A growing yield optimization challenge for digital publishers becomes more serious. Quick notes from the most recent report on online ad blocking.

 Wow. The latest news from the 2015 Adobe & PageFair ad blocking report are NOT good. We have summarized the key points (lowlights?) below:
GROWTH:
  • Ad blocking grew by 41% globally in the last 12 months.
  • There are 198 million active adblock globally.

COST TO INDUSTRY:
  • Ad blocking is estimated to eventually block ~ $22 billion in revenue in 2015.
  • The global cost to ad blocking is estimated to be ~$41.4B in 2016
  • While 198M monthly active users worldwide represents only ~6% of global internet population, ad blocks from these users will coat ~$21 B in 2015, or 14% of the global ad spend.
  • Top 5 industries effected by ad block: Gaming, Social Networking, tech/internet, education,sports/recreation
    • Ad blocking is a function of demographics: sites that target younger, tech savvy male audiences are significantly more effected
  • Ironically, Google Chrome is estimated as the main driver to ad blocking growth: accounting for 126M monthly active users (firefox and safari account for 48 million and 9 million, respectively.
  • The number one and 2 reasons cited for starting to use ad block:

  • If I feel my personal data is being mis-used to personalize ad.

  • If I feel the quantity of ads increased from what I typically encounter today

MOBILE:
  • In Q2 2105 mobile accounted for ~38% of all web browsing, however few ad block technologies are in place for mobile. Ad block is projected to grow on mobile with the growth of firefox on mobile, android ad blocking tools and the forthcoming Apple iOS 9 Safari ad blocking capabilities
  • Apple’s mobile Safari browser accounts for 52% of mobile browsing and 14% of all browsing. Accordingly, should a large percentage of iOS 9 users enable ad block, the web’s free ad supported model for content may be threatened severely.
Adobe-PageFair-Adblock-adomik-notes-post
UNITED STATES:
  • Use % adblockers in the USA is greatest in Oregon (~16%) and least in DC (~8%).
  • US ad blocking grew 48% to 45 million active users in 12 months (though June 2015).
  • US ad blocking cost ~$5.8 B in 2014 and  is expected to grow to ~$10.7B in 2015 and ~$20.3B in 2016
EUROPE:
  • Ad blocking grew 35% in the past year to 77 million active users in Q2 2015
  • UK ad blocking grew by 82% to 12 million active users in 12 months (though June 2015).
  • German ad blocking grew by 17% to 18 million active users in 12 months (though June 2015).
  • Greece has highest ad block rate and Slovakia the lowest
So what can a programmatic publisher or programmatic yield managemnt team do? Unfortuneately, there is no silver bullet, but services like PageFair are helpful, and some believe that the outlook is not so dire, at least today.

We hope you enjoyed the quick overview. The full report is available here: http://blog.pagefair.com/2015/ad-blocking-report/

Tags :

Programmatic programmatic publisher programmatic yield management