Ad Blocking Report - 22 billion in lost revenue

The lost ad revenue figures will double in 2016

[netmeg]

From the folks at Marketingland:

Ad-blocking software, once thought to be a relatively small-scale phenomenon, is apparently rapidly going mainstream. According to a new report from Adobe and PageFair — an Irish company founded in 2012 that “measure[s] the cost of adblocking and display[s] alternative non-intrusive advertising to adblockers” — $21.8 billion in global ad revenues have been blocked/lost so far in 2015.

[marketingland.com...]

TL:DR: If you think ad blockers aren't affecting you, you may be wrong. They're everywhere now. Firefox. Safari. Edge. And it's only going to get worse.

[elguiri]

pageoneresults, I like the Donate button suggestion. That could be a good replacement for my missing search form.

[mcneely]

The problem is more complex than just assigning fault.

For every action, there's going to be a reaction.

This isn't rocket science. Fixing a flat tire isn't going to cause the tire companies to go out of business. If the tire company built better tires, for instance, then the need for tire patch kits would decline.

The low quality tire, not too unlike abusive ad practices, requires a fix, or a solution.

I find the presumed increase in adblocker usage as it might relate to advertising on the net these days to be quite telling -- Adblockers, not too unlike popup blockers, aren't going to go away. The publishers have a choice -- either clean up their act, or just be resigned to having the adblockers clean up their act for them.

At the rate these guys are going, it won't be long before we find adblock hard coded into the browser, just like popup blocker is now ..

As an aside --- "22 billion in lost revenue" ... you can't lose something you don't already have .. There's a big difference between projected earnings and actual earnings. The title alone eludes to the possible fact that this is money that was expected to be gained as a result of their current practices. We can't ever know if a visitor was going to click on the ad or not if the adblocker wasn't deployed, but the fact that adblocker was deployed is a pretty good indication of the end users intentions. My money says that (aside from the publusher being really deceptive) the end user wouldn't have clicked on the ad any way, and the publisher wasn't going to get the money that he or she somehow felt they were entitled to get in the first place.

[edited by: mcneely at 7:18 pm (utc) on Aug 13, 2015]

[pageoneresults]

At the rate these guys are going, it won't be long before we find adblock hard coded into the browser, just like popup blocker is now.

It sorta kinda is now, isn't it?

[en.wikipedia.org...]

Even though the DNT mechanism does not block ads, it does block the sending of cookie data (tracking) which is an integral part of those ads providing A-Z statistical data, am I correct? I have mine turned on in Firefox.

[bhukkel]

Even though the DNT mechanism does not block ads, it does block the sending of cookie data (tracking) which is an integral part of those ads providing A-Z statistical data, am I correct? I have mine turned on in Firefox.

No you are not, it is just a request.

Do not track adds a header (DNT: 1), indicating that the user does not want to be tracked.[25] The browser user has no control over whether the request is honoured or not.

quote from the wikipedia page you linked to

[FattyB]

To me adblockers are just classic freetards.

You know if I build a site then that's how I want it viewed, you don't like the ads then don't visit - no harm done either way.

But don't visit and use my bandwidth and consume my product without paying the toll.

Adblockers will never totally dominate as too much money involved. I wrote something about company called Shine looking to block ads on mobile networks. But you look behind it and its more like protection racket...as will allow some ads if the mobile company gets a cut etc. A bit like adblock do, with allowing certain ad networks for a cut...it is almost criminal I think and certainly disengenious.

But the bulk of advocates I find are the same people who justify pirating movies etc. If you could ID them with no false positives Id block the whole lot of them.

[mcneely]

It sorta kinda is now, isn't it?

It is sort of kinda that way.

I think the browsers are hearing the angst of the end users, but are being cautious at this point because they aren't really into biting the hand that feeds them. The roar of the end user isn't quite loud enough yet for the browser to risk losing out on any of the money they might be getting from the top tier (advertisers).

