How do adblockers affect Digital Marketing

Updated:
April 13, 2022
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These days there are many types of adblockers available. From extensions that you can download to your Chrome browser through to adblocking developed browsers such as Brave and Firefox.

What is an adblocker?

Search engines and websites in general use advertisements in order to generate clicks from their visitors. Adblockers are specifically designed to block all advertisements as well as keep your details protected by not sharing information with cookies or other tracking technologies by using a pre-defined list of filter rules.

Essentially, when a user visits a website using an adblocker the adblocker will examine the content of the site and either directly block or hide content based on the adblockers filters.

Difference between an adblocker and a script blocker

Whilst adblockers are designed to predominantly block out advertisements and unwanted popups, script blockers deactivate virtually all active web content such as JavaScript. It is important to note that whilst adblockers will block certain scripts they won’t block all scripts like a script blocker does.

How does this affect my site’s digital marketing?

Digital marketing is typically broken down into two different strategies. These strategies are known as outbound marketing and inbound marketing.

Outbound marketing

This type of digital marketing strategy is aimed to drive visitors from other websites and search engines to your website through the use of paid advertisements. This is often referred to as search engine marketing, SEM or PPC. 

Types of search engine marketing include:

  • Search Ads
  • Display Ads
  • Social Ads
  • Remarketing Ads
  • Shopping Ads
  • Midstream Ads
  • And more

This is typically what adblockers target to remove.

Inbound marketing

This type of digital marketing strategy is aimed at making sure that your website answers the query that the visitor is searching for organically. This is often referred to as search engine optimisation or SEO. Ensuring that your website provides correct information in the right format and is optimised for both mobile and search engines.

Adblocker effect on tracking

No matter what digital marketing strategy you are using you should be collecting information about your visitors through analytics. It is important to note that adblockers can block these scripts as they track the movements of a visitor whilst on your website. This ultimately can lead to incorrect analytics data for your website.

Adblocker effect on lead generation

There are many different ways to track leads within analytics. The most common type of website lead is a simple contact form. Depending on how your call to action is set up will depend on whether a visitor visiting your website with an adblocker will be able to interact and complete the form. 

As an example, if your form is in a popup the adblocker may interpret this as an ad and block the popup from even opening. However, if the form is on its own page within your website it is far less likely to be blocked.

How to combat adblocking browsers and extensions

Ensuring that your site employs good and non-obstructive SEO practices should help in maintaining visitors using adblocking browsers and extensions on your site. 

Examples of good non-obstructive SEO are:

  • Properly structured website 
  • Clear navigation
  • Engaging content
  • Clutter-free call to actions
  • Simple forms
  • No popups
  • Minimal JavaScript

Keep in mind that having a good SEO strategy in place will always be beneficial to your website’s health and longevity.

References:

Ad Block, web advertising and SEO
https://latelierweb.ca/en/ad-block-web-advertising-and-seo/

How adblock trends affect web design
https://www.godaddy.com/garage/how-adblock-trends-affect-web-design/

Is adblock killing your digital marketing
https://www.thesearchengineguys.com/is-adblock-is-killing-your-digital-marketing/

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