As global marketers keep a keen eye on this trend that threatens to derail their efforts, downloads continue.
Among the Top 5 mobile paid apps at the U.S. Apple App Store, three are currently ad blockers; a trend that has caused marketers to feel uncertain about the future of advertising to iPhone users, but one that is also clearly highly appealing to device users.
The fact that Apple has thrown its support behind ad blocking in its iOS9 platform is creating considerable controversy.
While 3 of the top 5 mobile apps are add blockers, what is even more interesting is that this includes the top paid app at the App Store. That leader is called Peace and it is being downloaded at a phenomenal rate. According to global industry leaders who attended the Dmexco conference in Germany, the download rate of ad blockers is even greater in Europe than it is in the United States.
At the moment, it is estimated that 40 percent of Germans are currently using ad blocker mobile apps.
Comparatively, the estimate for the United States is that about 10 percent of the population is currently using ad blocking applications. In Germany, 3 out of the top 5 paid downloads at the App Store are also ad blockers, representing a very similar trend.
This makes it more than clear that consumers around the world are not interested in the type of mobile marketing that they have been receiving on their devices, to the point where they are willing to download an additional application to stop receiving it. While this trend is being seen as worrying to advertisers who have been targeting iOS based device users, it may also be an important statement that shows that the methods of advertising that are currently being used are highly unappealing to consumers.
What some are wondering is whether or not brands and marketers are going to take a step back and have a look at what the mobile experience is truly about. It may be that these ad blocking mobile apps are a signal that the strategies currently being used for smartphone advertising need to evolve in order to boost their appeal to those who are seeing them, at least to the point that they will not actively be blocked. Equally, others feel that this is not a trend that will cause harm to the mobile marketing industry.