The push is moving in that general direction though. Publishers will find other creative ways to presume upon the end user in such a fashion so as to be as annoying as hell once the angst of the end user is baked into the browser by way of blocking the ads.

Adblockers are following the same path that the popup blockers followed all of those so many years ago.

But the bulk of advocates I find are the same people who justify pirating movies etc.

You could be right about that -- But keep in mind that wanting to download or otherwise pirate that so-called media can be filled with just as much risk as downloading a bupkass adblocker - It's a two way street really, in that one might settle for downloading one piece of junk, so they can endeavour to download another piece of junk just like it.

[edited by: mcneely at 7:54 pm (utc) on Aug 13, 2015]

[Selen]

The publishers have a choice -- either clean up their act, or just be resigned to having the adblockers clean up their act for them.

My money says that (aside from the publusher being really deceptive) the end user wouldn't have clicked on the ad any way.

It seems you still don't understand how adblocks work. Once installed, it's right there blocking ads on ALL sites you visit by default. It has nothing to do with a particular publisher - you can visit 100 sites with 1 ad a page only but they all will be blocked (unless you specifically unblock adblocker on each site). Plus CPM ads don't have to be clicked to generate a revenue.

I've just found an interesting post and insightful comments related to a site owner claiming 60% of his visitors have adblock installed (the post is from 2014; by now it could be 70%): jayisgames.com/review/jayisgames-ads-the-future-and-you.php

If you notice the responses of the site users, some of them are perfect examples of a thread I started [The BEST and FREE business model]; the users don't care, most of them provide lip-service and would move to another site when they don't get all they want for free. And some of them would do you a favour and donate, maybe up to $1, to cover your 12K monthly operational cost.. but first you need to step up your game and hire New York Times editors because the current in-depth articles and features aren't good enough... some of the cynical users claim that they actually don't read the reviews to justify their ad-blocking..sigh ; )

Ads are an integral part of the site because they have been set up by the site owner; if you like the site, why don't you like ads.. oh well, free-loaders want to eat a cookie and still have it..

[mcneely]

It seems you still don't understand how adblocks work.

Clicks or not, it's the 40% ads on a page that show before you ever get to see any content -- That is, if any real content even exists on the page.

I understand adblockers well enough to know that I'm not interested in viewing the blatant abuse that these so-called publishers want to display to the world.

There are ad networks out there that get just as abused as Google's ads do .. sometimes even on a grander scale.
Most news sites are horrible in their ad presentations and are IMO some of the biggest abusers on the planet.
Media sites are next in line ... what with all of this pagination on steroids crap.

Ads are an integral part of the site because they have been set up by the site owner;

Of course they are -
You must have missed the post where I mention the fact that I run ads ... One or two Adsense ads maybe on every other page - People visit my site all the time -- Some use adblocker and some don't .. it's not a big deal. My ads pay out fine and I'm good with that.

I've even got a few affiliate ads from a major vendor for electronics - My adblocker blocks them all.
I firmly believe that publishers and the end user can get along ... both can reside in the same space.

[incrediBILL]

OK, this whole conversation is disturbing.

a. there's no $22B lost because it was never there in the first place, it's POTENTIAL, not lost. It's like when people sue for "pain and suffering" or "mental anguish" when there are no real physical losses.

b. people that don't want to see the ads will most likely ignore them or bail off a site that doesn't forces them to see ads. There's enough people that do see ads that good sites really don't suffer.

c. shoving ads on people that don't want to see them and will never look at or interact with them is basically defrauding advertisers as they're spending money for nothing except to give the publisher a fee for viewing that page. It's not the advertisers responsibility to pay the publisher for a page view, it's the VIEWERS responsibility to pay for what they read, if they want it bad enough

which brings up my final point..

d. ads aren't "tipping" for publishers. The simple solution for the publisher would be to put the site behind a paywall for those with ad blockers. The ad blocker people could pay a monthly fee to a centralized paywall that gives a small payout per page viewed to all the participating sites. He doesn't see ads, the site gets paid for their content, everyone is happy.

