DUBLIN – A new report by PageFair and Adobe estimates $21.8bn in advertising revenues will be lost in 2015 due to ad blocking. In the United States, ad blocking cost an estimated $5.8bn in lost revenue in 2014 and is projected to reach $10.7bn in 2015 and $20.3bn in 2016. The global cost of ad blocking is expected to reach $41.4bn by 2016.
“By working with PageFair, our goal with this research is to shed light on the effects of ad blocking so the industry can develop better solutions for content publishers, advertisers and consumers alike”
The joint report, “The Cost of Ad Blocking,” details the global state of ad blocking and what its rapid growth means for the future of the Internet publishing and advertising industries. It finds that the number of ad block users worldwide has increased by 41% in the past 12 months. There are now 198 million monthly active ad block users.
In the U.S., ad blocking grew by 48% between Q2 2014 and Q2 2015 to 45 million monthly active users (MAUs), or approximately 16% of the U.S. online population. In Europe, ad blocking grew by 35% during the same period to 77 million MAUs.
“By working with PageFair, our goal with this research is to shed light on the effects of ad blocking so the industry can develop better solutions for content publishers, advertisers and consumers alike,” said Campbell Foster, director of product marketing for Video Solutions at Adobe.
PageFair has tracked the growth of ad blocking for three years, and measures over a billion ad blocking hits every month across its 3,000+ client websites to determine the types of content most affected. With many websites impacted with up to 27% lost ad inventory, ad blocking now poses an existential threat for the future of free content on the Internet.
The report further explains that ad blocking, which has been concentrated on desktop browsers, is now spreading to mobile in Asia. This trend will likely accelerate globally in September when the ability to block ads is introduced to iOS.
“It is tragic that ad block users are inadvertently inflicting multi-billion dollar losses on the very websites they most enjoy. With ad blocking going mobile, there’s an eminent threat that the business model that has supported the open web for two decades is going to collapse. PageFair is working with thousands of publishers to securely display user-friendly advertising and keep free websites in business. I hope this report will prompt more editors, website owners, and publishers to join with us to combat the problem”, said PageFair CEO and co-founder Sean Blanchfield.
About PageFair
PageFair, the leading provider of counter ad block solutions to web publishers, provides a free service that helps over 3,000 websites measure and recover revenue lost due to ad block. PageFair also provides technology solutions to enterprise publishers to recover lost advertising inventory. For more information, please visit www.pagefair.com.
via BusinessWire
