The Problem with Adblocking

Some argue it is theft. Others argue the industry has gone too far with data capture and retargeting.

One thing that is certain is that adblocking (in its current manifestation) is an arbitrary block that treats the best performing, most engaging content site the same as the trashiest clickbait one.

One of the biggest arguments for adblocking is that that the ads eat into data plans and increases page load times, the cure of which is adblocking software.

A new piece of research from US firm Catchpoint appears to question the validity of the argument that adblocking software improves pageload times.

It has found that in taking a small sample of mobile sites (20) across the. retail, news, financial and travel industries that there were mixed results.

Many sites did load faster, but many were also slower.

“In some cases, non-advertising files were blocked, delaying the start of page rendering”

It doesn’t mean that adblocking doesn’t work – it just means that in its current form, it can be a blunt, unsophisticated tool that can actually damage performance, especially on banking, air travel and retail sites, which can be more frustrating than advertising itself.

Which is the point – the customer experience – which adblock software companies argue is foremost in their minds – must be front and centre always.

The study highlights that certainly in terms of mobile web , it is not always the advertising that slows down perfomance and how each site is designed needs careful consideration in terms of UX.

How you load first party and third party elements, from simple things as social widgets to the file size of images on the site.

As not every site is the same, they can’t be treated the same with a catch all ‘solution’.

There are two sides to this conundrum – adblocking needs to evolve into a less arbitrary model if it is to be truly effective and site design – including advertising – needs to evolve also as the majority of audience migrate to mobile devices.