Add Blocking Could Affect Retail Online Advertising
Ad-blocking threatens to seriouly affect the growth in the digital advertising market, according to Optimal, a startup with an interests in this area.
According to Optimal’s content trackers, 11.7 per cent of online display ads were blocked last year. When married to the prediction on adblock growth, this would see £8bn worth of the £35bn annual display advertising spend blocked by users.
Optimal bases this prediction on a survey of users, which also highlighted many consumers did not even know they could block ads. Of 1,700 people surveyed, 45% did not know what ad-blocking was and of those who didn’t, many would like to adopt the technology.
Consumers are familiar with either subscribing directly, or not paying at all for ad supported sites. Optimal say the survey suggests that a portion of users, some 15 to 20 per cent now, “but more among young users, will pay for the ability to block ads while still supporting publishers.”