Block the Ad-blocker?—?Here are 4 ways!

Advertising is generally seen with a lot of frustration amongst the people who consume content. People usually feel that ads are a barricade on the way to finding substance, good content, trying to request unnecessary information?—?your email address, what do you do and what you like etc. Thus, people rely upon extensions ad blockers like AdBlockPlus to save themselves from these ads.

However, most of the businesses who spend on advertising, including ours, feel that we are into advertising because it serves a real purpose for consumers and businesses alike.

In the last few years, Google Chrome has consistently been the most preferred browser over Firefox and IE. Also, it is ironic to see that while digital advertising is the key revenue generator for Google, it’s own browser is bringing these ad blockers to the masses. Websites that cater to young, technically savvy, or more male audiences are significantly worse affected because ad blocking behaviour is a function of audience demographics and it is this audience which uses these extensions the most. A report by Adobe and PageFair indicates that as of June 2015, there were 198 million monthly active users (MAUs) globally for the major browser extensions that block ads, also there has been 41% YoY growth Q2 2014?—?Q2 2015. Approx $21.8bn ad revenue was blocked in 2015 and the projected numbers for 2016 were close to $41.4bn.

As technology develops and ad blocking extensions become a commonplace, the growth in ad blocking usage will receive yet another catalyst. This has the potential to challenge the viability of the web as a platform for the distribution of free ad-supported content.

There’s very little that we can do to prevent an estimated $41 billion loss to the advertisers but before we get to that, let’s us understand why do people block ads afterall. This is not a simple problem to answer but a multi-layered problem like a Pandora’s Box of grievances. The deeper you dig, the better.

Some of our findings around this are -

1. First, and the most important, is an increase in the number of ads, more for the millennial shoppers.
2. Second, the misplaced focus of advertisers which has more to do with the industry than the users. The earlier flashy, non-stop pop-ups were a major contributor to the anti-ad sentiment. These ads shattered the trust between consumers and online businesses, and trust once broken is a difficult thing to rebuild. The world is becoming ever more complicated and people give time and attention if only you give them more of what they want.
3. People are afraid about the misuse of personal information which advertisers track and collect.
4. Fourth, the concept that users are responsible for compensating their content provider is no more. Nobody wants to pay to use their social media accounts, or access a website, or read an e-copy of their favorite newspaper. The internet, according to the majority, should be free, and ad-free for everyone.

We can safely assume that ad blockers are not going away anytime soon. What that basically means is that trying to come up with ways to shut down ad blockers altogether is pointless. But, there is still hope. Here are some of the things that are being done to combat these ad blockers, also in a way to try and regain the lost trust.

Detect the ad blocker?—?A lot of websites now detect ad blockers, some of them like Forbes, go on to preventing user from accessing the content until she disables the ad blocker. Some others simply request you allow ads to show, while some try to appeal by politely informing you of the drop in journalists’ salaries or some other kind of messaging framing ads as an inevitable thing.

Get Whitelisted?—?Getting whitelisted, or doing a ‘strategic partnership’ by sharing revenues with these ad blockers is another option. PageFair, one of the ad blockers is helping publishers show ad-blocking users ‘magazine-like’ ads, which are not animated and do not track users’ behaviours the way many online ads do, in a way making the ad experience less intrusive.

Provide Exits?—?Teads global study on why people block ads suggests that 80 percent of people would reconsider installing ad blockers if the ad experience provided them with the choice to skip or close the ad. Provide an exit and you will win half the battle already.

Make less intrusive ads?—?The best idea would be to make your ads provide information that is relevant to your users and also make them feel less intrusive. Simply put, use the power of data to make creative, relevant and better ads. More targeted ads, and ad networks demanding more relevancy from advertisers will result into hyper-targeted ads that will be as valuable as the content a user is viewing.

Good content marketing in the form of native ads, social media and blogs that blend with the relevant information is what your users might be looking for. Data science clubbed with human creativity will work the best to create ads which do not irritate your users.

What steps are you taking to fight these ad blockers? What do you think the industry as a whole needs to be doing to gain back the lost trust? Do let us know your thoughts in comments. 
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Aditya is a digital marketer. He currently heads growth at AdWyze, World’s first Facebook Ads platform which provides insights that drive actions, then and there. Connect with him on Twitter!