W/C - 10th October - Weekly NDM news article (9)

Ad-blockers: are publishers tempted to feed the hand that bites them?

https://www.theguardian.com/media-network/2016/oct/04/adblock-plus-publishers-tempted-feed-hand-bites

Summary

This article talks about how Eyeo the company behind ad blocking tool Adblock Plus provoked a violent backlash when it came about that they were launching a ad tech platform for publishers. It was reported that Adblock Plus would start selling ads to publishers. The company simply has extended its existing "Acceptable Ads" platform launched in 2011 creating a more efficient way to whitelist ads.  Whitelisting is when a advertiser gives a list of websites that they permit their ads to be placed on. The new platform that Eyeo have launched is essentially being pitched as a slicker operation. It allows publishers and bloggers to choose form a marketplace of pre whitelisted ads allowing them to drag and drop these on to their sites. Though, Johnny Ryan head of ecosystem at PageFair spends his days fighting against ad blocking software and does not agree with this more automated system. Although, publishers will have to pay a licensing fee for there ads to be deemed acceptable and therefore whitelisted. 

Key Statistics

• In addition, to the licensing fee to pay, larger publishers and ad networks will also see 6% of the total advertising revenue from these ads go to Adblock Plus.  
• 90% of companies on the whitelist don't actually pay a dime
• Larger entities who gain more than 10m additional ad impressions per month who also pay  licensing fee will see a total of 30% of the overall revenue going to Adblock Plus.

My Opinion

With the developments of NDM, I think that more and more of us are using ad blocking sites to get rid of all those unnecessary ads that appear in our news stories, games etc. But, with more and more of us doing this I think that the advertising industry was in deep trouble so advertisers essentially needed to work with ad blocking agencies to make ads more specific to an audience which is why they are paying Adblock Plus among others to only put ads on specific sites. However, the aim of ads being presented online etc in the way that they are companies were intending to make money from it but paid out more that they got because they paid a licensing fee on top of additional costs to advertise. I think that for advertisers to actually grab our attention and therefore stop us using ad blocking sites. They need to carefully think about what ads they are showing to what audience.