Dive Brief:
- Marketers and publishers are both battling ad blocking technology, and mobile had been seen as one spot where audiences weren’t installing the software.
- Now Apple is putting a kibosh on mobile ads, as ad blocking is coming to Safari iOS9.
- Meanwhile, Adobe and PageFair's 2015 Ad Blocking Report found ad blocking software has cost almost $22 billion in lost ad revenue so far this year.
Dive Insight:
Mobile advertisers beware, Apple is going to block your ad in the latest version of Safari.
And ad-blocking is a growing problem. According to a report by PageFair and Adobe, globally the number of people using ad-blocking software grew by 41% year-over-year, and in the U.S., 16% of the online population blocked ads in the second-quarter in 2015. Ad block usage in the U.S. surged 48% during the past year, increasing to 45 million monthly active users during Q2.
Jason Kint , CEO of Digital Content Next, told The Wall Street Journal, “The ad-blocking problem is real and growing, and ad-blocking on iOS is only going to accelerate it.”
Echoing the insight, Scott Cunningham, SVP at the Interactive Advertising Bureau, was quoted in the same WSJ article saying, "The operating system and browser makers have a great deal of power when it comes to the consumer experience. We are concerned about the moves they’re making."
Ad blocking technology intersects a line between privacy and revenue, a line astute marketers should understand and respect in today’s ecosystem of customer-centric marketing.
