In an earlier analysis, I looked at some of the dynamics involved in Playing the Online Adblocking Game
This analysis examines the dynamics involved in the Online Adblocking Game, which includes such players as Online Users, Content Providers, Advertisers, and Adblock Software and Services Providers. The first part of the analysis will examine trends in online ad revenues and ad pricing models, as a backdrop for analysis of the Adblocking Game. The second part of the analysis will introduce adblocking and describe its use. And the third part of the analysis (or perhaps third and fourth) will discuss the adblocking game.
My previous analysis focused more on the nitty-gritty of trends in web advertising models, how ad blocking works, and the tensions that adblocking has created for Advertisers, Content Providers (Publishers), and Users.
This analysis focuses on wider trends in Internet access by Users that are causing large shifts in the dynamics between Advertisers, Content Providers (Publishers), and Users. In particular, three trends in Users’ Internet access are causing other ecosystem players to change the way they interact with Users: (i) Users are spending more time accessing the Internet from mobile devices than they are from non-mobile devices; (ii) Users are shifting their gateway to access to the Internet from web browsers to apps; and (iii) Users are spending more time on web platforms than they are on other, more fragmented websites.
In the first part of this analysis I describe how advertising dollars have remained relatively constant over time, even as radically new venues for ads have appeared. I then describe how it was the advent of ad networks that enabled Advertisers to cost-effectively advertise on the Internet, but that the ensuing dynamics have led to a grotesque over-proliferation of ads. I end this part with a discussion of how the ad situation for mobile Users is exacerbated by the unnecessarily poor quality of mobile web browsers.
In the second part of the analysis, I describe how trends in the way Users have been accessing the Internet have led to decreases the effectiveness of previous modes of advertising.
In the last part of the analysis I discuss how the ecosystem may continue to evolve from where it is now.
A copy of the full analysis can be downloaded by clicking on the link at the bottom of this blog entry.