising, privacy, data use, or their mobile user experience.

4


WHO IS INSTALLING AD BLOCKERS?

YOUNG VS OLDThe ad blocking cohort is an almost perfectly representative demographic slice. While ad blocking mobile users skew slightly to young and middle-aged adults, there really aren’t many standout defining demographic characteristics of ad blockers.

Teens block ads slightly less, older adults block ads slightly less, and young and middle-aged adults install mobile ad blockers at a slightly higher rate.

The more likely indicators of ad blocking behavior are technical proficiency and concern over mobile user experience or privacy (more on that later: see “Why Smartphone Owners are Installing Ad Blockers”).

60%

50%

40%

30%

10%

20%

13-17 18-24 25-34 35-44 65+55-65

70%

45-54

Age and ad blocking

Young to middle-aged adults block ads just slightly more than other groups.(Total sample size: 3,939. 13-17: 415; 18-24: 592; 25-34: 580; 35-44: 529; 45-54: 750; 65+: 357)

NO YES NOT SURE?

5


MEN VS WOMENMen block ads just a touch more than women. And women report being a little less sure about whether they’ve actually installed ad blocking apps or not. But overall, the differences are fairly minor.

ANDROID VS iOSThere’s really very little difference between the major mobile platforms.

Android users tend to be just a little more likely to block ads than iOS users: 27% of Android users block ads, compared to 22% of iOS users. Again, that’s not a huge variance.

Android vs iOS: percentage of users saythey have installed an ad-blocking app

ANDROID

iOS

0 30%20%10%

(Total sample size: 3,939. Android users: 1,775; iOS users: 1906)

MEN WOMEN

NO

NOT SURE

28.6% 22%

54.4%

17.6% 23.7%

(Total sample size: 3,939. Women: 2,220; men: 1,719)

?

YES

NOT SURE

?

NO

54.3%

YES

6


The reality is that the Android and iOS camps are large enough now that they contain pretty much most segments of the population. While there’s a slight skew to wealthier demographics for iOS, a more significant demarcating factor is cost of device … and there are more than a few expensive Android phones as well as cheap ones.

USA VS. EUROPEThere aren’t too many huge differences across the Atlantic Ocean, either, in spite of Europeans’ reputation for being more privacy-conscious and ad-averse than Americans. It turns out that Americans and the British block ads at just about the same frequency, with the UK just a hair in the lead.

NO YES NOT SURE

(Total sample size: 3,939. US: 2,939; UK: 1,000)

USA 55.1% 23.9% 21.1%

UK 52.3% 26.8% 20.9%

COUNTRY

That’s interesting, given the popular perception that Europeans are more privacy-conscious than Americans. An important caveat: we did not survey users in Germany, France, and eastern European nations, which have historically higher rates of ad blocking, and likely higher levels of concern over digital privacy.

?

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7


TECHIES VS MUGGLES?The traditional division in ad blocking behavior has been technical versus non-technical people. That’s been clear from traffic to tech-focused websites versus fashion or entertainment sites in mid-to-late 2015, for instance.

But the picture is changing.

While techies still tend to block ads to a higher degree, the reality is that people with all levels of technical proficiency have joined them. That’s something we see clearly in the age data: seniors -- typically regarded as less technical than young people -- are blocking ads at almost equivalent rates.

Ad blocking rates by vertical

TECH

GAMING

0

(From anti-ad blocker provider Secret Media study)

30%10% 20% 60%40% 50%

ENTERTAINMENT

COMICS

FASHION & LYFESTYLE

SCIENCE

26%

28%

29%

35%

35%

55%

http://digiday.com/publishers/debunking-ad-blockings-big-myths/

http://digiday.com/publishers/debunking-ad-blockings-big-myths/

8


WHY SMARTPHONE OWNERSARE INSTALLING AD BLOCKERS

USER EXPERIENCE/PERFORMANCEA common fallacy about people who block ads is that they are paranoid about advertising, privacy, and being tracked. For a significant percentage of people, that’s not the case at all. For them, it’s much more about user experience.

All those calls take time, and take data. When the New York Times studied this in late 2015, one example mobile site took 33 seconds to load without an ad blocker, and only 7 seconds to load with one enabled. That’s a significant performance jump.

And the user experience of an ad-free site is cleaner, simpler, easy to read. There’s a reason why mobile magazine apps like Flipboard and Nuzzle have strong followings. They are quicker and provide more elegant access to news and information.

