Ad Blocker Adoption is on the Rise: What’s a Content Publisher to Do?

The use of ad blocking browser extensions are on the rise. It’s not clear how many marketing messages we are exposed to in a day but recent research suggests a more conservative 300-700 exposures, rather than the widely touted 5k. What is clear is that it is too much for many of us and millions of people are pushing back against the invasiveness of advertising. A team of students from the University of Pennsylvania have even developed a wearable headset (the approximate size of a shoe box!) called BrandKiller to block ads in the real world.

In the digital sphere, Adblock Plus, the most popular extension of its kind, now reports 300+ million installs - a million last year alone. In Europe it is estimated that 25% of all internet users use ad blocking software of some kind. Recent studies by both ComScore and Google (of which DoubleClick is a subsidiary) report that upwards of 50% of display ads go unseen, further fueling cries of foul from marketers about paying for ads that nobody sees. Clarity Ray, a company that develops software that enables content producers to circumvent ad blockers, reports that ad blockers are responsible for approximately 10% of ads going unseen on top tier websites.

In February, David Morris, Chief Revenue Officer for the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), named ad blocking as one of the major impetuses behind the move to “viewable impressions” as the new standard in digital ad measurement. Viewable impressions aims only to track impressions that can actually be seen by users (defined by the IAB as an ad being 50 percent visible for at least 1 second).

Woeful is the poor publisher trying to claw back lost revenue! Many spend a lot of time, energy and dollars trying to outsmart and thwart the ad blockers. Others have opted to pay the blockers to exempt their websites from being hit (e.g. the deep pocket trifecta of Microsoft, Amazon and Google). And some of the largest digital publishers in Europe have resorted to litigation on the grounds that they are a major economic threat to their business.

Then there are content producers who have opted out of the whack-a-mole game altogether. Rather than trying to fight the ad blockers or get in bed with them, ITV and Hulu simply prevent ad blocking users from watching their content, “educating” them with messages like this example from UK broadcaster ITV:

“We think you may have software installed that’s blocking the adverts on ITV Players. We understand you may not always want the ads, but that’s how we make money that pays for the shows you love.”

(image of ITV player via DigiDay.com; banner image via DigitalTrends.com)

Hulu even has created help documentation explaining how to disable Adblock Plus for its website.

So where does this leave things? Rejection of advertising is only picking up steam and the key demographic doing the blocking is the same demographic most marketers want to make inroads with - millennials. Technologically literate end users are changing the game by not accepting aggressive forms of advertising anymore. Publishers may be able to get them to view ads in the short term by pleading their case a la ITV, but the tactic is lacking in long term strategy.

As Sean Blanchfield of PageFair, a company that helps publishers measure the cost of adblocking and display alternative non-intrusive ads, explains it: “there’s a ticking time bomb beneath it all. At some point, all the 15-year-olds blocking adverts now are going to grow up. Where’s that going to leave us in five years time?”

I can think of one possible answer to this question and it might send shivers down your spine: paywall.

Learn More:

Publishers Watch Closely as Adoption of Ad Blocking Tech Grows - IAB Says It Is a Growing Problem - https://adage.com/article/digital/adoption-ad-blocking-tech-grows/

Publishers arm for war with ad blockers https://digiday.com/publishers/publishers-arm-war-ad-blockers/

WTF is viewability - DigiDay, Feb 27, 2014- https://digiday.com/platforms/wtf-viewability/

Blocking web ads is 'as bad as Napster', says data firm https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/sep/09/blocking-adverts-napster-for-the-publishing-industry

State of Viewability Transaction 2015 (IAB) https://www.iab.net/viewability

How Many Advertisements do We See Each Day? https://blog.telesian.com/how-many-advertisements-do-we-see-each-day/