New report paints a troubling picture for advertisers with ad blocking set to increase
Ad blocking’s popularity will continue to grow and by the end of next year more than a quarter of internet users in the UK will be using the software, according to forecasts by eMarketer.
Its new report has estimated that ad blocking will be used by 27 per cent - around 14.7 million people - of UK internet users by the end of 2017.
Of the 10.9 million people who currently use ad block, eMarketer’s report says 90 per cent do so on desktop and 28 per cent use the software on mobile.
The prominence of ad blocking on mobile is expected to increase as more apps emerge that allow users to block ads, as well as Apple’s acceptance of the software on the App Store.
“There’s no doubting that ad blocking is now a very real issue for advertisers. Next year, over a quarter of the people they're trying to reach will be willfully making themselves unreachable,” said eMarketer senior analyst Bill Fisher.
“The good news is that numbers like this have forced those within the industry to think long and hard about what it is that they need to do better in order that this practice doesn't become an epidemic."