“I enabled ad-blocking more for performance than privacy concerns. Once I checked a mobile website I was at, and it was making 42 separate calls to ad-tracking and delivering services,” Christopher Caen, editor-in-chief of ReadWriteWeb, said recently.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/01/technology/personaltech/ad-blockers-mobile-iphone-browsers.html?_r=0

9


Interestingly, people who say that advertisers can collect any data they wish are almost as likely to install ad-blocking apps as anyone else: 21%, compared to 25% of the general population.


VS

50.6%

55.7%

64.3%

63.3%

56.9%

NO

25.6%

25.6%

20.4%

20.8%

20.6%

NOT SURE?

23.8%

18.7%

15.3%

15.8%

22.5%

YES

Advertisers should be allowed to collect data

I have installed an ad blocking app on my phone

NONE

VERY LITTLE

NOT ANYPERSONAL

MODERATE

ANY

NONE

VERY LITTLE

NOT ANYPERSONAL

MODERATE

ANY

10


PRIVACYWhile performance is a real concern for many mobile users, privacy, of course, is still a big issue. About half of mobile users are concerned enough about digital privacy to say that advertisers should not be able to collect any data about them.

How much data should advertisers be able to collect?

MODERATE

ANY AT ALL:

2.6%

NONE:

55%ANYTHING NOTPERSONAL:

9.5%

MODERATE:

7.5%VERY LITTLE:

26%


BOTHandroid & iOS users

The data that these users worry advertisers are collecting ranges from the perfectly reasonable, such as general location, and type of mobile device they are using to the fairly paranoid: credit card number, banking details, and personal photos.

Whether their fears are valid or not, their goal is privacy, and ad blocking is one tool for achieving that, although it is probably not the best. One drawback: the site you are visiting in your ad blocking browser may very well still be sharing your browsing behavior … whether it serves you an ad or not. Ad limiting is much more effective.

11


DATA USAGEAn interesting category is those who prefer to block ads because they are concerned about data usage.

In the New York Times example above, the mobile page weighed in at a staggering 16.3 MB without an ad blocker, and a somewhat more svelte 3.5 MB with one. For people on a data budget, and particularly for users in developing nations or countries where mobile data is expensive, this can be a very big incentive to block ads.

A recent Adobe study found that ad blockers reduced data use by about 50%. For people who are paying for their data use with limited funds, that’s a powerful incentive.

https://blog.pagefair.com/2015/ad-blocking-report/

12


INSTALLS VS USAGE

INSTALLATION IS ONE THING; USAGE ANOTHERIf ad blocking installs are high, why does ad blocking usage seem so low?

While GlobalWebIndex says that 40% of mobile users aged 16-34 blocked ads on mobile in the last quarter of 2015, data collected in Q2 2015 suggests that only 1.2% of mobile web traffic occurs via an ad blocking browser. Data released by comScore in July 2015 shows higher numbers for China and India -- 8% and 9%, respectively -- but very low numbers for North America and Europe, in the sub 1% range.

Interestingly, 2012 data on mobile ad blocking suggests a 1-2% rate even four years ago, so it’s possible that comScore’s 2015 numbers could be a little low.

Even so, they’re much lower than our very recent data on ad blocking installs. How does such a low rate of usage square with 25% of our almost 4,000 respondents saying they’ve downloaded a mobile ad blocking app?

Several factors appear to be at play.

MOBILE WEB VS MOBILE APPFirst, we know that almost 90% of our time on mobile devices is spent in apps, and not on the mobile web. Most of that time is spent in 5-8 favorite apps, two of which are probably from Facebook, one or two of which are probably from Google, and another two are probably games.

Clearly, time in apps is also often time on the mobile web, at the very same time.



http://sourcepoint.com/comscore-and-sourcepoint-the-state-of-ad-blocking/

http://www.slideshare.net/arttoseo/clarity-ray-adblockreport

http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Presentations-and-Whitepapers/2015/The-2015-US-Mobile-App-Report

http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/22/consumers-spend-85-of-time-on-smartphones-in-apps-but-only-5-apps-see-heavy-use/#.hcal0m:5bJy

http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/22/consumers-spend-85-of-time-on-smartphones-in-apps-but-only-5-apps-see-heavy-use/#.hcal0m:5bJy

http://www.poynter.org/2014/app-use-dominates-mobile-browser-use-but-what-does-that-mean-for-news-content/245625/

http://www.poynter.org/2014/app-use-dominates-mobile-browser-use-but-what-does-that-mean-for-news-content/245625/

13


Facebook instant article(no ad blocking)

Mobile web link via Facebook(no ad blocking)

For example, you’re on Facebook, and see a link a friend has shared. You click the link, and unless it’s a Facebook instant article, you go out on the mobile web to the article or page, and read it. Sure you’re in an app, but you’re also on the mobile web. You haven’t opened a browser, however -- either your phone’s default system browser or your newly downloaded ad blocking browser -- you’re in Facebook’s embedded mobile browser.

