30-second summary:
- During the past seven years, ad blocking increased from 15,7% to 26,4% and this rate continues to grow.
- APAC countries block the most – 50% of ads, second-leading is MEA region with 49%.
- The greatest share of ad blockers is seen on desktops.
- Google starts its own ad-blocking initiatives to restrict annoying ads.
- In-game, native ad formats coupled with personalization may be potentially useful for the ad block problem resolution.
Online advertising brings profits to a large number of digital businesses, but it also supports informational resources, sponsoring them, and enabling users to access media content for free. At the same time, users are not always satisfied with a web experience continuously interrupted by ads. Today, in the U.S ad blocking penetration rate has grown from 15,7% to 26,4%[1] over the past seven years.
“Ad blocking[2] is killing advertising”, that is the first thought that may pop into your mind now. Indeed, everything is a bit more complicated, and the rise of ad blocking appears to be quite a fair response to a poorly thought out brand-user communication. So, how do advertisers and publishers come to terms with ad-blocking? Most importantly, what conclusions should they drive from this confrontation in order to safeguard revenues and ensure that their audiences stay happy?
Three main reasons why users embrace ad blocking
According to a study held by GlobalWebIndex in 2019[3], there are three main reasons why users block ads:
- They are overwhelming (48%)
- They are annoying (47%)
- They are intrusive (44%)
The worst situation unfolds in APAC, where the percentage of users who use ad blockers accounts for 50%[4]. MEA