Apple’s decision to support ad blocking on its browser, Safari, has contradictory repercussions for the mobile ad ecosystem, with varying effects on all the players involved. It’s a benefit to users, who have advertising fatigue and will largely appreciate an ad-free mobile experience, but publishers and mobile advertisers will need to rethink the medium and the best approach to retain customer attention while overcoming these new barriers.

Publisher Impact

For mobile publishers, ad blocking poses a threat because their revenues depend largely on advertisement. It is due to this system of advertisements that users have access to free content.

Allowing ad blocking applications is also a conscious push from Apple to urge publishers to expand their efforts into the application marketplace. By doing so, Apple can continue to dominate the application market that they created initially. Content advertising in mobile applications has undergone rapid developments and is actively becoming more productive and creative.

Advertiser Impact

For mobile ad marketers, ad blocking applications will not impact them as much as publishers because 87% of mobile traffic is displayed in-app; while only 10% of mobile traffic takes places in the browser.

With the potential for so many disruptions in the mobile ecosystem, we realise that Apple is not catering to either publishers or advertisers. Its primary business focus are the consumers, who are its main customers and the drivers of its business. Apple’s business model is based on hardware and design, by integration of seamless advertisement for the user experience. This is the reason behind Apple’s push for even more evolved presentations of advertising within mobile applications.

With Apple refocusing on the consumer, the opportunity arises for the entire industry to stop and revaluate its direction. For example, if users are demanding ad-free mobile browsing and more targeted offers, in-app ad experiences that take advantage of mobile user information such as geolocation targeting in real time should be the main focus of advertisers. Even without mobile browser ads, the opportunity still exists for quality mobile ad experiences and for advertisers to implement their existing mobile strategy like conversion funnel tracking and retargeting.

So while Apple’s mobile ad browser blocking is bad news for those who advertise in the browser and also for Google (and everyone else) who uses cookies, the decision is great for the consumer and thus for mobile overall. Players like Facebook who already provide robust in-app advertising experiences monetise superbly from this format and the opportunity is there for many others to take advantage of advertising on mobile in a more consumer-receptive fashion.

 

By Frederic Joseph, COO at S4M. 

PrivSec Conferences will bring together leading speakers and experts from privacy and security to deliver compelling content via solo presentations, panel discussions, debates, roundtables and workshops.
For more information on upcoming events, visit the website.

comments powered by Disqus