Online Ad Blocking To Cost Marketers nearly $22B in 2015

Speaking to Sky News, Sean Blanchfield, the founder of “fair” ad blocking software, said: “It is tragic that ad-block users are inadvertently inflicting multi-billion dollar losses on the very websites they most enjoy”.

Right now, ad blocking nearly always happens via desktop computers, even though 38% of web browsing happens on mobile.

The global cost of ad blocking is also expected to almost double in 2016, with the Adobe and PageFair report predicting that online firms will lose £26.7bn next year. That’s slightly higher than the US but much lower than some other countries in Europe – in Poland, for instance, the number of people using ad blocking technology represents 35 per cent of the population.

The joint report, “The Cost of Ad Blocking”, details the global state of ad blocking and what its rapid growth means for the future of the Internet publishing and advertising industries.

Johnny Ryan, PageFair’s innovation and sustainable media leader, told us the new report makes it “clear that publishers must address the crisis posed by ad blocking in a new way”.

In a report from PageFair and Adobe, ad blockers have seen an increase of installations by 41 per cent in the past year alone which is actually costing publishers $21.8 billion, in 2015 in lost revenue. That there is a large demand for ad-blocking software is one reason that ad blocking is here to stay.

Which solution publishers should opt for can be determined by their particular ad-block usage rates.

Ironically, it is Google’s Chrome browser that is leading the charge in blocking ads – where Google’s primary source of revenue is online advertising. Many publishers are taking measures to circumvent ad blocking, which they rightly believe to be an existential threat.

Mobile ad blocking is already going mainstream in India and China, where two extremely popular browsers with a combined 600 million users come equipped with an ad block extension.

Surprisingly, using an ad blocker to improve the speed and performance of web pages was not listed as one of the responses in the report. Of those who are now not using ad blocking extensions, the misuse of personal information by advertisers and publishers was the primary reason that would convince them to change their mind. This was especially prevalent in Asia and is set to accelerate globally in September when the ability to block ads is introduced to iOS.