Ad blocking software has been around for awhile now.
But the conversion has picked up in the last few weeks when Apple announced that they would support apps that help block ads while users are using Safari on their phones.
There have been all kinds of opinions coming into play on both sides of the argument.
It’s okay to have an opinion when something like this happens, but I think it’s also good to step back from the situation and look at what is happening and how it will affect you and your business.
From there you can determine what to do.
Ad Blocking: What Is Happening
We’ll find out if people are going to continue to use ad blocking more over the coming months and years. The trend seems to be that more people are using ad blocking.
According to one study the use of ad blocking software has increased 41% in the last 12 months.
This is a shift in the way people are using the Web. The general takeaway is that people are sick of seeing ads that interrupt and affect their online experience.
Since the beginning of the Web, people have felt negatively about ads that interrupt their experience. Pop-up ads have been around for a long time and still are around today, but they’ve often been despised by Internet users.
And there is nothing worse than loading an article you’re really looking forward to reading only to have it take 20+ seconds for all the ads and videos and crazy stuff to load just so you can read a 700 word article.
So what’s happening is that people are showing that they are willing to try different things to make their online experience better. And ad blocking makes the online experience better for many people.
Publishers That Rely On Ads For Revenue
One of the industries that is affected by ad blocking is obviously the online publishing industry. News sites and content sites that depend on ad revenue for existence obviously are threatened.
The push will be to make ads that are more valuable to users to the point where ads actually enhance the online experience. If people feel they’re missing out on something by using ad blocking software they will stop using it.
If this is the way things will be in the future with people demanding better online experiences with fewer ads it’s a shift and a trend. You can complain about the change or figure out a way to exist in the future.
Businesses That Publish Content
There is a little uproar about how ad blockers sometimes block content that is not an ad. That seems to always happen with new technology. It’s never perfect and usually it gets figured out.
I would think that users would want to buy things and would turn off or stop using an ad blocker that blocked a retail site’s cart.
So that’s a temporary thing.
One last interesting bit for businesses that publish content like a blog is that ad blocking seems to present an interesting opportunity.
Businesses that have a product or service don’t depend on ad revenue. They are publishing content to bring in target readers and customers. Those customers come in, get introduced to the business through content and work through to the other pages until buying the product or service.
Ads aren’t part of the process. I don’t think the amount of content being created will decrease in the future, but businesses have an opportunity to create content and profit from it because they can make articles without ads that load fast and provide a great online experience.
And it’s also an opportunity for businesses to build organic channels. Advertising can be part of your marketing efforts, but you can also build a long-term organic strategy like a business blog that doesn’t depend on ads.
Because if people don’t want to see your ads you’ll still need some way to introduce them to your brand. Organic, inbound marketing could be the answer.