When you log onto your regular social platforms or visit certain sites, the first thing you notice seconds later are either ad banners or those annoying pop up ads enticing you to be part of the traffic to their site.
Before the world started practicing the art of online- advertising, brands spent a lot of money on print and distributed on merely a “hunch” that they might just reach the right target market, which in turn meant that for certain not so well thought out campaigns there would be losses. There was no way of tracking readers’ tastes, behavioral trails or habits and ads could not be adjusted or modified accordingly.
Then ad software and apps were dispensed and print abandoned. Tracking if and when your ad was hitting the right target was made easier but more vital was that the budget could be monitored and accounted for. By simply being a regular online shopper , ads are designed to reach you once you are on sight.
The new kid on the block
The geniuses of the digital realm seem to have developed rather convenient software that comes in the form of an add-on and can be installed simply by clicking and adding onto popular and frequently used browsers like Chrome or Firefox, available both on desktop and mobile. Those systematic videos that play automatically, or the pop up ads that sidetrack you or eclipse the text you are trying to read, can now be but a vague memory. An estimate of more than 200 million users are making use of ad-blocking. I anticipate that not only will Apple allow ad blocking on its iPhones but a lot more mobile manufactures will jump on the wagon.
Publishers and influential players of digital, like Google reported to have lost a hefty $6,6 billion in global revenue to ad blockers.
Ad-Block Plus
- Can block tracking , Maleware domains, banners, pop ups and video ads on Facebook and YouTube.
- Its FREE.
- Available for Chrome, Firefox, Android, Opera, Safari, Internet Explorer, Yandex and Maxthon.
- Easy installation.
Facts
- The use of Ad-block grew by nearly 70% between June 2013 – June 2014.
- Growth is driven by Google Chrome, on which ad-block penetration nearly doubled between June 2013 – June 2014.
- Ad-block usage varies by country. In some countries nearly one quarter of the online population has it installed.
- Ad-block usage is driven by young internet users age 18-29.
- Ad-block usage is higher with males, but female usage is still very significant. (source: blog.pagefair.com)
A majority of ad-blockers expressed some willingness to receive less intrusive ad formats. There just might be hope for online content publishers that suffer the fate of annual losses as former Googler and Ad Tech , Ben Barokas is said to launch a high tech software to block ad-blockers. “Barokas wants to give publishers a way of streamlining their “transactions” with readers. Publishers will be able to sell their free content to readers either by convincing them to allow ads when viewing their content, or by paying for specific content”. – credit : bgr.com
