Ad blocking heading toward mainstream in UK
While ad blocking software was once only downloaded by more tech-savvy, early adopters – in 2014 it was used by 10% of internet users – it is increasingly moving into the mainstream. In 2016, 20.5% of the internet population used software to stop digital ads and by 2017 this will rise to 27% or 14.7 million people.
eMarketer estimates that of the 10.9m people who block ads, the majority ( 90.2%) do so on a desktop or laptop PC. About 28% block ads on smartphones – there is overlap because some users block ads on multiple devices.
eMarketer senior analyst Bill Fisher said: “There’s no doubting that ad blocking is now a very real issue for advertisers. Next year, over a quarter of the people they're trying to reach will be wilfully making themselves unreachable.
“The good news is that numbers like this have forced those within the industry to think long and hard about what it is that they need to do better, in order that this practice doesn't become an epidemic.”
We hope you enjoyed this article.
Research Live is published by MRS.
The Market Research Society (MRS) exists to promote and protect the research sector, showcasing how research delivers impact for businesses and government.
Members of MRS enjoy many benefits including tailoured policy guidance, discounts on training and conferences, and access to member-only content.
For example, there's an archive of winning case studies from over a decade of MRS Awards.
Find out more about the benefits of joining MRS here.
1 Comment
NickD
9 years ago
Ye-es. EMarketer is not immune from being overly optimistic in its predictive estimates, and rarely shows its working when arriving at numbers. So while their figures for 2016 and beyond represented *a* suggested trend, they're certainly not *the* trend. Of course, we won't know until 2018 whether they were right or not, but a bit more scrutiny of the data behind the headlines is always a good thing!
Like Reply Report