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June 24, 2016

Ad-versarial Relationships: Ad Revenue and Ad Blocking

There is a major disconnect between the browsing consumer and the people selling ads. Part of this is the magic of technology. Talking to an ad exec the other day, I could tell that any communication on the phone was of equal experience to him. And that is a good thing, if you see the time people spend on their phone as one continued experience.

According to Mary Meekers’ latest Internet Trend report, Mobile Advertising has a $21 Billion gap in revenue when looking at consumer time spent and the ad spend.

My own experience bears witness to this, as I keep seeing the same ads over and over again on my mobile device. It’s clear that the level of sophistication being applied to knowing the consumer is sad. The demographics are either not being gathered or being ignored.

So, while the revenue is up, the quality is down.

This helps explain the other trend: Ad Blocking.

Mary Meeker points out that 93 percent of users consider using ad blocking technologies. There now is a cache to being able to brag about being free of ads. I hear it all the time. Many people like to think they are beating the system, and then there are the coders that like to show their skills. So, Ad Blocking has in some ways been attractive to a part of the population that will do this no matter what.

However, my anecdotal experience is that most people say, “I hate ads. They are so annoying.”

According to Mark Bauman, CEO, ReviveAds, the ad blocking public is increasing. He points out that:

  • Americans lead the world in ad blocking. 20 percent of all ad blocking traffic comes from the U.S.
  • Pound-for-pound, Germany has the largest base of ad block users. 18 percent of all blockers come from Deutschland and its population size is quarter of the size of the U.S.
  • Windows users are 5 times more likely to use ad blockers, and mobile – android and iOS – don't event make up 1 percent of traffic broken down by OS.
  • Chrome is the most popular browser for ad blocker users. Together with Firefox users it makes up 92 percent of traffic broken down browser.

Much of the ad-blocking software is built on knowing what the code for ads looks like on the web. In effect these software solutions that block ads work like a Denial of Service attack. So what ReviveAds has done is become the white hat for advertisers by counter measures that negate the ad blocker triggers. ReviveAds has managed to deliver over 1 Billion ads regardless of country, language or browsers have the ad blocker installed.

When you consider the alternatives for content creators and ad agencies of either going into legal action or blocking the blockers, ReviveAds is a strategy that allows the focus to stay on message.




Edited by Ken Briodagh


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