Data pick of the day: 27% adults block ads on desktops
Adblocking has been in the news a lot recently as country-specific studies have generated a lot of coverage.
GlobalWebIndex’s trendable 33-market data shows just how widespread this behaviour has become in all regions. Globally, it’s now 27 per cent of online adults aged 16-64 who say they are regularly deploying adblockers on their main computer; Europe tops the table on 29 per cent but it’s the relative consistency of the figures across all world regions that is arguably the most striking trend here.
Overall, in fact, it’s clear that digital consumers have become pretty privacy- and data-savvy. Extremely sizable minorities are now taking proactive steps such as using private browsing windows or deleting cookies. And a smaller but still significant 15 per cent are using anti-tracking tools.
While none of these behaviours has yet become mainstream, it’s not hard to see the problems they bring for advertisers or traditional measurement techniques.
