The Rise of Ad Blockers - A Clutter Free Internet

For anyone who hasn't been paying attention of late - Ad Blockers are on the rise.

With an estimate of 22% of internet users using ad blockers and the recent announcement that the mobile network Three will come with an Ad Blocking solution on their mobiles, this is a threat to our industry. It has been estimated that Ad Blockers have cost the industry billions of pounds in lost revenue already.

Woe befall us all if a popular browser takes Three’s lead and comes with its own in-built Ad Blocker.

So why are Ad Blockers so popular?

In short - people don’t like ads.

No matter how much us marketers claim that our ads are better than ever, more tailored, more relevant, more interesting, less intrusive, ‘enhancing the user experience’ and so on, we are forgetting one core point: people dislike advertising. It’s the same reason as to why people pop the kettle on or pop the loo when adverts come on the telly.

People are here (on the internet) for the content, the experience not the advertising. We are invading their space and disrupting their experience. As Tom Malleschitz, Three’s CMO said "It frustrates customers, eats up their data allowance and can jeopardise their privacy. Something needs to change," (Quote stolen from a PI article here: https://performancein.com/news/2016/05/26/three-sees-frosty-reaction-trial-ad-blocking-uk/ ).

For the user, Ad Blocking is the obvious solution. All the issues and annoyances caused by Ads? Gone.

Pages load quicker

No more annoying banners that follow you around

No more pop ups that take up your screen

No more being dynamically remarketed ads showing you that surprise birthday present your spouse just bought

No more sound coming from somewhere on the page but you're not sure where

No more accidently clicking an ad which takes you away from the page you want

No more waiting 5 seconds so you can skip to the video

No more BUY THIS BUY THIS BUY THIS messaging hounding you everywhere you turn

No more worries about the security of ads or your privacy

And the list goes on

With an Ad Blocker you are left with the internet you choose to view, not crammed with banners & sales pitches. You are now free to browse a cleaner, clutter free internet, where you choose the content to browse not a marketing exec.

As adoption rate for Ad Blockers is growing rapidly with no sign of decline, it’s impact on the industry is only going to increase. So how do we combat this threat?

We need to see things from the user's point of view. We need to learn more about the user. By that, I don’t mean learning that they are a 40 year old woman, living in Brighton with a salary of ￡35k a year, no kids, loves horse riding and falls into an audience list with a 30% higher conversion rate than others so let’s spam her with this ad about equestrian products.

No, what I mean is to learn more about the user is learn more about how they use the internet, what sort of form of advertising is acceptable to a user and to stop seeing them purely as figures on a spreadsheet.

We no longer have a trapped audience that has no choice but to view our ads, they can opt out. We need to start creating ads that users don’t feel the need to opt out of.