Adblockers may shift digital spend but experts sceptical about users being a new ‘hot’ demo
Hughes
A rise in usage of adblocking software may actually improve the performance of ad campaigns, but is unlikely to lead to a new golden demographic of people to target according to ad tech experts.
Adblocking technology has been very high profile in recent weeks amid the launch of Apple’s iOS9 and the pulling of top rating adblocking app Peace from the Apple store, amid uncertainty about what it may mean for the market.
While an article in DigiDay suggested the young, male-skewing and tech-focused demographic most likely to use ad blockers could become a hot demographic for certain advertisers, local practitioners were sceptical.
IMO the main motivation for Apple to embrace Ad Blocking was to further (in their eyes) disadvantage Google. They are in a non-stop battle with Google and this is just one more shot fired across their bows. They have been doing things like this for years now Just ask Amazon…how difficult do Apple make it to use the Kindle reader and download Kindle books on an iPad?? Apple doesn’t care that the UX for people is crap – they just want to hurt Amazon because Amazon won’t sell in their App and give them 30%. I don’t really think Apple is crusading to help the UX for people at all.
That said…the advertising experience on mobile (which is ultimately where virtually all our web usage will be on) is really terrible. I hate it most of the time as most websites and advertisers don’t care about interrupting and inconveniencing users just so they can throw an ad at you. So if Ad Blocking forces us all to be better with our mobile advertising experience for consumers then that may well be a good thing.
Very good point Kerry – the industry should aim to fix the root of the problem, rather than trying to treat the symptoms.
Online ads are invasive in ways traditional ads never were.
They track you and sometimes install malicious software, as well as slowing down browsing and gobbling up data (death on a mobile).
That’s why people block them. Address those issues before you start crying about freeloaders.
Adblockers are an excellent way to slow your system down to a crawl and stop all your applications from working.