How To Work With Ad Blockers
As a continuing trend, many content creators are having to learn to work with ad blockers. We can help.
Whether you’re a content creator or consumer, the issue of ad blocking is a hot debate online. Ads are fundamentally the way that publishers make money off of their content, but in the age of customizability online, users are increasingly saying that they don’t want to view content if it’s littered with ads.
Lost in Transmission
Ad blocking is not a niche trend for dedicated technophiles or design aesthetes either.
According to a report released in July by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, more than a quarter of internet users on desktop enable ad blockers, and 15% do this on mobile. Recently, social media giant Facebook threw a wrench in the machine by announcing it would block ad blocking technology on its website.
The move is a perfect representation of the different interests at the core of the ad blocking debate. As Business Insider put it, “Content providers have the right to monetize their offerings via advertising, but users have the right to block ads since some are perceived to interfere with and degrade the browsing experience. Since so many users choose to block ads content providers develop workarounds to the ad-blocking technologies. Ad blockers then refine their software to thwart such efforts and, as a result, the industry has found itself in a cycle of move and countermove.”
Ads Make the World Go Round
From a publisher’s perspective, demonizing users who implement ad blockers is not likely to fix the very real problem: you need revenue and you need your visitors to enable ads in order to gain it. However, there are ways you can appeal to your audience and improve their overall experience of your site so that they might be convinced to consent to ads. In the age of permission-based marketing, this may be a publisher’s only hope. Here are three ways to do that.
Explain and appeal to your user:
Assume that your user is as smart as you are; if you try to thwart their ad-blocking tendencies without them knowing, they’re likely to find out and resent you even more for trying to outsmart them. Instead, appeal to your reader and explain how ad blocking really hurts your business model. Kindly ask them to “whitelist” your site on their ad-blocking software in order to access all your content. Engineer your site so it doesn’t offer the full experience when an ad-blocker is on, and then honestly explain why you’ve done it. If you are transparent about how ad-blocking inhibits your ability to deliver the best content possible—rather than trying to outsmart your user in a never-ending arms race—you are likely to have more success.
Serve better ads:
The ad experience online is often tainted by advertisers who use a lowest common denominator, heavy handed approach. Continually being served with ads that have no relevancy to you is indeed annoying, so endeavor to deliver your users a better ad experience. As Business Insider put it, “Working with ad-tech providers who are particularly good at finding the right consumers for a company’s offerings such that consumers see ads for products and services they’re actually interested in is, at this point, table stakes for any well-managed brand.”
Offer an ad-free premium:
There are people who are mildly annoyed by ads, but might be willing to whitelist your site to access full content. However, you probably also have users who really love your content but really, really hate ads—so much so, they might be willing to pay you for an ad-free experience. While all your ad-blocking users are unlikely to go for this, some will, and this can serve as a valuable revenue stream and an opportunity to engage and get feedback from your most devoted users and followers.