Is Ad Blocking Really A Problem?
August 24th, 2007 by Stefan JuhlThere’s been some buzz about ad blocking and in particular AdBlock the Firefox extension. Basically some guy decided to ban all Firefox users from his website because of the possibility of them using AdBlock which would cut part of his revenue. Even though I’m kind of against ad blocking, I think he’s dead wrong and unable to see the bigger picture.
Ad blockers can’t be too aggressive
Ad blockers on the market can’t block all ads. If an ad blocker is aggressive and block “all ads” there would definitely be many false positives. Your browsing experience would probably drop to zero when you can’t see any images or links on pages you visit. So for an ad blocker to work well, it can’t be too aggressive which also means that some ads won’t be blocked and that there’s ways to work around ad blockers (maybe not for Google Adsense et al, but in regards to your bottom line).
AdBlock users might not notice less obvious ads
In my opinion there could be a good chance that ad block users are used to the “ad free experience” and are therefore less likely to notice the not so obvious ads that exist everywhere. It’s like, if something “bad” happens all the time, you stay alert (in this matter: banner blindness and the ability to notice affiliate links, paid reviews etc.). And if something hardly ever happens you’re too slow to notice it, when it does.
Diversify ads and revenue sources
If any website really suffers from ad blocking, it’s probably about time the webmaster begins diversifying the revenue sources. It’s a sure thing that contextual PPC ads and regular CPM banners aren’t the holy grail of great online profits. How about using alternatives and substitutes like mashing content like videos with ads into your website, use affiliate offers, sell your own “special” ads, sell paid reviews and paid links (shut up Google!) - and not to forget: sell your own products and services. There’s almost endless opportunities to monetize websites, but too many don’t go beyond Google Adsense…
Blocking users will only harm you
Lastly, it’s worth mentioning that users who uses ad blockers could be less likely to click your ads anyway. And more importantly, don’t ever block users unless they harm you - because users are the key to word of mouth marketing. What would you rather do, state your opinion and possibly lose a visitor, or have a user who doesn’t see ads but might link to your website and recommend it to others who do see ads…
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Posted in Monetization |
September 6th, 2007 at 1:14 am
There’s another site owner that jumped on this bandwagon. I won’t mention his name, but he likes to write about being a competitive webmaster.
Anyway, when I first hit his site I was confused as I hadn’t heard about the anti-Firefox campaign before. He doesn’t have ads and as a competitive webmaster you’d think he’d want to do everything he could to get traffic and not block it. I’m sure he’s got some good reason behind his actions, but I didn’t find the post where he explained them.
September 8th, 2007 at 11:54 am
Marios, I suppose you’re referring to John Andrews.. Check out his post on it here: http://www.johnon.com/395/anti-firefox.html
September 18th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
You seriously misunderestimate the zeal of ad blockers. They don’t care if they block worthwile stuff as long as they can get that delusional feeling that they’ve “stuck it to the man” by blocking ads.
Therefore the most popular ad blocking software and filters blocks as much as possible, and only then offer ways to show what the occasional subscriber may notice they’ve missed.
Diversifying revenues sources is a red herring. First of all ther should be no need since ad blocking is theft and it should be stopped. Second, most publishers don’t make that much of individual sites. They are focused of diversifying projects, not monetization methods. And they don’t have the resources to utilize alternate monetization avenues to the extent they can actually ever be effective. It took me 3 year before I finally got a check from Amazon. Since then they’ve changed their pay out policies because tehy relized they were scaring off publishers by raising the pay-off limit so high. Some larger companies are doing that, but not all. AdSense still won’t pay until you’ve earned $100.
Blocking morons and thieves will help you. Why in the world would you want people like that in the first place. Ad block users are people who want other people’s stuff for free and imagine that they some how have that right.
In the end, the only ad block software that made it impossible to detect them, now allows detection because of what I did. Therefore, I no longer block Firefox, and the internet has become aware of the danger of ad blocking. Looks to me like I won, because that’s what I wanted all along. I did see the bigger picture, you and many others didn’t.
September 20th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
Danny, you talk about diversifying revenue sources as a red herring, and you make it clear that you hardly make any money from your sites. Then I must conclude that you either have very little traffic, or your ads are badly targeted.
If lack of traffic is your problem, then why wouldn’t you want every single person who visits your site to see it? They are the people who might link to you, tell a friend about your site, submit it to social media sites etc. etc. Your “loss” because of adblockers isn’t significant compared to the free promotion you’re missing out on.
If you do have decent traffic, then as I said, your ads must lack decent targeting. And guess what.. Diversifying revenue sources is the key to solve that problem!
I can’t see how you should have won on this. You got some free publicity which is great. But in regards to the “ad blocking issues” I don’t see how you’ve accomplished anything that will make you or anyone else more money.
September 21st, 2007 at 8:37 pm
I block ads because i dont want to have to see them. They do not help me retrieve the information i am after. They do not function to convince me to go buy stuff. They are just annoying, and are therefor blocked. Savy users should be aware that you can block ads without firefox or the adblock extension easily by editing your computer’s hosts file with a freely distributed range of ad addresses set to no connection (local host, 127.0.0.1, etc). Google it, its not hard to figure out…
Have an absolutely wonderful day.