Over one in three (36%) Polish internet users rely on solutions for blocking unwanted ads, with about half of them whitelisting selected websites.
Research undertaken by MEC Wavemaker shows that ad blocking solutions for mobile phones are still relatively unpopular and installed by a dozen or so percent of surfers. Privacy issues are not something Polish people are concerned with. Rather, they are annoyed by the flood of adverts.
Ad blocks are more commonly used among males, dwellers of large cities and by the youngest online population. More than a half of those aged 15–24 and over 40% in the 25–34 group cut off from advertisers at least to some extent.
Commenting on the findings, Izabela Albrychiewicz, CEO at MEC, said: “These percentages are upsetting for owners of websites financed from classic online advertising, as well as for the whole marketing industry. The social contract under which the users would pay the advertisers for free content with their attention is clearly staggering. This is one reason why we are now intensively developing a content offer with a workaround allowing us to reach the Polish ad blockers”.
Maciej Maciejewski, head of MEC Wavemaker, a brand specialised in content creation and production, added: “This is certainly a hint for websites struggling to get back to a partner relationship with their readers about what kind of arguments they should use. On our side, the research not only raises our awareness of the scale of the problem across different Internet users segments, but also points the direction we should go to deliver our communication to ad blockers.
“As our research revealed, three fourths of Polish ad blockers use Facebook, a similar share shop online, close to 60% read forums and over 40% follow blogs. Audiences unreachable through an ad banner are now attainable otherwise. Ad blockers forced the industry to review its invasive outreach methods and I think this also has consequences which are positive for the market”.