And that browser cannot currently be set to block ads. This alone accounts for a huge percentage of mobile web visits from within a mobile app.

14


SIGNIFICANT AND RECENT RAMP-UPSecond, there’s clearly been a very significant acceleration in just the last three months, while the data on ad blocking site visits is 6-9 months old.

Of the almost 4,000 survey respondents, 12% said they had installed an ad blocking app or browser on their phone more than a year ago; 2.4% said they’d done it 7-12 months ago, and a similar number said they had 4-6 months previously.

But 7.8% said they’d installed an ad blocking app in the last three months. That’s a massive and sudden 3X jump in download behavior.

Clearly, there’s a cohort who has been interested in ad blocking for quite some time, and there’s been slow growth over most of the past year. But something happened at the end of 2015 that drove this issue to the forefront.

(Google Trends screenshot for term “ad blocking” showing huge increase in interest and search behavior around ad blocking. Screenshot taken February 2016.)

Searches for "ad blocking" term on the rise

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What was it? In 2015, ad blocking became an industry obsession, Digiday says. Apple introduced it to the mainstream in iOS in September. Howard Stern complained about ads. Mainstream media even jumped into the fray

as NBC ran a segment on the technology. The growing ad tech space was increasingly in the public eye, and as we can see from Google Trends, interest in ad blocking, which had subsided for much of 2007 to 2014, suddenly got red-hot.

All that interest has been stoked by Google’s recent flip-flops on ad blocking: first pulling apps like Adblock Fast, then re-instating them.

The underlying drivers of that interest clearly include privacy, user experience, and speed.

But the proximate cause for the spike could very well have been Apple’s support for ad blocking on iOS, a move that Apple could have made in the interests of end user experience -- a perennial concern for Apple -- but also has potential impact on the revenue streams of two of Apple’s biggest rivals: Google and Facebook.

Whatever the exact cause, the result has been a massive uptick in download behavior. At some point soon, we are likely to see the effect of those downloads in mobile browsing studies.

http://digiday.com/publishers/5-things-learned-ad-blocking-2015/

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34173732

http://digiday.com/brands/listen-howard-stern-discover-ad-blocking-software-first-time/

http://techcrunch.com/2016/02/03/google-boots-ad-blockers-from-google-play/

http://techcrunch.com/2016/02/09/google-reverses-its-decision-to-ban-ad-blocking-apps-from-the-google-play-store/

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Ad blocking apps & browsers

FirefoxUC Browser Mini

Opera MiniFire Phoenix

XbrowserSamsung Internet for Android

AdWareAd Blocker & Notifications

Ad BlockerAd Clean

Free Ad BlockerAd Block Browser for Android

OrbitumLittle Web Browser

Rocket Browser

SafariApollo Browser

RoadblocksAdblock Mobile

TrustGo Ad DetectorCrystal Adblock

Freedom - ad blockerClean Explorer

Adblock MobileStop AD

Roadblock(adblockr)

Blocker - ad blockerNoAds Legacy

Ad Stop for SafariNeutral

Unilica Block

ANDROID

Stealth BrowserOmega Web BrowserLite Speed BrowserMercury BrowserAdBlock FastBlocker - AntiSpamAd Blocker AppAdBlock Plus for SamsungAdBlock Browser for AndroidAd Detect PluginAppBrain Ad DetectorAd Blocker PrankEmo Ads Blocker BrowserFree Ad Block BrowserAdBlock Plus

iOS

AdBlock GeniusAdguardTitanPrismADS Block ProAdBusterMaxBlockAds Blocker PROCleannyBlockerUmbrellaNO ADZen adblockerFair, the fair adblockRadblock Ad BlockerCleanInfy Block

NUMBER OF AD BLOCKING APPS GROWING FASTThe number of apps and browsers that enable mobile user ad blocking is growing, and growing fast. At most recent count, we found 33 apps on the iOS App Store that enable ad blocking in some form or another, and another 30 on Google Play.