Again, there's not $22B lost, that's such a fallacy I can't stop shaking my head and laughing. The real problem with this flawed logic is there may not actually be $22B in advertiser money to be spent in the first place. Just because the page views are being blocked from ads doesn't mean there would be cash to pay all those view. Bigger picture thinking would also dictate that more page views would cause the rate per page to go down as there's more inventory to sell, so it's a buyers market and it should be cheaper, so even if those pages displayed ads the price assumed for these ads might be much less than anticipated, maybe $10B or less, hard to say for sure.

But the real solution is the alternative paywall and if someone has one setup, so it would pay the publisher just like AdSense does except from the VISITORS pocket, not the advertiser, when ads are blocked. If those people don't want ads and don't want to pay, then it's their decision and they may decide to finally enable those ads when the content comes out of their own pocket but we'll never know unless we all go with an alternative paywall for ad blockers and see what happens now will we?

That's my $0.02 worth.
YMMV

[Selen]

There's no $22B lost because it was never there in the first place, it's POTENTIAL, not lost.

So if vandals cover all those NYC Times Squares' billboards with a magic black paint that cannot be washed off for a year then an insurance company would claim there was no loss because the billboards have only potential value?

[mcneely]

But the real solution is the alternative paywall and if someone has one setup, so it would pay the publisher just like AdSense does except from the VISITORS pocket, not the advertiser, when ads are blocked.

Brilliant idea ... for the sake of the ads themselves.

But what about all of the other stuff layered into the ads?
How is Google ever going to find out who you are and what you're doing?
Doesn't Google pay you because it's counting on the fact that by the ads you've placed on your site, it can learn what it needs to know about your visitors?

Regardless of whether you click on the ad or not, Google still has an edge. It still collects info from the visitors to your site.
I'm thinking TOS stuff here. What if Google doesn't like that you are paywalling for money with regards to blocking their ads? What if blocking ads for free is fine (end user), but blocking ads for money isn't (Publisher)?

Then what?

Though Publishers might be end users too, most end users aren't Publishers.

[ember]

An important point is missed. Ad blockers block (virtually with a default installation):

- ad links and banner/image/video links,
- social media links/buttons,
- affiliate links,

True, and many users LIKE those things. They like the videos and the photos and the ability to "like" a page. Without them they are staring at white page with a lot of black text. So they may not want the ads, but they may put up with them once they realize that when there are no ads, then a lot of the good stuff on a page disappears.

[trebuchet]

a. there's no $22B lost because it was never there in the first place, it's POTENTIAL, not lost.

True. Either marketing budgets are fixed and money not spent on ad networks just goes somewhere else. Or, if you want to assume that money stays in that marketing environment, it's $22b diverted from one group of publishers to other publishers.

b. people that don't want to see the ads will most likely ignore them or bail off a site that doesn't forces them to see ads.

In the first case, impression ads make a substantial amount of revenue. In the second case, who cares? Ad blindness is probably incurable. And bailing off implies that there's a comparable site out there that doesn't run ads or isn't behind a paywall.

c. shoving ads on people that don't want to see them and will never look at or interact with them is basically defrauding advertisers as they're spending money for nothing except to give the publisher a fee for viewing that page.

That's how advertising has worked since the 18th century. Do you seriously think companies that have spent billions on newspaper display ads, TV slots, billboards, etc. complain because some people happen not to look at their ads?

d. ads aren't "tipping" for publishers. The simple solution for the publisher would be to put the site behind a paywall for those with ad blockers. The ad blocker people could pay a monthly fee to a centralized paywall that gives a small payout per page viewed to all the participating sites.

This is the attitude that most annoys me, the corporatisation of adblockers. Intervening between publisher, advertiser and user, holding the first two to ransom and deciding who gets to see what and on what terms. If that happened in any other industry there'd be commercial obstruction and restraint of trade lawsuits flying left, right and centre. Here though we tolerate it (and some cheer it) because it makes their lives a little bit easier. Bewildering.

