Ad-blockers - what should we do about them?

[simonweb]

Let's have a discussion about ad-blockers and how our websites and communities can survive in a world where more and more people use tools to block advertisements.

Surveys and data shows that a large portion of internet users are actively blocking online advertisements. For example: according to data from Ipsos, more than half of internet users globally block ads that are displayed on websites on their phones, tablets, or computers - either manually by actively ignoring ads or by using automatic ad blocking software. Just check out these numbers:


Obviously, ad-blockers have become a real problem for website owners that rely on advertisements as their main revenue source as more than half of a website's visitors could potentially block ads.

What are you doing to combat or work around ad-blockers? Or are you using other forms of revenues that ad-blockers are unable to block?

 

[Bryn]

Obviously, ad-blockers have become a real problem for website owners that rely on advertisements as their main revenue source as more than half of a website's visitors could potentially block ads.

People generally have their ad-blockers always on because of the malvertising scare and, dare I say it, ads themselves are a nuisance especially when they're loading up to 100 URLs in the one go. Well, I suppose just static image ads like what's shown on ProBoards are okay but anything that moves or is laced with too much coding really has to go. And if the site owner is really losing revenue due to them then to be brutally honest, he/she should just shut down the site and stop giving their visitors a hard time. Besides, the overall trustworthy of advertisers themselves is very vague also.

Just my two cents to throw in.

 

[Jason76]

One way to get around them is to quit using banners. Instead, make one of your forums redirect to an ad (but let them know cause that's deceptive). Also, you could always make a marketplace on your forum and work thru that. For instance, I know a wrestling forum that's considering making a marketplace section so people can sell memorabilia to each other.

Surveys and data shows that a large portion of internet users are actively blocking online advertisements.

That's a telling sign they suck In that case, you have to adapt or die!

 

[EfficientNinja]

There are sites that have an Adblock detector. Some of those sites do not allow visitors that do not whitelist them. Maybe we could apply them to our websites and forums to encourage them to whitelist our websites since we do not mean them any harm. As long as we don't have malicious links or websites on our websites, they should be encouraged to keep our sites whitelisted.

 

[Azareal]

You deal with it by putting a nag screen telling them to turn off their adblocker.
And I think the web is going to be full of those very soon, once the tables start tipping.

It's one thing, if it's a small hobby site where you can pay for the entire thing out of your pocket with essentially next to no cash, but if it's something big, then you're going to have a hard time dealing with that dedicated server on your own, and people do have to make a living.

Hate it or not, but a large portion of the economy relies on ads, and people need to make money to pay the bills. Even with the so-called giants like Google, if they pop, then how many people will lose their jobs? And do you think any of your favourite sites can survive without cash?

The ad industry has gone too far, but much of the time, the site owners have no say in the matter, they either get their money, or they do not. However, you do not want the ads market to collapse, that would cause pandemonium and the government would likely have to intervene.

And the government usually chooses the nuclear option, this means throwing you in prison for possessing an adblocker. I wouldn't trust them to do the right thing here, very tricky situation.

 

[NicheLaboratory]

I think the best way to deal with them is to change your advertising model.

A forum I started in 2012 makes the most income from the inline text links. Who cares about ad blockers then. In fact I could turn the picture ads off and still make money.

Nagging people just annoys them. Unless your site is *exceptional*, they won't register, they won't naturally backlink to your site. Or worse.

What's worse? Yeah they'll just go to another site, and you'll sink down the rankings.

 

[Azareal]

I think the best way to deal with them is to change your advertising model.

A forum I started in 2012 makes the most income from the inline text links. Who cares about ad blockers then. In fact I could turn the picture ads off and still make money.

Nagging people just annoys them. Unless your site is *exceptional*, they won't register, they won't naturally backlink to your site. Or worse.

What's worse? Yeah they'll just go to another site, and you'll sink down the rankings.

The other site has to make money too. As does every site.
Servers aren't free. And it's a lot more effective than people would care to admit, as it turns out, people have an aversion to low quality content which isn't professionally produced, if they have an alternative.

Also, no one is going to "backlink" to your site, other than you, unless it's a huge site or something highly unusual. But even that is not a backlink, it's unlikely to benefit your SEO, it's bound to be in some fenced garden, e.g. a private profile on a social network or an IM.

As a big board owner put aptly to me, someone who blocks ads is not a customer.
Sure, people could block the ads, but don't expect to use someone's resources for nothing. Again, it's all basic economics.

And by the way, whisper whisper, inline text ads are still ads. And on-top of server costs, there is also labour, in other words, the cost of paying someone to produce content. And your time *is* worth money. Plus, paying a designer / programmer to make things a little better.

In addition to that, users have ever greater demands of what they expect from sites, also the economics of a large site differs from that of a small one. Sure, the social networks are competitive, but part of the whole difficulty of kicking off a forum is the fact that the standards have greatly risen, and users just won't tolerate sites without a decent amount of investment.

And for the record, this is one situation where I hate being right.