To consumers, ad blocking is a nice little function that keeps any commercial disturbance from interrupting their online experience. To publishers, however, ad blocking is a potential menace that could wipe out one of the most important aspects of their business model.
When Apple announced some of the details relating to the next version of Safari, this issue went from buzzing to the forefront of challenges that publishers must overcome to make their business profitable. Not that ad blocking is an entirely new concept or that publishers had forgotten about it. But Apple’s announcement, that iOS9 users will be able to download an application from App Store that will block ads on websites, reminded publishers of two grim realities: Ad blocking is transforming from a niche device, mostly employed by the specifically computer savvy, to mainstream. And secondly, that ad blocking is no longer limited to desktop computers but now applies to mobile browsers too.
For quite some time now, ad blocking has gone one way and that is: Up. A 2014 report from PageFair assess that adblock usage was up 70 percent year-over-year, with more than 140 million people blocking ads worldwide, including 41 percent of 18 to 29-year-olds. You can’t predict the future, they say, but this one seems like a gimme: Ad blocking is taking over.
The Apple announcement made this outlook seem eerily present as many professions rely on the money that advertisers funnel to publishers for publicity. It made people ask a simple question: How can publishers get their hands on marketing budgets if users block ads?
On Twitter, many users had an interesting suggestion. Here’s an extract:
Realistically, content blockers will likely accelerate the move to “native” advertising. (Hopefully the good kind.) https://t.co/FN1XpRr2QM
— Rene Ritchie (@reneritchie) June 18, 2015
Safari soon will let users block ads on iPhones, iPads (or why native advertising is going to get a big boost) http://t.co/5PFjgtY7jE
— Dan Petty (@danielpetty) June 12, 2015
What happens when everybody has blocked ads on all devices? How do we make money? Native advertising? Grrreat. http://t.co/g2hTRjPpyJ
— Amanda Mitchell (@Shhmanduh) June 11, 2015
There is definitely reason to believe that an increment of ad blocking will lead to an increment of native advertising. Publishers will be desperate to find types of advertising that can evade ad blockers and sponsored content that is truly native, blends in with editorial products and should be difficult to identify for ad blockers. Furthermore, most publishers have some experience with sponsored content. As banner ads lose their profitability, publishers should have the know-how to make native advertising work on some level.
However, it might not be that simple. First of all, there seems to be some confusion regarding sponsored content’s actual ability to evade ad blockers. Take this article on American Journalism Review as an example. The writer tested different websites and sponsored articles on BuzzFeed’s homepage disappeared, when ad blocking was activated. The same thing happened on most of the websites that the writer engaged with. Since BuzzFeed is one of the websites, where sponsored content most accurately resembles editorial content, it would seem that ad block has a pretty sophisticated ability to track down native advertising.
Another thing, explained by Monday Note right here, is that some ad blocking software has the functionality to identify phrases such as “sponsored content” or “sponsored by” and block the nearby content. Obviously, this makes it more difficult for publishers to evade ad blocking and recoup their losses with the help of native advertising. Unless, you know, publishers decide to label their sponsored content with obscure phrases that neither ad blockers nor consumers can decipher. And yeah, it is ironic that ad blockers in a roundabout way might contribute to an online media universe where consumers will have an increasingly hard time telling the difference between editorial and advertisement.
Last week, Advertising Age ran a story about the different ways that publishers can overcome ad blockers. This is what the article had to say about native advertising:
Go Native
Just like people do, ad blockers can have a hard time recognizing that a piece of content has been paid for by a brand and is therefore an ad. This doesn’t apply to all so-called “native” ads, such as search ads or paid listings in those content recommendation boxes that companies like Outbrain, Taboola and Yahoo place next to articles. But it’s possible to pull up an advertorial on BuzzFeed or Forbes with an ad blocker enabled.
Pro: Native advertising is already helping brands and publishers deal with “banner blindness,” or people’s ability to immediately recognize and ignore standard display ad formats. Advertisers are spending more money on these types of ads; eMarketer estimated that brands in the U.S. will spend $4.3 billion on native ads this year, up 34% from what they spent last year.
Con: Ad blockers can’t erase the advertorials, but they are able to block the paid placements that point people to these pieces of branded content. For example, the listings on BuzzFeed’s and Forbes’ home pages that link to their advertorials don’t appear when visiting either site with an ad blocker enabled. But native adds blur the line between ethical journalism. Are publishers choosing companies that organically fit within their brand model or are the companies become too money hungry?
In others words, it’s complicated. Some native advertising might be able to evade ad blockers. Some native advertising might not be able to evade ad blockers. How far should publishers go to hide their sponsored content from ad blockers? Is it possible to hide sponsored content from ad blockers without misleading the consumers? We don’t want to do that, right?
There is really no doubt that the destinies of native advertising and ad blockers are entangled. We will continue to pay close attention as this one plays out.
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