Ad-blocking industry is a completely developed market: Sanjay Tripathy

Sanjay Tripathy, Senior Executive Vice President, Marketing, Analytics, Digital & E-Commerce at HDFC Life, sheds light on the implications of ad-blockers for brands, how brands can counter ad-blockers, influencer marketing and more. 

What are the implications of ad-blockers for brands - in terms of revenue, brand visibility, advertising?
Ad-blocking is not a new concept, most of the internet users are aware about the concept because pop up ads can sometimes be very painful and that’s the reason why downloads for ad-blocking software has increased tremendously. If you look at the business model for publishers, there are multiple ways in which they get paid, it can be based on the clicks, impressions and acquisition. But ad-blocking software limits their potential by blocking those ads from being served to customers. 

For brands, online advertising is an important part of their marketing mix because it gives them the power to target right customer at the right time and at the right place. But with ad-blocking software, it becomes very difficult for brands to reach out to those customers and provide them their offerings. This not only affects brand visibility, but also affects the revenue that comes from these sources of advertising. 

According to you, what are the options before brands to counteract ad-blockers?
With this growing popularity of ad-blocking software, it becomes important for brands to rethink their communication strategy and provide experience that add more value to the viewers. It’s time for brands to think about a long term approach to tackle the growing popularity of ad-blockers. Short term thinking and quick returns is something that’s pushing ads to customers and spoiling their browsing experience. One of the ways to tackle it is to offer some value added services to those viewers who opt for the ad subscription, letting users choose what kind of ads they want to see is also something that brands can explore. The basic idea is to let customers choose what kind of ads they want to see and at the same time provide them some extra benefits for seeing ads. At the end it’s all about providing them higher quality experience and forms a relationship with them. 

Do you think influencer marketing can combat the growing use of ad-blockers?
One of the major advantages of influencer marketing is that it gives brands an option to whet their content with original people who have the power to influence a certain section of the universe. Viewers follow, subscribe and interact with people whom they believe provide relevant information in which they are actually interested. When they see these influencers talking about a brand or product, they take it seriously and that’s where they take a brand into consideration. Especially with social media platforms, the role of influencer marketing has become more important because of the reach of the platform. Now a same message can be conveyed with a much better reach on social media platforms through influencer marketing. 

Who do you think are the biggest gainers of ad-blocking?
The ad-blocking industry is a completely developed market; it’s now working on different business models. There are some ad-blockers which nearly block every ad and tracker; it prevents the browser from loading anything from third parties that customers haven’t agreed upon. These sites work as nonprofit, but accept donation and any kind of technical help. Some ad-blockers allow publishers and brands to showcase their ad, but in return they ask them to split their revenue. In technical terms it is called whitelisting of ads, where they whitelist only those brands and publishers which fulfill their criteria in terms of splitting revenue, placement, size and targeting. Freemium model is also one such model that some ad blockers have used, specially mobile ad-blockers allow users to use their services free for a certain period of time and then they charge a certain amount for further services.