The online industry is losing $8bn a year, and ad blocking Is the least of its worries
Adblocking is costing the industry $781m a year—yet makes up only a sliver of the total $8.2 billion lost to major problem areas including bot traffic and content piracy.
Those stats come from a new report released today by the Interactive Advertising Bureau. The report, “What Is An Untrustworthy Supply Chain Costing the Digital Advertising Industry,” was commissioned by the IAB and conducted by Ernst & Young.
According to the study, the IAB found three main causes that make up that $8.2bn figure:
Ad Blocking & Malware
The IAB considers the adoption of ad blockers to be a side effect of the spread of malicious software, or malware, which costs a total of $1.1bn in lost dollars. The IAB estimates $781m of that is from consumers installing ad blocking software. Costs associated with investigating, remediating, and documenting direct incidents of malicious advertising total $204 million, with another $17m spent each year to hire third-party vendors to help with monitoring ads served to identify malware.
Invalid Traffic
The IAB argues “non-human traffic,” or bots, create more than half the losses, around $4.6bn.
The majority comes from fraudulent traffic on desktops, to the tune of $3.15bn in revenue, with another $1.25bn on mobile. The IAB estimates roughly $169m is spent each year fighting invalid traffic.
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