PageFair, an ad-blocking analytics company, publishes ad blocking usage reports and analysis of GDPR rules for adtech.
Commenters point to its ad blocking data and recommend its GDPR coverage as one of the few sources taking the regulation literally.
The assertion is 100% correct.
There are other reports out there & some of them do great breakdowns of click volume, click costs, click values & so on ... based on things like: device type (desktop vs tablet vs cell phones, or even across operating systems), branded keywords vs unbranded keywords, text ads vs PLAs/shopping ads, etc.
There are many such reports, but the SEM company which regularly puts out the best report on this front is RKG (which was bought out by Merkle last year http://www.merkleinc.com/news-and-events/press-releases/2014/merkle-acquires-search-digital-marketing-agency-rkg and even after the buyout is still putting out great reports each quarter).
RKG's most recent report is downloadable here http://www.rimmkaufman.com/digital-marketing-report/ & it is something I read (and recommend) every quarter. :)
In the report, they stated they saw Google dramatically increase minimum CPC on own brand keywords over the past year, that brand keyword cost was up 39% YoY, and that Google was now charging brands more for clicks on their own brand terms than Bing does. You can see a quick review of their report here
http://searchengineland.com/us-paid-search-growing-but-at-slower-rate-google-brand-cpcs-surge-report-225348
And there might be multiple factors in Google showing fewer ads. Some general assertions and/or hypothesis on potential drivers...
A rise in minimum CPCs on brand keywords might block out some of the lower value 3rd party arbitrage on the branded…
I don't disagree with the finer points in your argument, and I'm a big advocate for paying for services directly as a personal choice. It's perhaps a semantic issue, but the invisible hand seems to be working as expected in this case. From the article:
> Consumers, today more than at any time in the past, are starting to question the value of content online and whether or not it’s worth the trade offs. In their eyes, it’s increasingly difficult to justify their interaction with ads.
In the last couple of years adblocking has gone from a fringe thing to do, to mainstream adoption [1]. This is absolutely the sort of consumer action that the 'invisible hand' serves as a metaphor for, and it is disciplining the market. Apple touting adblocking as a feature of iOS 9 is another example of market forces working to chasten advertisers and publishers for asking too much from consumers. So is AMP and Blendle, so is the rise of HBO, Hulu Plus and Netflix, so was the commercial skip button on TiVo. All of these have emerged because a sizable enough number of consumers demanded an alternative and the 'invisible hand' guided businesses to answer these demands.
The author is not capitulating for any reason other than that current adtech approaches on the web are losing their market viability, and the number of consumers that are reaching their limit is steadily increasing.
[1] 41% increase in 2015 alone. https://pagefair.com/blog/2015/ad-blocking-report/
I would strongly recommend reading what Pagefair has been putting. They have been one of the few sources I've found that is take GDPR literally. It isn't even clear what level Google's compliance will be - https://pagefair.com/blog/2018/googles-nonpersonal-ads/
There are a lot of extremely serious questions that arise regarding network security, anti-fraud, and anti-abuse measures. Just looking at basic bot detection measures, all of the sophisticated methods are now illegal. It certainly requires a major re-think of how websites serve content as well as the sustainability of advertising as a revenue channel. I can't even wrap my head around how someone would run a GDPR-compliant dating website/app.
If you think Pagefair's interpretations of the GDPR are correct then Google and others are calling the EU's bluff. They are implementing part of the GDPR strictly but the parts which invalidate their business models are being interpreted more liberally or ignored altogether.
I'm not saying that the GDPR is a good idea, bad idea, morally right or wrong. Rather, a lot of things we have come to view as a given -- such as how we detects bots, fraud, and abuse -- are no longer valid. Infrastructure, both technical and business, will need to be re-designed either to comply with the GDPR or evade it.
> Amp is currently a mobile only thing, and most users on mobile are not blocking ads.
Most users anywhere are not blocking ads, adblocking by its nature as a non-default option and something you have to know how to do will most likely never be the thing that "most users do".
However, the idea that people on mobile do not block ads is just false: https://pagefair.com/blog/2017/adblockreport/
Worldwide, there are almost 150m more mobile adblock users than desktop adblock users. The trend of only blocking ads on your desktop is largely a North American phenomenon.
I can't speak to whether or not AMP is designed to try and stem this tide or not, but I can say without a doubt that mobile adblock is exploding, especially when considering the worldwide market, and that publishers are probably very nervous about this.
Wikipedia is a great example of where donations DO work. I couldn't imagine an internet without it, and I'm happy to donate and support it.
Sadly the data suggests that for most websites donations are not a viable alternative to ads. Some numbers here:
http://blog.pagefair.com/2014/introducing-pagefair-ads/
I think the challenge is that we use many different websites every day. I've probably visited sites today that I've never been to before and will never visit again. These guys are not getting a donation from me.
Maybe the future internet will consist of a small number of donation-supported sites, but wouldn't it be sad to lose all this variety?
As always, thanks for the very thorough write up. My immediate thoughts were highlighted in the "Discussion" section. Namely, the demographic of your website might respond more negatively to the presence of ads than the general population. This seems to be substantiated by the unusually high use of ad blockers (~60% vs ~18% [1]).
I also wonder if some of the drop off could be explained by the use of Patreon and ads. For instance, I would never pay for Hulu because they still show ads. Did you receive any Patreon cancellations or negative feedback from pledged users?
[1] US ad block usage as of Feb 2017 https://pagefair.com/blog/2017/adblockreport/