While digital advertising continues to surge ahead, there’s no question that ad-blocking continues to be quite a hindrance.
A new report posted by Juniper Research, Worldwide Digital Advertising: 2016-2020, notes that digital advertising revenues are expected to go double the amount over the next few years, reaching a spectacular $285 billion by 2020.
However, it’s not as high as it could have been, as the report also notes that ad-blocking will also continue to be on the rise. As a result, they are expected to cost publishers $27 billion in lost revenues in roughly the same time frame.
Juniper has also published a white paper, Digital Advertisers vs. The Ad Blockers, that goes into more detail. That $285 billion number is expected to come from a number of devices, including mobile, wearable and online-compatible electronics. It also noted that it’s a tremendous jump from the $160 billion it’s expected to see this year. The paper also noted that mobile advertising will also see an increase in CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) by 64.2 percent over the previous forecast period, with more people turning to smartphones and tablets as their go-to Internet devices.
But ad-blocking still casts a shadow on the report, with more people using these services and creating a loss in revenue by 70.2 percent in the next few years. “Adoption (of ad-blockers) is being driven by consumer concerns over mobile data usage and privacy,” noted Sam Barker, author of the research report. “They are also incentivized to adopt the technology in order to reduce page load times.” The report made note that the average user of ad-blocking is between the age of 18-29, with female millennials more likely to use the service.
However, digital advertising will continue to be on the rise as “better audience targeting will drive higher click through rates and increase publisher revenues,” noted Barker. “Publishers, such as Facebook, are utilizing their unprecedented audience knowledge to offer advertisers highly accurate targeting, thereby increasing the click-through rates that advertisers are witnessing now.”
The report best suggests to companies that it should try developing a strategy that will help engage consumers more, instead of making them desire ad-blocking services. Otherwise, companies, especially smaller ones, could suffer from it, “as they often solely rely on revenues from advertising to continue operating.”
