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THE RISE OF ADBLOCKING AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT

BAM MOBILE

AD BLOCKING - CONTENTIOUS?

“We’re a nuclear weapon on the advertising industry, it’s time for a change.”

“Ad blockers are an unethical, immoral, mendacious coven of techie wannabes”

“It's a modern day protection racket.”John Whittingdale, Culture Secretary

“I got pissed off with irrelevant ads that serve me no purpose other than wasting my bandwidth - for which, by the way, I’m paying for”

Infuriated Android user

AD TRADE AD BLOCKING COMPANY

UK GOVERNMENT PUBLISHER

USER

“Over 20% of visitors to our site have ad blockers turned on. That’s not a sustainable business.”Wired

Randall Rothberg, IAB Roi Carthy, Shine Technologies

#adblockingxyz

GLOBAL AD BLOCKING STATS

•198 million using ad blockers

• 41% YOY global usage growth

• $41bn estimated lost revenue by the end of 2016

Latest stats say 38% of internet usersworldwide used an adblocking tool in Q4 2015 (desktop) with 37% of mobile users doing so at least once - a massive leap from the low single-digits of Q3

Source: Adobe / Pagefair adblocking report 2015 / Emarketer GlobalWebIndex

AD BLOCKING SIZE OF THE ISSUE

$21.8bn 2015

$41.8bn 2015Estimated

lost revenuedue to ad blocking

Other industry statistics point to lower overall figures than 198 million but similar upward trends.

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UK AD BLOCKING STATS

• 22% of UK adults online block ads up 7% since June 2015, an increase of almost 3 million people

• 35% 18-24yrs blocking ads

• 13% 55+ blocking ads

• 71% blocking on laptop (53% desktop)

• 23% of people using ad blockers do so on their smartphones

AD BLOCKING IN UK (AND EUROPE)

Estimatedlost revenue

due to ad blocking

Source: YouGov

However, 61% of British adults online said they would prefer to access content for free and see ads than pay to access content.

22%

#adblockingxyz

WHAT IS DRIVING BLOCKING (WHAT ARE YOUR USERS USING)

BROWSER USAGE

Estimatedlost revenue

due to ad blocking

Source: Adobe / Pagefair

• Google chrome has been driving desktop usage, increasing 50% to 126 million MAU in 2015

• Firefox increased 17% to 48 million MAU

• Safari up 71% to 9 million MAU and will increase sharply with latest iOS stats

• Mobile blocking browsers are available (Adblock plus)

•Opera just released browser with ad blocking built in

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USER BEHAVIOUR - WHY PEOPLE USE AD BLOCKERS

Estimatedlost revenue

due to ad blockingSource: IAB UK

The IAB also reports only 1% of users would switch off all adblocking if asked, with 46% of 18-24s willing to do so on their favourite sites

Interrupting what a user is doing (73%) and Annoyance (55%) are big reasons for users to block ads. We’ll assume ‘slowing down web browsing’ also includes ‘costing me more for data’.

Creating better advertising/communications would help. Whilst Transparency in signing up to trade initiatives sends a clear message to users

Source: IAB UK

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USER BEHAVIOUR - THE COST IN DATA AND TIME FOR USERS

• 16mb total size with ads • 3.5 mb without ads• 33 seconds to load with ads• 7 seconds without ads

Boston.com (Boston Globe)

• 6.2mb total size with ads • 1.7 mb without ads• 12 seconds to load with ads• 3 seconds without ads

LA Times

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MOBILE ARMAGEDDON?

MOBILE NETWORK LEVEL AD BLOCKING

• Cheaper for mobile networks (and consumers?)

• Offload cost to advertisers

• Greater share of revenue from Google/FB for using pipes

• Move toward controlling digital advertising

Reported trial with caribbean operator digicel resulted in 0 customer wanting to opt-out of receiving no ads - out of 14 million customers

“Anywhere between five and 50 per cent of a consumer’s data plan is consumed by ad tech

Roi Carthy, shine

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INDUSTRY REGULATION - TRADE

Source: Ofcom

• New codes of conduct (L.E.A.N) UK

• New lighter standards in advertising

• Requires cross industry buy-in

• Hard to implement

TRADE BODY RESPONSES

• Technology solution (D.E.A.L) US

• Open source detection scripts

• Customer receives explanation

• Asked to lift ad blocker

•Or choice to limit content

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PUBLISHERS FIGHTBACK - WIRED

Wired: Pay $1 per week, whitelist or no access

• Blockers greeted with pre-launch

message. ‘Get ready for the new Wired...’

• ‘Help us keep the lights on’ messaging

• Ad blocker detected (updated regularly)

• Whitelist Wired or pay $1 per week for access

• Without the above you can’t get on the site

AD FREE VERSION FOR BLOCKERS

“On an average day, more than 20 percent of the traffic to WIRED.com comes from a reader who is blocking our ads. We know that you come to our site primarily to read our content, but it’s important to be clear that advertising is how we keep WIRED going...”

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PUBLISHERS FIGHTBACK - #2

Forbes: Turn off blocker for ad light experience.. Search Engine Journal: Nudge to turn off adblocker

Cult of Mac: Nagware, once a day The Atlantic: Support us by subscribing#adblockingxyz

SOLUTIONS AND STARTUPS

Replace ads with sponsored content Whichit: Native advertising engagment

People.io: Users get paid for their time

Optimal: block ads support publishers

Pagefair: reclaim lost revenueSourcepoint: work with publishers to show consumers options

Pagefair: revenue with unobtrusive ads

#adblockingxyz

DOES CONTENT PAY? CAN IT REPLACE ADVERTISING?

Copa90 with Hyundai - Fan film fund

Narcos: Netflix with WSJ: Deep dive into Medellin, culture and stories

“In 2016, we’re planning updates like further restricting what can be advertised, and adding new protections against malware and bots”Google SVP ads and commerce

The Message: GE’s branded content activity resulted in the worlds most popular podcast

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For ad blocking insights and resourceswww.adblocking.xyz

Give us a shout if you want to talk moreroy@bam-mobile.com