

Google's AdBlockPlus deal will save them nearly $1bn per year - seanblanchfield
http://blog.pagefair.com/2013/acceptable-ads-soothe-google-pain/?cmp=17	

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joosters
Does anyone have any good data on the prevalence of ad blocking? The headline
number in this article ($887 million) is a _pure guess_ , based on an estimate
of 10% of users using ad blocking. They provide absolutely no evidence or
reasoning behind this guess. End result: All of their attention-grabbing
numbers are pure conjecture and speculation.

There must be users on here who run some high volume sites who can share what
% of ads are blocked, surely?

(edit: the linked [http://blog.pagefair.com/2013/destructoid-not-
alone/](http://blog.pagefair.com/2013/destructoid-not-alone/) does give more
background into some sample sites and adblocking %s, but more numbers and real
world data would be good)

~~~
seanblanchfield
We're using 10% as a very conservative estimate actually. We've been measuring
adblock data for 9 months now across several hundred sites, many of which are
very large. The current average blockrate across all these publishers is
26.1%. These are the guys who are so acutely affected that they signed up to
us in the first place, but it gives you a good idea.

A fair estimate of a minimum value is the block rate on sites that are non-
techie, e.g., lifestyle (12% blockrate) and news (16% blockrate).

We'll be doing another post soon revealing all these numbers and our
methodology in collecting them in detail.

~~~
joosters
Good point about the rate varying a lot based on the audience - I imagine that
tech sites have it worst for blocking rates.

I wonder how the rates vary for tablet/mobile viewing? I'd guess fewer users
manage to block ads on these devices?

~~~
seanblanchfield
Oh, and blocking rates on mobile/tablet is very low, probably consisting of
ISP-level adblocking. That will shortly change though - the adblock community
is hard at work creating mobile versions.

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lynchdt
The first paragraph of the "recent study" you linked.

"In a poll commissioned by the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA), 92 percent
of 1,000 Americans surveyed agreed that free news, weather, email, blogs and
video content was either somewhat or extremely important to the overall value
of the Internet."

What kind of category is "somewhat or extremely important" and how is 1000
people of undisclosed circumstances (other than being American) representative
of people that use the internet?

The study that is linked from "the majority are not bothered by the static,
non-intrusive ads" asks users of Mechanical Turk to look at an ad and rate it
on its "annoyingness". Each user was paid 25 cents flat, and 2 cents per ad to
a 172 ad maximum - so there's a $3.75 incentive maximum on completing the test
will ratings on everything.

How annoying is any ad that you are being paid to stare at? That's missing the
point completely.

I don't buy this sentiment that ad-blocking will be the end of the internet.
Continued innovation on payment models, and content worth paying for is what
we really need.

~~~
dwild
Content worth paying is what we really need? Then why we don't have it
currently? As far as I know, nothing stop that kind of content to appear...

However blocking ad stop good free content to appear (maybe not much, but it
still affected, unlike the type of content you want).

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DanBC
> _“Less than 10 percent of the people polled would prefer an ad-free Internet
> where users paid to access blogs, entertainment sites, videos and social
> media sites, while 75 percent surveyed said they prefer the existing
> Internet model where most content is free, but includes ads.”_ – Amy
> Gesenhues – Marketing Land

Marketer says people prefer marketing?

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downandout
Makes you wonder how much AdBlockPlus is making from their deal to unblock
them. I would have asked for at least $200 million per year. It's amazing that
this isn't considered extortion, but since it's not, I think it would make
sense for some of the less popular ad blockers to join together and offer a
similar deal.

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3327
I believe this is what you find under the definition of "selling out" in a
dictionary.

