Ad blocking is killing digital publishing, yet some marketers are blocking other sites’ ads. How ironic.
On February 4, 2016, Design Taxi wrote a letter, subtly pleading with its readers to desist from blocking ads or subscribe to an ad-free Design Taxi. This shows that ad blocking is a really big problem.
In 2013, PageFair released a report that indicates 22.7% of web surfers are blocking ads and the use of ad blocking is growing at a rate of 43% per year. Now, there is a probability that some of these “web surfers” are marketers.
The ironic thing about this situation is that online content publishers who depend on advertising for revenue are blocking ads on their favourite sites while they complain about the problem of ad blocking on their own site. Call it Karma but you can’t eat your cake and have it.
According to Guardian, Google’s revenue from advertising amounted to $59 billion in 2014, which was almost 90% of its total revenue; $45 billion came from ads on its own sites including search and maps, while $14 billion came from ads served by Google on other websites. Google is just one out of many advertisers whose major income is derived by from digital advertising.
Digital advertisers should learn to create ads that people want to view, click and even share, like these Unskippable Geico ads.