With digital advertising spend set to rise to around €330m in 2017, 39% of Irish online consumers are using adblocking technologies to avoid interacting with digital ads according to the annual PageFair Global Adblock Report for 2017.
Both Ireland and Greece now have the highest level of adblocking in Europe, according to the report which was published earlier this week.
PageFair estimates that 615m devices globally are now blocking ads. This represents a 30% growth on the previous year’s figure and indicates that the advertising industry is facing an up-hill struggle to tackle the problem.
“The continued growth of the blocked web is a serious challenge to the digital media industry, but it is also a singular opportunity to start over, avoid the mistakes of the past, and serve ads that don’t annoy users,” said PageFair CEO Sean Blanchfield.
According to the Dublin-headquartered company, mobile adblocking globally rose by 108m to reach 380m devices. The survey, however, does not measure mobile adblocking in Ireland.
The PageFair report also noted that 74% of adblock users leave websites when blocked from accessing content while 77% of users say they are open to viewing advertising but with a stated preference for static banner ads and skippable video ads.
