Adblockers are on the rise as many web users have installed different versions on their machines to avoid seeing advertisements when they visit blogs and websites.
For the visitor, this is about enforcing his right not to be bombarded with advertisements—most of which are annoying and does not serve his or her interest.
And for the web publisher, blogger or online journalist, these adblockers are causing a rapid fall in revenue.
Imagine spending time to write a great content and then proceeding to spend money to promote it, only to attract visitors who would make you no money because they’ve installed adblockers.
It’s estimated that about 200 million people globally are currently using adblockers.
The BBC reported that, “for businesses that depend on web advertising, ad blockers could cost an estimated $21.8bn (£15bn) in lost revenue a year.”
Surely, website visitors are right to an extent to take control of what they want to be served with but it does seem like they do not fully take into consideration how those behind these websites they visit are able to dedicate efforts and time to producing the content they love.
The rise in adblockers signifies one thing: it’s time for web publishers to also change how they monetise their contents—since banner and native advertisements are being controlled by visitors.
Of course, it’s annoying if a high percentage of your visitors have adblockers installed. In this case, the only way you can make money if you are relying on banner advertisements is when you are Facebook and can forcefully ignore Adblockers and still show everyone certain advertisements.
Since this cannot be done unless you are a big giant like Facebook, the below strategies will help you to rebuff your web income through alternative means.
Introduce Paid Subscription:
If you have great content and people genuinely love your content, they will pay to subscribe to your content. However, if you are producing content that can be found everywhere on the web easily, then surely no would want to pay to subscribe to your content.
Several websites including People.Com operate paid subscriptions and it’s working for them. So you can do the same.
Pay Attention to Sponsored Posts:
Adblockers are blocking advertisements, they are not blocking contents so instead of chasing banner and video advertisements, you should talk to companies that pay for sponsored posts or would pay you to write about their products or businesses.
This is a different form advertisement—that adblockers cannot run away from.
Deny Your Content to Adblocker Users:
This is radical but it works.
The relationship between the free content provider and the reader is this: I provided you with free content and lace it with advertisements for revenue so that you do not have to pay for the content.
It because unfair, somewhat stressful if the one receiving the content decides not to see advertisements, the source of revenue for the content provider and the reason why the content is free. Here, some websites like 4OD in the UK will not grant you access if you are using adblockers.
So the approach is this; if you want to read or access my free content, then you should not block yourself from seeing advertisements.
Once again, if you have unique content that people really need, they will be forced to disable adblockers or whitelist your website so they can again access.
Publishers such as “Conde Nast’s men’s magazine GQ, have tried charging ad blocker-users for access, while US business magazine Forbes is asking users to turn their blockers off in exchange for an “ad-light” experience.”
With Forbes’ case, the website says, “they will be shown no welcome ad, no video ads inserted between paragraphs, and no ads between posts.”
Ask Readers to Support Your Website By Donation:
Some readers hate advertisements so much that they would donate to have advertisement free contents served to them.
Several websites on the web do not have advertisements and instead are fully funded by their readers. Some of these websites have GoFundMe pages where they raise thousands of dollars each month, freely donated by their loyal readers to keep them in business while they enjoy their interesting contents without any advertisement interferences.
Use Advertisers That Adblockers Can’t Detect:
Of course there’s always a loophole to everything and certain advertisers have started making their ads invincible to adblockers.
Adcash boosts of having the technology to easily make this happen so if you want to beat the adblocker users to their own game, then you can try one of such advertisers.
Adblockers have become a threat to free content on the web and with a lot of web publishers struggling and complaining, new methods of revenue generation such as the above are gaining grounds.
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