How to Handle Ad-Blockers

Who doesn't love Adblockers? They limit your interruptions, make your overall online experience smoother and faster, and help you avoid irrelevant ads that can often lead to embarrassing talks with your parents when they think the game site you're on isn't very appropriate for an eleven year old when there's an advertisement for boosting your sex drive (or was I the only incredibly unfortunate one?). 

Every marketer, given their choice, would want to sell ads on their page if people let them. Unfortunately, the choice is now moving in the consumers' hands - who make it very clear that ads are disruptive. The growing number of ad blockers is putting pressure on marketers to improve their online advertising structure and advertising as a whole. 40% of all users use adblockers on their desktop while 75% of people use at least one form of adblocking every single day. 

Marketers are put in a bind: how to balance their duty to earn meaningful engagement and maintain revenue without sacrificing user experience. After souring the inter webs for tips on how to circumvent these, three main methods seemed to make the most sense: 

1. Beg to be whitelisted, which may seen transparent but I think you really need to build that connection and loyalty with the consumer to get them to do this. The only website I willingly whitelisted for citethisforme.com - the real MVP and sole reason I submitted 99% of my college essays in on time. 
2. Block your own content - although this strategy would only work for websites where traffic is heavy and content is continuous so demand is consistently high. This, along with the fact that subscription based services are on the rise make this a good tactic - although you do risk people losing people who were turned off by the wall and bouncing.
3. Incorporate new advertising forms. Native advertisement are the new answer to ensure the user experience isn't interrupted while still making your advertisers happy. Native ads aren't always blocked by adblockers. They can, however. sacrifice the integrity of your site, but if you were transparent and honest about the content policies, this shouldn't bother you too much. Native advertising is a very selective game: the content needs to be as relevant to your audience as the content on your page.

All in all, ad blockers are not going away. The worst thing you can do is be unprepared for the potential impact they can have on your user experience.