If we take just the download numbers for Google Play apps, where Google reveals inexact but directional data on install velocity, we see that anywhere between 225 million and 823 million Android owners have installed ad blocking apps or browsers that accept ad blocking plugins.

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7B

6B

5B

4B

3B

2B

1B

02009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020

Smartphone users

(Smartphone ownership projection. Source: TUNE report Global Mobile 2016.)

This includes the Mozilla Firefox browser, which has between 100M and 500M installs, and can be configured with AdBlock Plus. We can see on the Firefox site that 21.6 million users have installed the Adblock Plus plugin from that site, but people can also “sideload” the plugin from the Adblock Plus website. Likewise, the Opera Mini browser has 50 million to 100 million installs, and we can see from the Opera website that 25.3 million of them have installed AdBlock Plus via the supported plugin.

Add another 10-13% for iOS apps, and you end up with a conservative estimate of between 300 million to 600 million people globally who have the capability to use an ad-blocking app that is already installed on their smartphones.

Note: this doesn’t include people who are using non-Google and non-Apple app stores, which are widely prevalent in countries such as China, Russia, and India, where we know that ad blocking is wider spread than in the U.S. or western Europe.

Even so, that’s a significant slice of the global mobile ecosystem, which currently includes close to 3.5 billion smartphone owners.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adblock-plus/

https://addons.opera.com/en/extensions/details/opera-adblock/?display=en-US

http://in.tune.com/tmc-site-global-mobile-2016#_ga=1.70204504.977447732.1450391775

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USAGE AND COMPLEXITYFinally, users installing an ad blocking solution does not mean they are using it, either full-time or part-time.

It’s much more likely that it’s at best part-time, because the system default browser will be launched automatically via links in email and other apps, unless mobile users change a setting… and the ad blocking browser will only be launched when intentionally and specifically launching it.

On Android, that system default will be Google Chrome, and it will not block ads. Android owners can of course download Samsung’s ad blocking capable browser, or other options, and then an additional ad blocking app to plug into it, but is not the system default. Even on iOS, where the default browser supports ad blocking out of the box, people need to install an ad blocking app and then enable it before ads get blocked.

Skipping any of those steps means that while an ad blocker might be downloaded, it might not be used regularly or at all.

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MARKETERS: WHAT TO DO

Both marketers and publishers have struggled with ad blocking on the desktop and on mobile. Forbes and Wired have taken the tack of blocking users who block ads, forcing the odd arrangement which some have characterized as a war between publishers and readers.

Where do marketers stand?

LEVERAGE OTHER CHANNELSWith roadblocks in digital advertising, marketers may shift investments to other channels.

Email and social are massive and growing. Content marketing might be out of the hype phase, but it’s solidly in the usefulness stage. Video has never been hotter, and simple explanatory product videos are extremely effective. Sponsorships of events, publications, and public figures online and offline are more available than ever. Influencer marketing is growing. Affiliates and channel marketing is in the toolbox. SEO still lives. App store optimization is increasingly important. TV is still here, as is outdoor and event marketing.

And yes, digital advertising on the web, mobile web, and in apps -- done well -- still works.

ADVERTISING WILL ADAPTAd networks and ad blockers are engaged in a sometimes cold, sometimes hot war, and the war is based on technology. Most ad blockers function by identifying where a piece of content is coming from, and matching that to a list of known ad networks. The ad tech industry is probably one of the fastest-moving and most innovative spaces on the planet: is it really likely that smart people at ad networks are not going to figure out ways to outwit ad blockers?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/lewisdvorkin/2016/01/14/inside-forbes-our-ad-block-test-stirs-up-emotions-then-brings-learnings-and-new-data-2/#3b6dea102cae

http://www.wired.com/how-wired-is-going-to-handle-ad-blocking/

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/its-publishers-vs-readers-ad-blocking-war-dylan-tweney

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Spoofing locations and technology that drives ads through the same servers as the content so that ad content is indistinguishable from app or web content are just two of the most obvious solutions.

Expect more along these lines from the ad tech industry.

NATIVE ADVERTISING IS GROWINGNative advertising is clearly content that is in-stream with editorial or social content, and as such is much harder to filter out.

While it’s not appropriate for every advertiser, brand, platform, or publisher, native is growing fast and in an era of extreme ad blocking, will accelerate even more.

PATIENCE: THE PENDULUM IS SWINGINGPublishers realize that their success depends on an implicit contract of trust between readers and their publication. The better ones know that this includes user experience and advertising, and that the pendulum has swung too far in too many instances towards over-stuffing of ads.

