How Ad Blocking Could Influence Your Conversion Optimization Strategy

On a somewhat regular basis, marketers around the world panic about an issue de jour. Earlier this year, that issue was Google’s Mobilegeddon algorithm update, which threatened to severely punish businesses whose website was not mobile-friendly enough for the search engine giant’s taste. With the release of Apple’s iOS 9 operating system last month, a new problem has emerged that has bubbled below the surface for a while: ad blocking.


The Rise of Ad Blocking: A Primer
To treat ad blocking as a new problem would be a misrepresentation. The concept has been around since at least 2010, when Adblock Plus (a free browser extension) released the first version of its industry-leading tool. Since then, the extension has grown to over 50 million users worldwide, and – thanks to high rankings from popular sites like CNET and Mashable – doesn’t look like it will go away anytime soon.

Adblock Plus provides a simple example of how the ad blocking works: a user installs the extension on their browser of choice, and can then turn it on with the click of a button to stop seeing all types of ads – from Google search ads to Facebook sidebar ads and, of course, banner ads. The tool is configurable, allowing users to automatically disable adblocking on and from certain domains. Most users, of course, just leave it on by default.

Long regarded with disdain by marketers who saw their efforts to reach audiences blocked before they ever had a chance, the concept gained further notoriety this September when Apple included ad blocking capabilities in its new mobile operating system iOS 9. Formerly limited to desktop computers, custom-developed ad blockers for iPhones and iPads immediately began to crowd Apple’s app store, much to the chagrin of marketers anywhere.

Since then, a much-publicized German court ruling in favor of ad blockers and against advertisers has had marketers run for the hills and pull out their hair. Will ad blockers spell the end of digital marketing as we know it? How will it affect your current conversion strategy?


How Ad Blocking Might Affect Your Conversion Optimization Strategy
As it turns out, that question depends entirely on your viewpoint. One the one hand, ad blocking absolutely affects the exposure of your ad, and as a result, your conversion optimization. Look no further than this KISS Metrics article on how adblocking kills conversion rates to understand why.
The article argues that ad blocking prevents your audience to see your ad, though they continue to count as ‘views’ in your analytics – dramatically reducing your conversion rate, which (as you know) is easily calculated as conversions divided by total views. Ad blockers also prevent you from gathering valuable information about your audience that may enable you to better understand and communicate with your target customers.

That’s the side most marketers are taking in this issue, and the reason for much panic even among the most successful and prestigious marketing experts. But there’s another side to the issue as well, and one that we believe has not been discussed enough: how ad blocking can actually benefit your company in the long run.

In the short term, the potential negative effect of ad blockers is undeniable. But if you think the issue further, you can begin to see how it might actually benefit you. For starters, audience members who block your ads are not likely to be future customers of yours anyways. Wouldn’t you rather want to focus on efforts that actually make an impact on your audience?

Secondly, ad blocking epitomizes the pitfalls of traditional, outbound methods such as banner ads. Like it or not, consumers see these methods as intrusive, which is why ad blockers have become so popular in the first place. Instead of finding a way around them, perhaps it’s time use the increasing use of ad blockers as an indication that your audience does not like advertisers to push their marketing messages on to them. But they remain willing to be pulled in by compelling and relevant content.

In other words, the rise of ad blockers signifies what industry leaders like HubSpot have been preaching for a while: that inbound marketing driven by interesting and relevant content is and will continue to be more effective than the types of ‘push’ads that drove your audience to start using ad blockers in the first place.


Uncertainty and Opportunity Ahead
What will actually happen in the current ad blocking crisis? We could start forecasting developments and their potential impact on your marketing strategy, but hey – we already did that above! In truth, nobody knows exactly which of the two directions this issue will go.

We do know one thing: the current panic among marketers may be a bit overeager. Remember the Mobilegeddon update we mentioned in the intro to this post? As it turns out, that panic was largely unwarranted. Two months after the update, search results were almost identical to the pre-Mobilegeddon world, with one study finding that rankings changed by only 0.21 positions on average.

Of course, that doesn’t mean Mobilegeddon didn’t matter. It prompted countless businesses to pay attention the mobile-friendliness of their website, ultimately increasing their chances of success in a consumer environment that is increasingly shifting toward mobile.

If we had to venture a guess, we would say that the current ad blocking panic will go a similar route. While it may negatively effect a large number of marketers at this moment, it will lead to adjustments in marketing strategy toward “organic” methods that are impossible to block, from inbound and content marketing to search engine optimization.

In the end, businesses and marketers who recognize these needed adjustments will find themselves ready for an ad–blocking world, prepared to engage their audience in a way that works best on a multitude of levels: with engaging, relevant content that internet users seek out, not try to block.
Source : business2community