[netmeg]

(I tried a donate button for an entire season one year. Got about $10, and a lot of "thanks, this site is really great". Can't eat those.)

[Selen]

Regarding a donation button - it's not surprising it doesn't cover the time to put it online. So you have a million monthly visitors and generated $10 from donations; it aligns with my own experience (on a 1000 smaller scale though ;)

[wheel]

Years ago I ran a very popular forum, thousand people logged on at a time all day long. It was a strong technical community full of high income earning professionals - all of them in the six figures. No ads, and visitors complaining about the possibility. A call for donations netted a few hundred dollars - and I think about half of that was from the unpaid moderators. So donations are not a replacement to ads in my opinion.

The idea that we build sites strictly for our visitors and revenue is secondary if considered at all, that has no place in a professional website. You want to run a website without an eye on maximizing revenue, then what you have is a hobby. If you're going to deal with ad blockers, there's only one response - test various options until you find the one that maximizes revenues.

I actually make about half my income from reselling ads across a network of independent niche websites. I could be getting hit by ad blockers I suppose, but for me that's not the looming concern. Our revenue has been stable for years, but a few months ago one of the ad agencies disclosed that they had cut ad spend on national websites (i.e. national newspapers, stuff like that, the big guys) by 90%. They only maintained spend across our network because we continued to perform for them. Which leads me to my real concern - as ads perform less, advertisers are going elsewhere. Our advertisers are begging for alternatives - twitter/facebook promo's, email sponsorship, ebook sponsorship, anything. So I am actively looking to move sideways with this - I need to replace that revenue before it dries up.

My plan currently is to set up a 'tv channel'/webinar in the niche. We'll stream 15 minute segments on topics of interest to our network visitors. Interviews, product reviews, that kind of thing. Then we'll sell ad space right in the video stream - not unlike old school TV. The individual sites in the network lose the ad revenue, but will start taking a cut of the webinar ad revenue. In exchange, instead of running 'ads', they'll be blogging/tweeting/facebooking/email blasting everyone they can get their hands on about the webinar each week. 70,000 twitter followers across the network to start, and some millions of pageviews, and I'm hoping to get some viewers watching. of course all that's hard work, but it always is. We'll do it until we have it figured out, then I guess it will look easy.

[incrediBILL]

So if vandals cover all those NYC Times Squares' billboards with a magic black paint that cannot be washed off for a year then an insurance company would claim there was no loss because the billboards have only potential value?

That's apples and oranges, reductio ad absurdum, just making a mockery of a valid statement with a ridiculous comparison that doesn't mean the same thing, not even in the same ballpark. When ads are blocked, they were never shown, hardly the same as vandalism which requires money spent to fix opposed to money never had in the first place vis a vis ad blockers.

This is the attitude that most annoys me, the corporatisation of adblockers. Intervening between publisher, advertiser and user, holding the first two to ransom and deciding who gets to see what and on what terms. If that happened in any other industry there'd be commercial obstruction and restraint of trade lawsuits flying left, right and centre. Here though we tolerate it (and some cheer it) because it makes their lives a little bit easier. Bewildering

Hardly.

When you publish content, just like publishing a book, you can "charge" for people to read it whether it's a passive charge, advertising, or an active charge, paywall.

I hate to deflate your argument but TV is exactly that industry and they aren't embroiled in lawsuits because you can watch reruns OnDemand with not fast forward or rewind, you can't skip the ads, OR you can pay a premium to view per episode to see it ad free.

In the land of TV you get it 3 ways:
1. free broadcast paid by sponsors, DVRs allow ad skipping
2. ondemand broadcast still paid by sponsors but ad skipping disabled
3. pay per episode, no ads

The business model exists, it's thriving, people are making billions using it, it just hasn't been implemented on websites yet and it's way overdue.

I'm just suggesting that websites adopt the same strategy in that if the ads are blocked they pay for admission.

