Adblockers like Adblock Plus have skyrocketed in popularity recently.

And that’s sending a shiver down the spines of many online advertisers.

Now, to thwart their effects, websites like Forbes force you to whitelist their website so you can actually visit.

What about a smaller company like yours? Should you be overly concerned about Adblockers?

The Impact’s Not Clear

With Adblockers, no one’s sure exactly how much money online advertises lose because of their use. One report by Adobe and Pagefair say this number could rise to $40 billion by next year.

Other estimates say this could be just $1 billion. And then you have everything in between, which includes an estimate of $22 billion in 2015 by an article in the Wall Street Journal.

The only thing that seems to be clear is this will be a negative impact. The extent of it, however, probably won’t be clear until measured in retrospect.

Why Do Users Like Adblocking Software?

Of course, you have the obvious reason: they don’t want to see your ad while they do what they want on a certain website.

But, they have a couple other reasons for using it too:

  1. Decreasing page load times, and users always like faster loading pages
  2. Reducing data usage, which users with limited data plans love

But of Course, You Can Get Around Adblockers

Some companies are paying money to adblocking companies like Adblock to have their websites whitelisted.

However, you don’t need to do that.

Instead, this whole adblocking craze could lead to a rise in native advertising. “Native advertising” simply means you integrate ads into your website so they look like a part of the website naturally.

When you build your ads into your website this way, it becomes much harder for adblocking software to do its job.

Companies like Hulu also give you the option to pay them $12 per month to avoid viewing their ads.

The Best Solution? Make the Ad Experience Relevant and Non-Disruptive

You can twist user’s arms into disabling their adblocker so they can visit your website. But, much of the time the reason they do that in the first place is because they get ads completely irrelevant to their interests.

Or, the ad is highly disruptive to their browsing experience. Users don’t like pop-up ads or display banners at the top of your page at all.

This could also make retargeting a valuable experience for them. With that technique, you store a cookie on their computer so you can track their interests. Then, as they show interest in various products and services, and as they visit websites that participate in a certain retargeting ad network, they see ads relevant to their interests.

Advertisers Will Have to Adjust

Is adblocking the end of the world for online advertisers? Hard to say at this point. For the time being, it looks like you have enough ways to get around adblockers to stay afloat.

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