The number of Internet users blocking ads is rising
A survey of 2,244 people in the UK has revealed that the majority do not like ads on Facebook whether in the news feed (66% dislike) or in the mobile app (69%).
It’s not just on Facebook that ads annoy the Brits – over half (51%) say that tailored ads online invade their privacy.
Founder of Adblock Plus, Till Faida, is naturally supportive of end users’ ability to tailor their online experience if that means blocking out ads. In fact, Faida emphasizes that “while it may seem intuitive that people will stick with a platform where their friends are, they may choose to either alter their experience or move to a new platform altogether”.
In other research, this time from Dublin-based PageFair, a company that helps websites detect whether their ads are being blocked, adblocking has been seen to rise at a rate of 43% per year.
In PageFair’s August 2013 report, it is revealed that almost one quarter (22.7%) of web users are blocking ads, although it should be mentioned that the websites scrutinized were those of companies who had approached PageFair because they feared ads on their websites were being blocked.
“This high adblocking rate translates directly into revenue loss for advertising-funded web businesses. One typical PageFair client site suffers from 25% adblocking, costing them nearly $500,000 per year,” says the report (.pdf). “This scale of revenue loss can be fatal. Indeed, several sites that formerly reported data to PageFair are no longer online.”