Apple’s move to allow adverts to be blocked by the iPhone and iPad versions of Safari could leave original content providers in hot water, Mike Weston, CEO of data science consultancy Profusion, has warned.
Adblockers are prevalent on desktops but until now it has not been possible to block adverts via the iPhone and iPads default browser.
However the move to make this possible could leave publishers and ad services with a potential decline in revenue – one figure estimates that Google could have lost as much as 10% of its revenue to ad blockers.
Weston said: “On the face of it the lifting of limitations on ad blockers may seem like a minor change, however, it will have far reaching consequences for marketers and businesses that rely on advertising revenue.
“The move could affect 25% of internet ads – an extraordinary number. Ad blockers have been growing at an extraordinary rate on desktops and other devices.
“Now, with the current mobile advertising business model under threat, marketers and companies, particularly publishers, need to completely rethink their approach.
And Weston attributed the growth of adblockers to badly managed advertising systems.
He said: “Undoubtedly, the growth in ad blockers is driven by poorly targeted and intrusive advertising messages. Better targeted, timed and thoughtful advertising may help slow the adoption of ad blockers, but in the end, the simple fact is that most people don’t like ads on their mobiles.
But it may not be all bad news.
“One silver lining may be that marketing budgets will go a little further as people who are unresponsive to any form of advertising automatically opt-out with ad blockers,” said Weston.
“The biggest casualty of this move is likely to be original content producers. Many producers only make a pittance from ad clicks and with this source of income squeezed further, it will inevitably lead to the end of a lot of free content online. This is not good news for internet users.”