How Digital Marketers Can Win the Battle Against Adblocking Software

Note: This is a guest post by Frank Evans. The author’s views are entirely his own and may not reflect the views of Deepanshu Gahlaut’s Blog.

Imagine for a second that you’re doing any kind of job where the products you ship to the world are considered annoying by the consumers.

For example, you’re a shoemaker whose shoes are uncomfortable. When people wear them, they can’t wait to take them off. Would you continue making shoes if that was the case?

I believe that the answer is no. You’d probably be discouraged by the negative feedback.

However, that’s the reality that digital marketers face in their day to day work. Almost half of the people in this survey said they consider online ads to be annoying. And those people aren’t just complaining; they’re taking action.

The Rise of Adblocking Software

Adblocking software, also known as adblockers, are simple programs that block ads from being shown on your browser. In most cases, it works as a browser extension for Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, etc.

In this form, adblocking software is a relatively new phenomenon, obviously. But the phenomenon of blocking ads isn’t a new one. Quite contrary.

We can say that the first adblocker was made in the 1950s and it was called – the remote control. It made it possible to “block” unwanted ads by changing the channel during commercial breaks.

Today, according to the survey cited above, almost half of the people use adblocking software on their devices. And it seems that this trend isn’t going to stop.

Every year new adblockers are installed on computers, smartphones, and tablets. At the same time, it’s hard to imagine that those who’ve used an adblocker for some time would be willing to give it up.

In spite of all that, digital marketers have to do their jobs. They have to find a solution to this problem. But how?

I think that respondents in the survey have given an answer to that question.

How Do Users of Adblocking Software Find New Products?

If users of adblocking software don’t see any ads on the Internet, how do they find new products? After all, informing customers about new products and enticing them to buy are the primary functions of advertising.

According to users themselves, they find new brands and products on search engines.

Thus, to paraphrase the old marketing truism, they like ads, but they don’t like ads to be shown to them.

They don’t mind reading affiliate product reviews and promotional blog posts. They just don’t like being interrupted while stalking their partners and watching cat videos on social media.

How to Give Them What They Want

If you want to let your users find you, instead of you interrupting them, there’s only one way to do it.

The answer is search engine optimization, or in short, SEO. It’s a process of finding the right keywords, writing your content around them, and building quality links to your website, among other things. If you follow some of the established best practices, success should be inevitable: you’re going to outrank your competition and win the attention of potential customers.

Below you can find some tips for doing the keyword research, which is basically a process of finding out what your audience wants.

#1 Think about topics first

At first, you don’t need to think in terms of keywords. You can go with broad topics such as “dog food.”

#2 Check Google & Youtube Suggest

When you type in “dog food” in the Google or Youtube search bar, it will show a couple of suggestions. Suggested keywords are those that users are already searching for.

#3 Check related searches

After you type in “dog food” in Google, you’ll get a list of results and on its bottom, you’ll find related searches. Those can also be a source of potentially valuable keywords.

#4 Use keyword tools to find out search volumes and difficulty

Some of the best-known tools are Google Keyword Planner, Ubersuggest, Ahrefs, SEMrush. They can estimate how many users are searching for your selected keyword and how difficult it could be to rank for it.

Email Marketing & Influencers

If you’re not into SEO, luckily, there are two additional methods of bypassing adblockers.

The first one is to use email marketing. Of course, in order to do that, you first need to build an email list. You can do that by offering a so-called lead magnet to your website’s visitors. It can be an ebook, case study, industry report, etc.

The other way is to use influencers in your social media campaigns. Their posts have to be labelled as sponsored in case they’re promoting a brand, but they are not ads from the standpoint of the adblocking software.

The most important thing when doing business with influencers is to determine the goals and KPIs of your campaign and to track the results, just like in any other marketing campaign.

Conclusion

Adblocking software isn’t the grim reaper of online advertising, but it definitely deserves closer attention from digital marketers.

Those that take it lightly will have suboptimal results. Their effort in creating ads won’t be noticed and therefore the ads won’t be effective.

On the other hand, those who take it seriously stand a very good chance of winning an increasingly big chunk of the user’s attention.

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About Author:

Frank Evans is a freelance writer based in Minneapolis. He writes about marketing, technology, and his hobbies: pets and camping. When he’s not writing, you can find him on a long walk with his dog Dexter or on a camping trip with his girlfriend.