Funny, big publishers such as magazines and newspapers charge admission and you also have to pay for ebooks so the fallacy that content is free is just that, a fallacy mostly perpetrated by scrapers and aggregators that assume because you publish it online it's free to do whatever regardless of copyright. wrong.

No other industry puts up with this crap except webmasters and for no good reason except some that make money off of your hard work would like to keep it that way.

Just like TV or the news, we should be paid by ads or a paywall unless you like working for free and living on the street.

[Selen]

When ads are blocked, they were never shown, hardly the same as vandalism which requires money spent to fix opposed to money never had in the first place vis a vis ad blockers.

My point was - when an advertiser pays for an advertising campaign for his ads to be shown on the New York Times website, he counts his ads to be displayed on the New York Times. But due to adblock vandalism (yes, it is vandalism because they vandalize the look and the feel of a website by removing the parts they don't like), the ads cannot be shown. I don't see it as apples to oranges.

[Edge]

I like the Donate button suggestion.

Try it...

I've got a script that detects when my ads don't load and the visitor gets a polite message as follows: "We've detected that you're using adblocking software or services. To learn more about how you can help WEBSITE NAME remain a free resource, please visit <a href="/donate.htm">click here".

The donate landing page is another polite request for a donation... So far, I've collected about $180 from approximately 1 million unique ad blockers.

This doesn't even pay the monthly server bill...

[trebuchet]

I dare anyone who thinks that donations are a way of monetising content to try it. It simply doesn't work. People are too accustomed to getting content for nothing. I had a donation button on my sites for a year, back when they were free. Total donations were $15 from pageviews in seven figures.

An option that may work is sending adblock users to a payment system and asking them for a token payment (e.g. 99 cents) to access the site without ads. I haven't considered how that might be done yet but I will at some point.

[shri]

One last thing to look at for those who want their viewers to pay, to replace lost banner views. Not sure if this has been covered here on the forums - Google Contributor:

[support.google.com...]

I want to see how the ad blockers will deal with this and if anyone actually channels money through Google to us. :)

[elguiri]

Total donations were $15 from pageviews in seven figures.

So far, I've collected about $180 from approximately 1 million unique ad blockers.

(I tried a donate button for an entire season one year. Got about $10, and a lot of "thanks, this site is really great". Can't eat those.)

I think I'll get coding those aff network links differently then.

[pageoneresults]

I think I'll get coding those aff network links differently then.

Heh, that was quick.

I'd have to ask how the "Donate" request was implemented on those sites. I can think of a few strategic ways to solicit donations and hopefully have some level of success. I think it's all about how you present your request for a donation.

Also, the "Donate" option does not work for websites that don't justify it. I mean, if it's an MFA website (do people still use that initialism?), your business model is dead. If you're regurgitating content that thousands of others are with no added value, your business model is dead. If you offer something of value, that is difficult to get somewhere else, your business model is alive. Put a donate function in place just to see what happens. But, do something enticing. Give them a reason to donate. Have fun with it. You know "Buy me a cup of coffee.", "Help with my daughter's tuition." or something like that. Slide it in on them when they browse below the fold. Show a picture of you on your hands and knees begging for a donation. Start a GoFundMe type page on your own site. Show visitors what they will continue to get and what's in store for them through their continued contributions. I'm sure you can think of something creative, yes?

P.S. It was just an idea. :)

[incrediBILL]

My point was - when an advertiser pays for an advertising campaign for his ads to be shown on the New York Times website, he counts his ads to be displayed on the New York Times.

That's not the case because all the ad blocked visitors were NEVER COUNTED in that media kit the advertiser was given in the first place therefore he never included those ad blockers in the spend rate in the first place which is why this isn't logical because advertiser don't count visitors that simply don't register in the ad tracking system.

But due to adblock vandalism (yes, it is vandalism because they vandalize the look and the feel of a website by removing the parts they don't like), the ads cannot be shown. I don't see it as apples to oranges.

