Ad blocking - a real life view

All this talk of ad blocking reminded me of something I was told 20 years ago. Back then I worked for one of the leading technology publishers, Ziff Davis. During a lively debate with my Editor over an extra insert I wanted him to take, he told me that every month one of our subscribers would rip out and post back every single bound in ad in the magazine, every month for years! No doubt he’d have done it with the printed ads too if there hadn’t been content on the reserve.

My conclusion being that there will always be a group of people who won’t want the ads no matter what and therefore there will always be a proportion of the population who will block ads if the technology allows, always! However why is the behaviour becoming more main stream? I know I am not alone in thinking both publishers and advertisers are equally to blame, although I do think most of the solutions are under the publishers’ control.

So as Olly would say to Stan ‘here’s another nice mess you’ve got me into!’ but how to get out?

With my other hat on as an interior designer I do a lot of research on sites & blogs that would be considered as main stream consumer websites, here are some of my experiences which I will use to highlight some of the problems and potential solution in turn.

Slow page load times

I went to one leading site by a reputable publisher recently which had over 100 pieces of tracking code loading on the page! I very much doubt that’s the only one, download Ghostery and have a look yourselves its illuminating. The resulting impact on page load times surely contributes to the tendency to ad block.

By all means use tools to acquire data about your users, and I realise you can’t do much about the tracking in the campaigns you take. But as a publisher if you have more than 30-40 bits of code loading in the background, do an audit and find out what they are all for, I bet you at least 5 will be obsolete. Also insist on maximum file sizes for the campaigns you take and enforce them.

Terrible ad behaviour

Which leads me to ad behaviour, please don’t allow video or rich media ads with sound to launch without user engagement. How many times have I looked at a site whilst working in a public place then had to quickly find it and switch it off. There’s one site which has them activate below the fold, so not only annoying your users but having them hearing voices for a few seconds before they realise what it is and try and switch it off!

Too many ads

The same site has more ads on the page that content; there is one gallery, with a billboard at the top, 3 MPUs to the right and a recommendation widget below. This is not a good user experience, as well as the sound issue mentioned above it has a poor page load time, flashing creative - it’s horrible! So have less ads, sure you can make them higher impact with lower frequency (as long as they are entertaining and relevant), ideally you should plan to achieve the same average yield to that which you achieved before. And if you don’t know your current placement yields well you best start there!

Start offering a native solution to your advertiser, so the user is more engaged, the ad more targeted and therefore less likely to be blocked. I have to admit at this time if I am seeing great native solutions within my design searches I am not aware of them, so they are either so well conceived I think it’s content or there is work to do to obtain brand communication budgets but that’s a big opportunity waiting to be tapped into.

Lazy creative

As for creative, the tiny flashing banners at the bottom of mobile pages on the blog I read every morning – really!? They may create clicks but how many sales do they achieve? If you are doing this type of creative for your clients Mr Agency Bod then you are doing a poor job. And publisher why are taking those flashy ads in 2015? Again make better more targeted, more engaging advertising using the creativity you claim to have, whether it be native or traditional display but it’s time to say enough to poor creative or we will all be ad blocking within a year.

Bad targeting

I’ve saved the best for last, this morning I was browsing a very prestigious publisher’s design gallery and between each 3rd image I was presented by an ad asking me if I had registered to vote in Nottingham! An ad for Bang and Olufsen I could have lived with but I live in London....

So gather data and use that data to make my experience better, perhaps offer me an app if I go to your site more than twice a week I’ll download it and in return I’ll give you access to my data which you can use to give me a relevant advertising experience. I am after all in the market to buy products so the more relevant the content AND commercial experience is the more loyal I will be.

No ads then pay

Personally I don’t think there is any harm in saying take the ads or we will charge you for the content as long as the ads are tolerable! In my opinion Bild has the right idea. However don’t just do it, educate your audiences on why ads are a good thing and what your commercial constraints are as a business. As journalist I know you will do this well, you convinced me to spend ￡1500 on a real Arco lamp and not a cheaper imitation so use your persuasive talents to help support your own businesses.

Carpe diem

Done right advertising can be wonderful – engaging, enlightening or just fun. Done badly and it will just get blocked with as many as 60% of people in some markets already doing so - the window of opportunity is now, yeah right NOW. So stop fiddling whilst Rome burns and sort it out.

I will continue to discuss issues in publishing each week so please subscribe to my blog if you'd like to hear more.

And if reading the above has you thinking you are missing out, why don't you book a FREE 15 minute (pitch free) consultation and I will help with your specific needs.