“This is an ongoing cat-and-mouse game. The big game I’m seeing from the advertiser side is server-side integration/stitiching, which evades ad blockers ... this will limit the effectiveness of ad blocking significantly. I think we are moving into the empire strikes back phase ... the more you try to block the ads, the smarter they get about avoiding the blocking."

- Andrew Frank, VP and Analyst, Gartner

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It is already swinging back, and with the help of platform owners such as Google and Facebook, with accelerated mobile pages and instant articles respectively, there’s a general return to a more considered level of monetization.

As that happens, and as advertisers hand-pick opportunities with respected publishers, their efficiency should go up as there is less overall advertising and more focus on each ad that does remain.

In other words: drive for quality.

GET THE APP RELATIONSHIPNot every brand can have its app in the hands of all of its customers or prospects, but as you work towards that goal, you build your own bridge to your customers, for which there are no toll trolls.

It’s not top of funnel for most, but having your best customers using your app regularly for reasons that are important to them and not just you is the best investment you can make in terms of connecting to your most loyal fans.

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Ad blocking and limiting ad tracking

AD BLOCKER LIMIT AD TRACKING

WHAT IT IS APP

WHERE IT WORKS MOBILE WEB

WHAT IT IS

PRIMARY PURPOSE

USER RESULT

PUBLISHER RESULT

BLOCKS ADS AND TRACKING

BETTER USER EXPERIENCE, PRIVACY

FASTER MOBILE WEB, NO ADS, NO TRACKING

MOBILE WEB

SETTING

MOBILE APPS

BLOCKS MOST TRACKING

PRIVACY

LESS RELEVANT ADS

MORE “NOISE”

APPENDIX

Very briefly, there are four key areas to be aware of about ad blocking and privacy:

AD BLOCKINGAd blocking is simply blocking ads. It is typically done on the mobile web via an ad blocking app and/or browser.

It can be accomplished device-wide in both mobile web and apps, but that requires use of a proxy server for all data traffic, which can be a security risk, and which neither Apple nor Google allow via the App Store or Google Play, respectively. This can be accomplished in Android’s case be added by “side-loading” apps; an iOS solution was recently banned from the App Store.

There are also telco or carrier-level tools for accomplishing similar purposes, which have seen very limited adoption.

http://www.businessinsider.com/been-choice-mobile-ad-blocker-blocks-facebook-ads-2015-10

http://www.businessinsider.com/digicel-becomes-first-mobile-carrier-to-sign-up-shine-ad-blocker-2015-9

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LIMITING AD TRACKINGTo protect users’ privacy, both Google and Apple have added a setting to limit ad tracking. This setting is device-wide, and app publishers whose apps include advertising are required to respect it. When enabled, it severely limits the data advertisers can collect about you and your device. It does, however, result in less relevant advertising.

MOBILE WEBMost ad blockers, as noted above, are mobile web centric. This can be problematic for mobile users who are concerned about advertising, since smartphone owners spend much more time in apps than on the web.

MOBILE APPSFree mobile apps often use advertising as a revenue source. Ad blockers cannot block ads in mobile apps, unless they have been given system-wide permissions and route traffic through VPNs. As mentioned above, this can be a security risk.

A NOTE ABOUT THE DATAData for this report is based on a survey of 3,939 smartphone owners.

We surveyed a sample of 2,939 Americans over the age of 13, and a sample of 1,000 residents of the UK, also over the age of 13. Survey respondents had to have internet access to respond, and we only accepted respondents who own smartphones, so while the samples are representative in terms of geography, age, gender, and other factors, they are biased towards people with internet access and who own smartphones, of course.

Concurrently, we are also investigating the number of mobile users who are limiting ad tracking on Android and iOS smartphones. For that data, which will be more fully released in follow-up studies, we analyzed almost a billion mobile app installs across dozens of countries.

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In addition, we have searched the iOS App Store and Google Play for apps that block ads, or facilitate the blocking of ads, and found 63 apps. We almost certainly have not found all of them.

ABOUT TUNETUNE is on a mission to make mobile marketing better for everyone. As the most adopted measurement and attribution provider for the top 100 grossing apps across iOS and Android, TUNE is trusted by Expedia, Sephora, Starbucks, Amazon, and many other world-class brands. TUNE builds solutions that arm marketers and their partners with insights to help effectively engage consumers with timely, personalized marketing messages. Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, with over 300 employees in eight offices worldwide, TUNE’s solutions are globally recognized as the most innovative, reliable, and best supported in mobile marketing.

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