The Latest: Forbes Is Blocking Ad Blocking

Here is our take on the most notable stories in Digital and Social Media Marketing from last week.

Aside from Facebook’s huge earnings last quarter, last week brought forth two interesting studies/experiments. Forbes is combating ad blockers by blocking content from users who have ad blockers enabled (try to say that five times fast!). How are their readers reacting? Also, AdRoll polled US marketers as to what are some of their biggest mobile challenges. What made the top of the list?

‘Forbes’ Tests Ways To Sideline Ad Blocking

Media Post | January 29, 2016

Forbes has put a stake in the ground in the battle against ad blockers. A few weeks ago, Forbes began denying readers who have ad blocking software enabled from viewing their content. While some publishers have implemented ‘ad blocker’ blockers in the past, Forbes is one of the highest profile companies to do so. In their initial pilot, Forbes saw that 44% of individuals who used ad blockers whitelisted Forbes’ website, accepting ads to be served to them.

(Image via DigiDay)

Our Take

The data collected here by Forbes could be huge for other publishers who want to follow in their footsteps. While more data needs to come out before any true analysis can be made, the 44% of users who whitelisted the website is promising. Both advertisers and publishers have their fingers crossed that the outcome of this experiment is that loyal readers will compromise their anti-ad stance for websites that provide them with useful and engaging content.

Marketers Face Mobile Advertising Challenges

eMarketer | January 27, 2016

Digital retargeting platform, AdRoll, published their survey on the biggest mobile advertising challenges facing US marketers. The two most interesting challenges listed were “lack of attribution transparency” (most challenging) and “lack of analytics tools” (3rd most challenging). Here are the full results:

Our Take

How can mobile marketers overcome the two challenges highlighted above?: Audience onboarding. In short, audience onboarding allows for exact digital targeting on both desktop and mobile devices. By knowing exactly who you are targeting, you can matchback responders to specific publishers and/or campaigns. This could help solve most attribution and analytic woes.

Stat of the Week

via Marketing Dive | January 28, 2016

During their 2015 Q4 earnings call, Facebook revealed that their users watch over 100 million (yes, million) hours of video per day. To put 100 million hours into perspective, it would take you 100 million hours to walk back and forth from New York City to Los Angeles — 55,005 times.

About LiftEngine

Since 2005, LiftEngine's primary mission has been to help clients better understand and connect with their most responsive prospects and customers, online or offline. Our expertise is behind the marketing campaigns of 400+ clients.

Behind LiftEngine is LiftBase, our proprietary addressable consumer database. Comprised of 250 million US consumers, 140 million US households, and 1,000+ enhanced data elements, LiftBase powers our audience development services and industry-leading products, PortalLink and LaunchPad.

Let's connect today!