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In Battle With Ad Blockers, Ad Industry Fesses Up To Alienating Users (iab.com)
itwbennett writes: In a post on the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) website Thursday, Scott Cunningham, senior vice president of technology of IAB and general manager of its Tech Lab, issued what amounts to an apology for "[losing] track of the user experience" and called on advertisers "to do better." But it may be a case of too little, too late as "a report (PDF) released in August forecasted that U.S. websites will lose US$21.8 billion in ad revenue this year due to ad blockers," writes Jeremy Kirk.
U.S. websites will lose US$21.8 billion in ad revenue this year due to ad blockers
Advertisers saved US$21.8 billion by not advertising to unreceptive customers
Talk about missing the root cause. Ad blockers are only used because publishers have gone so ridiculously over the top in creating annoying, high bandwidth, high cpu-usage ads.
Not making the ridiculously over-inflated revenue you feel entitled to, and which is based on bullshit assumptions is not "losing revenue".
Acting like you deserved or earned that money in any way shape or form is your damned problem. Having reality bit you in the ass is also your damned problem.
Sorry, but pulling a number out of your ass and saying you feel entitled to $21 billion dollars has nothing at all to do with reality. Get a real business model and earn your money, don't just decree that you being a parasite embedded on a web page entitles you to a damned thing.
No, no it didn't. A bunch of sleazy assholes selling ads is nothing of the sort.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Users: hey can you give us less intrusive and annoying ads
Advertisers: fuck you here is your ad
Now
advertisers: hey please don't block our ads thanks
Users: fuck you
The biggest problem with ads is malware. The article suggested a plan to avoid malware: encrypt the connection.
I don't see how that will fix any problem related to malware......the problem is that malicious people are allowed to buy ads. That is the problem they need to fix.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The unfortunate truth is that once someone experiences the speed and cleanliness of adblocking, they simply won't go back. Not ever.
And, as explained in a previous post, the second thing they do is show their friends. And their relatives. And their social contacts.
And so it expands, like neutrons in a nuclear warhead; the chain-reaction gain is greater than 1 and the constraint of business models
("we don't take your word for the claim that the ad was shown") will either have to break down, or the whole business is "game over".
My advice to webvertizers: update your resume and find another line of work.
Presumably because people want evidence what they're paying for works. They want to know so many people saw it, so many people clicked on it, and some percentage actually bought it.
Digital advertising pretends like it is their "right" to know these things, and to track all the places you go so they can better know what to sell you.
The rest of us have decided "no, really, fuck you, where I go and what I do isn't your damned business". Which means we'll block the hell out of these analytics companies as much as possible, because we don't agree with the premise that we've consented to be part of their business model.
So, if a website serves ads, which don't run scripts, and which are served up with their own bandwidth? I might not take extraordinary steps to block them. Start pulling in god knows what from a dozen other sites who all want to set cookies, run scripts, and track me everywhere I go? I'll block that crap all day long.
If your business model is predicated on my participation, you should not be surprised that my participation is neither mandatory, nor beneficial to me.
The problem is the ad companies feel entitled to this information. People are now starting to tell them that's not true.
There's at least 10 external sites on Slashdot. The business model of none of these companies concerns me. The children of the employees of Scorecard Research can starve alone in the streets for all I care; it's not my problem to supply Scorecard Research with any information or be the basis for their revenue stream.
To the people they advertise to, these companies are nothing but parasites on the internet. And that's their damned problem.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
So if he's saying it, it's not because users are thinking it; he's saying it because advertisers are thinking it.
No. He is saying it because they (advertisers) are seeing so much effective pushback that it is having a real affect on their numbers. The arguments against advertisers haven't changed in the last 5 years, the amount of ad-blocking has.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Coke, Charmin, Tide and other major national brands spend billions on TV advertising, putting their logos on race cars, blimps, and all sorts of non-clickable ads.
Notice I listed major national BRANDS, not major national PRODUCTS. It's all about branding. When you're ready to buy a router, you look and probably see options in three categories:
Top brands, Cisco and Juniper.
Brands you've never heard of, like Raytel.
Brands you recognize but don't know much about.
Most people will prefer to avoid brands they've never heard of. Just having seen the name before increases our confidence in the product. Any ad gets them out of the lowest category, "never heard of that brand". It's also a required stepping stone before a brand can make it to "top brand" status like Cisco or BMW.