We are actually one of those forward-looking digital marketing companies that employs a psychic to see the future of online advertising. Just joking! But seeing into the future is the most important part of our business.
From gazing into the crystal ball of research and data, we have formed a very vivid image of what the future of online marketing will be like. It’s like seeing the future after the apocalypse has occured. After the cataclysms of adblockers and Millenials, will digital marketing sprout new shoots?
Thank you for that ad (?)
In 2017, The state of the blocked web reported that adblock usage had grown by 30% globally. Global adblocking rates stood at 11% total, which is still lower than you may expect, yet is costing websites tremendous sums of ad revenues.
What about when adblocking reaches 30%, 50% … 99%? Is an adpocalypse looming?
Yes. If adblocking continues to climb to mainstream status, then ubiquitous status, it will shred the fabric of the commercial web. Most web companies will have to make vast changes, including Google.
Millions of people are trying to think of solutions to this problem right now.
One promising solution is the new concept of ‘acceptable ads’. The blocked web report states that 77% of American adblock users are willing to view some ad formats.
This is promising! It says that people still find ads useful in order to learn about products and services that they may like. And in fact, now more than ever they should be useful because retargeting algorithms have become so advanced that they can recommend products that you didn’t even know you needed.
Hence it was a momentous move when Adblock Plus started selling acceptable ads in 2016. This encourages less intrusive ads across the web, and funds adblocking efforts against the bad ads. These funds may prove especially useful in a future where ads-versus-adblockers is going the way of viruses-versus-antivirus (an increasingly convoluted cat-and-mouse game).
Facebook and Google – the Great Unblockables
Except, Google and Facebook are so deeply-rooted, so huge and monopolistic that they won’t have problems providing ads. It’s just that the types of ads they provide are changing.
Take Google Search and Facebook. It’s easy to block the ads on their pages… Thumppp! You slayed the Great Goliath! Not so fast David, you’ve only defeated his smaller cousin.
Unblockable Facebook ‘Ads’
Facebook has shifted away from ads, to ‘Sponsored Posts’. These are coded in a format that is virtually identical to that of unpaid Facebook posts. They are nearly unblockable on Facebook desktop. Plus, of course, you can’t block ads on Facebook mobile.
Then there are ‘Boosted Posts’ which follow many of the same algorithms as other posts that show up on your Facebook Newsfeed. But, they show up to more people than unpaid posts because they get ‘boosted’. Do you see the difference between Boosted Posts and ads? No? It’s because the time has come where the line between ads and content has become almost invisible.
Unblockable Google ‘Ads’
Google has gone full throttle into developing AI. AI is going to change the world; you know that. It’s going to be the most profitable thing since slaves. But one way that it’s going to make money—lots and lots of money—for Google is advertising. And, it’s going to happen far sooner than robot slaves.
Google voice searching is going to completely defy ad-blocking, because it’s already using complex algorithms and technologies and mobile platforms that ad blocking can’t work with. When you say ‘Ok Google, find me a local mechanic’, the mechanic that Google finds may not be the nearest and top rated. It may be the result of some algorithm that finds the nearest × top rated × highest bidding. Blocking this kind of ‘ad’ would require some serious security-compromising hacks.
Millennials will inherit the Earth
Millennials have extraordinary rates of adblocker usage—at 64% overall adoption. This makes a graph of adblocking-versus-age look like a tidal wave that will wash many online advertisers back to the shore. Millenials are reaching adulthood right now, and they are set to inherit the Earth.
On top of this, they are the most marketing-averse generation so far—the latest generation in a downward trend for advertising. It’s losing its effectiveness and it’s lost it’s shine.
Even if you have manoeuvred your ad past the adblockers, will it even be noticed? Probably not if it looks like an ad.
This is where it all comes together, and a bright image emerges out of the dark swirling crystal ball. Online marketing will perish, but a resilient strain of digital marketing will flourish—the strain of marketing that has adapted to be indistinguishable from content. In other words: it will be content, yet it will also be an ad. If this marketing method succeeds, we can expect to see consumers, even Millennials soften towards online advertising in the future, as it starts to prove that it can actually be useful in informing people of things that they need and things they can get right now conveniently.
As a business, what can you start doing right now, on the cusp of this turning-point?
Right now, you can be doing one very important thing. It’s not throwing money into Google Adwords or Facebook Ads. That’s the most futile thing that you can do at this stage. You need to build up a strong online presence, and this will be your ‘marketing’, even though people, even Millennials won’t think of it as marketing. When people search for you online, they will find your website, see your good reviews, and give you a call (without ever feeling ‘marketed to’). For points on how to develop a strong online presence into the future, have a glance at our Jetsite page »