Ad blocking on the rise in emerging markets: Mary Meeker

Ad blocking’s penetration in India on the mobile is at 28 per cent, while on the desktop, it’s only at 1 per cent. The 2017 edition of the annual Internet Trends report put together by Mary Meeker, partner at US venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, says ad blocking continues to grow, especially in developing markets. In Indonesia, the comparative figures for mobile and desktop ad blocking are 58 per cent and 8 per cent respectively. In contrast, the US figures stand at 1 per cent for mobile and 18 per cent for desktop.

Measurability

Google and Facebook account for 85 per cent share of Internet advertising growth in the US last year, and that’s growing, says the report. Major online platforms such as these are providing more ways to target and measure ads, it adds.

In social media marketing, the top challenge is measuring ROI, say 61 per cent of the respondents surveyed on this subject. Securing the funds and resources and tying social campaigns to business targets are the others. Engagement is the metric most used to measure success of social media (56 per cent of respondents) while 21 per cent named conversion and revenue and 15 per cent named amplification and brand awareness.

Faster buys

The line between ads, content, products and transactions is blurring fast with browsable storefronts and ‘buy’ buttons being embedded in the content, the report says.

Global Internet ad spend is set to overtake TV ad spending in 2017 and breach the $200-billion mark.