More than 600 million devices are now blocking ads worldwide, says a PageFair report
The growth in digital advertising seems to have backfired as users are taking on to ad blocking. According to a recent GroupM report, an average ad-block use or installation rate of 16% has been seen in early 2017.
“India observes that popular Android browsers like UC (Alibaba) and Opera often have ad block enabled by default,” said the GroupM report.
More than 600 million devices are now blocking ads worldwide, says a PageFair report. Ad blocking usage grew by 108 million to 380 million mobile devices and by 34 million to 236 million active desktops from December 2015 to December 2016.
It says that the major concern for ad blockers has been in Asia, Turkey and South Africa. Here browsing online has been more dominant on mobile devices and many of the mobile phone web browsers come automatically fitted with ad blockers.
There are two main reasons for consumers to install an ad blocking software: virus or malware concerns and interruptive ad formats. According to the PageFair report, 30% people chose to install ad blockers due to concerns of virus or malware and 29% felt that the ads were interruptive.
While static banner ads are the most preferred, skippable video ads followed closely. However, the most disliked ads are non-skippable video ads and auto-play ads, the report said.
The best strategy to tackle ad blocking is to go for the cause and not the symptoms of blocking.
For instance, that brands in Hong Kong have reacted more positively and have increased their expertise in videos on social media. They are more aware of the importance of quality content to discourage ad blocking, the report says.
However, in Indonesia, it is reported that the main publishers have struck deals with the UC browser to block the ad blockers.
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