Not vandalism.

Obviously there's some misconceptions going on here.

Hackers that deface a website, now THAT's vandalism.

Vandalism is when someone shows your website via a proxy server and REPLACES your ads with their ads, or malicious software on the visitors computer that does the same, or cookie washing, etc. Now THAT's actually taking money out of someone's mouth and vandalizing their site.

Some people run without javascript globally, i'm one of those, and only enable it on sites I trust. I'm not blocking ads, I'm not vandalizing squat, I'm simply running my browser with maximum security and considering how much malware is being delivered via 3rd party networks, ad blocking is also a security option IMO so until the ad networks get more secure I fear this will escalate.

Don't get me wrong, I run ads, it's a concern, and I've run ad blocker traps and the percentage of people using them or having javascript disabled was statistically insignificant because your average joe, the moms and pops surfing the web, are clueless. It tends to be the techies like us that do this which to date has been the very small minority.

FWIW, I'm not sure if it still does it or not but Norton used to default with ads blocked as a security measure because of the malware issue. It's the only legit way to protect yourself again malicious ad servers without totally disabling javascript globally.

Maybe I should run my detection software again and see how the stats stack up today but I'm not too concerned.

If this were a real issue Googles earnings would be going down, their ad network earnings would be in the toilet and they aren't.

[netmeg]

Also, the "Donate" option does not work for websites that don't justify it.

Pretty sure that's not an issue here.

[IanCP]

If this were a real issue Googles earnings would be going down, their ad network earnings would be in the toilet and they aren't.

That my friend, IS the bottom line.

Donations? Tried that about 16 years ago - only worked with my forum members helping me cover escalating costs. Then when AdSense was later invented I abandoned it.

[Selen]

Ok.. here is my solution to the problem (hopefully Google / Bing will use my advice):

1. Create a new (optional) meta tag that can be added to a page header and be respected by all web browsers:

<meta name="denyadblockers" content="Custom_Message_That_Will_Show_When_Adblock_User_Visits_The_Site">

When the tag is present, users who have an adblock installed will be denied access to the website and will only see the message from the "content" value. That will stop the cat-mouse games with adblock/anti-adblock/anti-anti-adblock scripts.

2. Google / Bing / other browsers would add an icon near search results links to anti-adblock websites informing them that users with an adblock installed will receive an 'access denied' message if they click on the link. They could have an option to click on a button not to see results of websites that will block their access.

Win-win situation and it should be easy to implement.

[incrediBILL]

Win-win situation and it should be easy to implement.

It doesn't work because the SE doesn't care or stop ad blockers. Plus, if you've done your SEO properly, the SE isn't the only source of traffic.

You have to do it on YOUR site, there's no other way of stopping them except with anti-blocking and <noscript> methods on your own site.

[Selen]

Interesting... so why do SE care about possible malware (they add the: "This site may harm your computer" notification if they think the site may have malware installed).. and according to you they would not care about users getting an access-denied message? To make it work, the essential here are agreements between web browsers / HTML standard (SEs would only deliver an optional warning message).

[trebuchet]

Also, the "Donate" option does not work for websites that don't justify it... If you're regurgitating content that thousands of others are with no added value, your business model is dead. If you offer something of value, that is difficult to get somewhere else, your business model is alive. Put a donate function in place just to see what happens.

I interpret that as "if you don't collect any money from donations then your site isn't worth a damn, so it's your own fault".

In almost cases, donations will not work. I have a large site with a large user base, most of whom use it for study and reference. I have thousands on social media and a mailing list that I can nudge for donations. People just can't be bothered, or they think someone else will donate, or they genuinely can't. The idea that they can be cajoled into donating with a quirky message is, to be honest, ridiculous.

Sure, there may be some sites where the potential for donations is greater, e.g. a tech forum or site that people or businesses rely on in their 9 to 5 jobs. But it's still a weak form of monetisation that you can neither trust or budget for.