Dive Brief:
- Digiday reports that publishers, including Conde Nast and The Washington Post, are asking for an email address from visitors who use ad blocking.
- Publishers are realizing that free content for intrusive advertising isn’t a value exchange that many website visitors are willing to make right now.
- The question is how publishers will use the email addresses they collect and whether they are willing to take into account CAN-SPAM and other regulations.
Dive Insight:
Ad blocking is serious revenue problem for publishers. It’s a battle being fought with ad-free subscriptions, forced use of so-called "whitelists," and even just politely asking visitors to turn off ad blocking for websites.
So far the end user is winning, and adoption of ad block technology continues to rise on both desktops and mobile devices. And even more troublesome for the industry, it’s most prevalent among younger website visitors.
Conducting what amounts to lead generation via collecting email addresses, as well as visitor information via a social login, is new tactic in offering a value exchange.
“It’s saying, ‘If you’re not going to look at ads, then give us a data point that identifies you as a specific individual and we’ll be able to track you in a specific way — what kind of content you consume, viewing patterns and cross-device tracking,’” Dorian Benkoil, founder of Teeming Media, told Digiday. “They’re saying, ‘We’re not going to force you to subscribe or look at ads, but we are going to ask you take this in-between step.’”
The challenge for publishers is email is very effective, but at the same time it is highly regulated internationally via laws that require steps such as double opt-in before those email addresses can be used for any commercial purpose.